We’ve spent a lot of time talking about how badly the Irish’s turnovers have hurt them. Playing two quality opponents, the Irish have out-gained and out-played the team across from them, but 10 turnovers, in really in opportune times, have cost Notre Dame two football games.
“I really believe that you haven’t won a game yet, but you haven’t been beaten,” Brian Kelly recalled telling his team. “We’ve really had a hand in beating ourselves. If we do not beat ourselves, we’ve got a chance to be the kind of football team that we believe we can be.”
If you’re looking to assess a value to what’s been lost, Bill Connelly of Football Outsiders puts it into plain, staggering numbers:55.3
Value, in Equivalent Points, of Notre Dame’s 10 turnovers in two games this season. Almost eight touchdowns. They committed five more turnovers for 21.6 points in Ann Arbor this weekend -- three inside Michigan’s 30 -- and fell to 0-2 despite, on a play-by-play basis, outplaying their second straight solid opponent. The next time you think your team is being negatively affected by turnovers, realize it could be worse. On a play-for-play basis, Notre Dame has played like a Top 20 team this year. But 10 specific plays have massacred them.
Yep, the Irish have cost themselves around eight touchdowns with their mistakes, a shocking number in two games and part of why I’m still not even close to giving up on this football team, even though fans would rather put their head through a wall than suffer another loss like the first two this season.
Most (me included) assumed that the Irish would be ready to take a major leap in Kelly’s second season. But when you think back to one of Kelly’s first teaching points -- Abraham Maslow‘s “Conscious Competence” theory, it’s possible we’re seeing an Irish team take some early lumps as they falter during stage three of the four-step process.
“A lot of people know how to win,” Kelly said back in his earliest days at Notre Dame, well before he ever coached a game. “Winning once and a while, a lot of people can do that. How do you consistently win? How do you win them all? That’s a process.”
I tackled the subject about 18 months ago, but here’s a quick look at Maslow’s four stages of competence, which might give you a better idea of why the Irish look so good in some moments and have also been prone to the huge mistakes that have cost the Irish their first two games.
Stage One: Unconscious Incompetence -- The individual neither knows nor understands how to do something, nor recognizes the deficit, nor has a desire to address it.
As Kelly put it: “You know what that is, you don’t know that you don’t know what it takes to win. You get that blank stare when you say, ‘Listen, pay attention to detail. Do this right. Go to class. Be on time.’”
Stage Two: Conscious Incompetence -- The the individual does not understand or know how to do something, he or she does recognize the deficit, without yet addressing it.
As Kelly put it: “You know what Coach wants from you on a daily basis. You know what the formula is, but you can’t do it yet, because you have so many bad habits. You can’t seem to finish the drill. You can’t seem to pay attention to detail.”
Stage Three: Conscious Competence -- The individual understands or knows how to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires a great deal of consciousness or concentration.”
As Kelly put it: “You know the message, you are able to do it, but it’s really hard. It’s hard for you to stay on task. That’s where great coaching comes in and keeps you focused, keeps you involved in the process. It’s not, ‘Hey, I want to be a champion.’ Everybody wants to be a champion. What are you going to do about it? Conscious competence is that area where coaches really need to remind their players every single day what it takes to be a champion.”
Stage Four: Unconscious Competence -- The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it becomes “second nature” and can be performed easily, often without concentrating too deeply. He or she may or may not be able to teach it to others, depending upon how and when it was learned.
As Kelly put it: “You know what to do, and you know how to do it every single day. You don’t have to be reminded about what it takes to win on a consistent basis because it’s been instilled in you. It’s been instilled by your family, your parents. It’s been instilled in this community. It’s been instilled by your coaches. When you want to win the championship, when you want to win them all, you need to get to that level of unconscious competence because then it just happens naturally. The journey has been great, but keep your eye on the process.”
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In these first two games, it’s been very clear that the Irish offense knows how to be prolific. Unfortunately, they’ve also had critical slip-ups that have cost the football team dearly. That’s the definition of conscious competence, and part of why it’s so frustrating to this team’s flashes of greatness washed out by 12 bad plays.
“We have a chance to be a good football team. We’re not. I get that,” Kelly said in his opening statement. “I’m certainly disappointed in where we are in terms of wins, but I like our football team.”
As the Irish prepare turn another painful page as they focus their sights on No. 15 Michigan State, Kelly was upbeat. That wasn’t coach-speak. That was a guy that knows the process.
“You stay the course,” Kelly said. “I believe in my approach.”