McMakin finds inspiration for UNI in Royals’ title

CEDAR FALLS - As No. 17/20 Northern Iowa linebacker Brett McMakin relaxed watching baseball Sunday night, he learned a few things.

The Kansas City Royals, his favorite team, were in the process of completing another among a string of improbable and movie-script-style comebacks that ended with a World Series triumph against the New York Mets. Apart from simply being thrilled about Kansas City's first championship since 1985 - roughly nine years before he was even born - he found motivation within himself through what he watched.

'This team's resiliency is really inspiring,” McMakin tweeted (@McMakinator) that night.

'I love watching them because what'd they have, 40 runs after the eighth inning just in the World Series? They never quit,” McMakin said Monday. 'And even though some people would stop believing in them, at the end of the game they'd just know they're going to come back. The confidence is there. I kind of fed off that (Sunday) night. That was big to me.”

As the Panthers (4-4, 2-3 Missouri Valley Football Conference) head into Saturday's game at the UNI-Dome against No. 23 Indiana State, that inspiration will be put to good use.

UNI has and will remain in must-win mode, so finding motivation is more than welcome for the team by any means necessary. And while the literal lessons of a baseball team using creative measures to win a championship don't cross over, that idea that it's never over until they tell you that you can't play anymore absolutely does.

The Panthers, especially on defense, have found a new gear recently, and McMakin owes it to that mentality. Take every moment in the game you can to keep this season going as long as possible.

'We just started playing with more grit, honestly. Our mind-set is to shut them out. It hasn't been all year, but as of recently we've wanted to shut everyone out,” McMakin said. 'Early in the season we felt accountable for some of the losses on defense. We'd let a late-game touchdown comeback. Or like NDSU, we let them drive on us in like 1:30. We really took that to heart. We just want to just them out so there's not even a chance by the fourth quarter.”

They face a Sycamores team that has an identical record, 4-4 overall and 2-3 in conference. The difference, though is Indiana State is just now coming off the same set of losses (to North Dakota State and Illinois State) UNI did about a month ago.

Both teams have to win out to make the postseason. Both are feeling that pressure, and pressure makes teams either rise to the occasion or fall short.

'We see it as a challenge instead of a threat. We see it as something to rise up to instead of be scared of or timid to go into,” McMakin said. 'It's a challenge and we're going to go into it with our chest high and keep playing like we are.”

On paper, it appears the two teams are headed in opposite directions, with two-game streaks of opposite varieties.

Coach Mark Farley holds November football above all else - kind of like October baseball - where your team has to be playing its best football, and more importantly, finding another gear. Whether the Sycamores are falling or not can be debated, but Farley knows his team can't count on that.

'You get to November, I think we're all in this situation, for the most part, in November. It's that time of year that you're getting better right now or you're not,” Farley said. 'You're either plateaued or you're getting better. Hopefully we're at the stage now where we're making progress. That's our emphasis is you've got to make progress that third week in a row.”

Even if many wrote or said the Panthers were cooked for this season after a loss to Western Illinois, these last five games can serve as the top of the ninth inning did for the Royals on Sunday.

With three more to go, McMakin believes his team has the same characteristics as his Royals. They just have to call on it.

'You have to take examples like that and relate them to your own experiences or situations,” McMakin said. 'And we do have that. We know what it feels like, so we can come back to it and have that same confidence.”

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