UNI football trying to keep winning feeling fresh

CEDAR FALLS - When your team is winning, everything is good.

That, in itself, isn't a revelatory statement, but how a team reacts to winning and losing reveals a lot about its attitude and personality. When the Northern Iowa football team was on its three-game losing streak, the intensity around the locker room was palpable. The No. 17/19 Panthers, like everyone, don't like losing and knew they really only had themselves to blame.

Now, UNI's three-game winning streak has everyone loose and joking. The Panthers are riding a wave of confidence - and using that wave to carry with it the execution and focus it's taken to turn things around.

'When we were in that kind of downward slump, it wasn't as much everybody feeling sorry for themselves, but it was kind of a - ‘What do we have to do to get back on track?'” defensive lineman Isaac Ales said Monday. 'I'd say right now it's pretty upbeat. We just want to - whatever we're doing, just keep doing the same thing. Try not to do anything different.”

UNI (5-4, 3-3 Missouri Valley Football Conference) has never had trouble finding motivation.

The players find their own individually, but also get quite a bit from a coaching staff that features several who wore a Panther uniform and pass along the tradition and importance of what they're trying to do.

Those coaches find motivation in different ways, too. In analyzing a dominant win Saturday against Indiana State, Coach Mark Farley drove home points he's been trying to make for several weeks as UNI worked its way back into the playoff discussion.

Farley loves winning, but he hates losing more. If he can properly motivate his players, one takes care of the other.

'I'm irritated by losses,” Farley said Monday at his weekly press luncheon. 'I hate Saturday nights when you don't get the win. That's the biggest thing is probably the fear of the loss more than the excitement of the win is what drives you.

'I always explain, can you sleep on Saturday night, no matter what happened? If you can sleep that night, you did the best you could putting a plan together and the players execute. You just want to get the right personnel on the field, get the best plan in their hands and make sure they have the energy to execute. If we do that, we'll always have a chance to win.”

The last three weeks, that triumvirate has been in place, and the Panthers have played to the level they expected to at the beginning of the season.

Along the way, a few players have gotten dinged up or, at worst, been lost for the season. Farley said Monday offensive lineman Cal Twait was the latest in that line for UNI, injuring his right ankle on Saturday. He required surgery Sunday morning, and his true freshman season is finished.

For the rest, it's an effort to not just stay in the same game plan, but even the same routines. Superstitions are pretty common.

'I'm the type of guy that if I had a good game, I try to do everything the same that I did,” Ales said. 'Eat whatever the same, go to bed at the same time. Just little things.”

The Panthers head to Springfield, Mo. this weekend to face a woeful Missouri State squad, which has been outscored, 439-108, this season (an average margin of victory for the Bears' opponents of 36.8 points per game) and have allowed more than 70 points twice.

As much as Farley and Co. enjoy the Indiana State win - Farley took it one further, getting to watch his daughter be part of a Wartburg volleyball Iowa Conference Tournament title later that night - it didn't linger for the coaches. They'll let the players bask for a bit, but the work started right away.

Being happy with a win is no excuse to relax.

'There's a relief to it, that it came together the way you hoped and planned it would. When you get up Sunday morning, it's immediately go right back and try to do it again and try to get a jump on the next opponent,” Farley said. 'You hate to sit on it too long, because the next opponent is busy working, trying to beat you. It's a thrill for a while. The players get to enjoy it much longer. As a coach, you just try to get them in the best position. That's our job - give them the opportunity to live their season.

'That's what all the hard work's for.”

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