It\u2019s good to keep your head on a swivel during a Sean Lewis news conference because you never know what\u2019s going to come at you, or from which direction.<\/p>\n
The San Diego State coach answered questions Monday about last week\u2019s loss at UCLA and this week\u2019s home game against James Madison. He touched on the state of college football. And he offered a couple of life lessons, to boot.<\/p>\n
A sampling:<\/p>\n
Losses, like the 28-10 loss at UCLA, how do you move on from that?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: Instead of getting emotional and being frustrated by the end result, you detach, you remove the emotion, you evaluate the process. What went good? What went bad? What can be replicated? What was not repeatable? And how do we do it at a greater level and accept that this game, just like life, sometimes you\u2019re going to come up short.<\/p>\n
But if you can learn from those experiences, learn those hard lessons and then have the courage to dust yourself off, pick yourself up, go back forward, knowing that you are good. This program is good. We have a good quarterback. We have a good team. We have great support. We have good leadership. We\u2019re good.<\/p>\n
We went against a worthy opponent. What did we learn? There\u2019s a lot that we learned. We\u2019ve got to do better. All right? So let\u2019s go do that work better. That\u2019s the second step in this climb. There\u2019s a lot of football to be played. There\u2019s a lot of life to be lived.<\/p>\n
SDSU quarterback Jayden Denegal\u2019s accuracy against UCLA was questioned, with long passes off target and short passes into the ground, a week after making some on-the-mark long throws against Portland State. How do you get better accuracy out of Denegal?<\/p>\n
A: Repetition is the mother of all teachers, right? We\u2019ve got to continue to do it. We\u2019ve got to continue to do it at full speed. A lot gets thrown on the quarterback. \u2026 So you\u2019re going to get a lot of criticism when things aren\u2019t going well, and rightfully so, and you probably get far too much praise when things are going well. \u2026<\/p>\n
We know what he\u2019s capable of, and it\u2019s our job collectively as an organization and as a program to continue to put him into positions where he can be successful, whether that\u2019s down-the-field accuracy shots or short throws that we know he\u2019s comfortable with that the receivers are going to be where they\u2019re supposed to be when they\u2019re supposed to be there.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the difference in athleticism and depth among an FCS opponent (Week 1 vs. Portland), a Big Ten opponent (Week 2 at UCLA) and a non-power team (Week 3 vs. James Madison), and how much different is it than when you got into college coaching 16 years ago?<\/p>\n
A: It\u2019s all relative to the size of your bank account. FCS has a little bank. They\u2019ve got a little bit of talent. Big Ten school\u2019s got a big bank. They\u2019ve got a lot of talent and a lot of experience they can afford.<\/p>\n
This school (JMU) is pretty similar to our bank account. Now they were also a team that played in the CFP. That tells you a little bit of where their bank account was relative to where our bank account is. \u2026<\/p>\n
The Big Ten\u2019s got big banks. What was their records the first two weeks relative to their opponents? FCS, how have they been? When was the last time you guys saw the past couple years, an FCS opponent, like when Appalachian State walked into Michigan and pulled off an upset?<\/p>\n
You guys got any answers? Like, the talent is getting Hoovered and sucked up at all the different levels as you go.<\/p>\n
Aztecs great La\u2019Roi Glover spoke to the team a few weeks ago during training camp. How did that go?<\/p>\n
A: La\u2019Roi asked the boys, \u201cHow many times do you have to get hit in the face with a skunk to know that it smells?\u201d What\u2019s the answer? It\u2019s a skunk. You already know this. You don\u2019t need to get hit in the face by it. The answer\u2019s zero. It\u2019s a skunk. Told you it\u2019s a skunk. You don\u2019t need to get hit in the face. It stinks.<\/p>\n
So sometimes you have to learn the hard way? <\/p>\n
A: Like, both of my children. I love them to death. Both of them have scars on their hands because they like to help me cook. And when they were younger, I said, \u201cHey, don\u2019t touch the stove. Don\u2019t touch the stove. It\u2019s hot. You\u2019re going get burned.\u201d<\/p>\n
After you tell them so many times, like, I love them, but because I love them, I let them feel a little bit of pain, too. Guess how many times they touched the stove since then? (He forms a zero with his index finger and thumb). Too often we\u2019re afraid of people getting hurt. It\u2019s not our job to clear the path. Our job is to educate. It\u2019s our job to move them forward. It\u2019s our job to equip. It\u2019s our job to inspire. And so it\u2019s their job to receive the wisdom as we go.<\/p>\n
So how many times do we have to get hit in the face by a skunk to know it stinks? Apparently, one. Hopefully, we can learn a lesson for how we prepare better and how I lead better, so we can be better.<\/p>\n
Toledo kick time set<\/p>\n
Breakfast with the Aztecs?<\/p>\n
SDSU\u2019s kickoff time for its Sept. 26 game at Toledo has been announced. The teams will play at 9 a.m. PDT. The game will be broadcast by CBS Sports Network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s good to keep your head on a swivel during a Sean Lewis news conference because you never…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1327,181,74,76,75,305,127],"class_list":["post-463976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-college-sports","tag-latest-headlines","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-sdsu-aztecs","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}