Editor’s note: Offensive lineman Andrew Coker and the TCU football team have had their routines disrupted by a midweek game Nov. 2 at Texas Tech. The key to making the adjustments and winning on the road is being mentally tough. The Frogs’ last game was a 41-3 loss at Kansas State on Oct. 21. 

When we lose like that everybody goes, “Well, what’s wrong with this team? What’s different about this team?” But in reality, we need to figure out, individually, what can we do to help this team. One player is not going to be able to change the whole team. What can I do? I know I can try to help lead better and try to set a better example, and I can try to encourage guys to do the same. 

Photo by Percise Windom

I’ve never played on a Thursday night. I remember whenever I used to watch other teams do it, and I’m like, “That’s weird. Thank God I don’t have to do that.” But now we’re able to do that. Thank God it’s coming after a bye week. I don’t think it’s possible for us to play a game on Saturday and a game on Thursday. That’s what they do in the NFL. 

 The bye week helped a lot in terms of preparation for Texas Tech. We don’t want to dwell on the last game, but we don’t want to just act like it never happened. There’s got to be some sort of middle ground where it’s learning from it enough and learning about ourselves enough to where we can make the change going forward. 

With the bye, we just took a little time off. It’s very nice. We don’t get to do that too often. This is the healthiest I’ve been probably since Aug. 1, before fall camp. Football is a grind. There nothing quite like it really. It’s hard to explain to somebody who hasn’t been through it just because it’s one of those situations where we’re going take hits in this physical game. And just from that alone, we will never feel how we felt in the offseason, and we will never feel like that all season. 

People also don’t understand the mental side because football is also such a mental game. It’s mental from the perspective of I have to know what I’m doing, where to be, how to do it and what time to be there. It’s more on the sports psychology side of having the confidence to do it right. A lot goes on between the ears. That all comes from repetition and training our minds just like we trained our bodies. 

Courtesy of TCU Athletics

From a sports psychology standpoint, what happens if a player loses his confidence? If he’s riding high, what does he need to do work on and stay on top that? It really took 3 1/2 years into my college career to figure out that was really the most important part of the game. 

Winning on the road is a mental thing. Being on this team for a long time, I’ve seen how this team attacks road games. It’s usually either one of two things: Usually we have either a road mentality where it’s us against the world, we band together, we’re here for a business trip and we have one goal, or it’s something more along the lines of we go on the road against a team we’re not sure we can beat, we don’t have a lot of confidence and we end up losing. 

So, I’m going try to do everything in my power to make sure that our team follows option A, where it’s all of us against the world. We’re going into a hostile environment to win a football game. We have to start fast and stay focused, and we if just play our game, we’ll do exactly what we need to do.