Tyrique Stevenson Blog: Nobody pointing fingers, we have to relax and play

CB Tyrique Stevenson will have a weekly blog all season at CaneSport.com. In this edition, Stevenson talks about the UNC game and its aftermath:

We treated last week pretty much like every other week leading up to the North Carolina game. We just prepared, went through the keys, went through everything we knew they possibly could do.

And going into the week, we knew we had to stop the key players who they choose to run their offense through. It was a little bit of payback week, that coming into this year we cannot let the same things happen that happened last year. We had to be on top of our stuff, make sure we got everything right, even the smallest details.

I know the culture of the team. The majority of the guys just never want to lose like the way that they lost to North Carolina last year. So the guys were amped up and I fed off the energy which gave me a lot of confidence going into this game. I didn’t play them last year, but I was able to get it because of how everybody else prepared last week.

I felt we put a lot on this game, prepared for it a lot. And I felt going out there that we were more antsy, quick to do things. That hurt us in the first half.

My message to the guys: "Let’s just slow down and play our game. We’re out here doing things that we usually don’t do, are stepping out of character because of how big this game is, how much it means to us and the staff."

Everyone was preaching just stay calm, let’s play our game, let’s not let the moment be too big for us.

Before the game I sensed everybody including myself was ready to come out there and play, come out and play one of our best games despite the season we’re having and despite the situation we’re in.

We all as a team were ready to go in there and play one of our best games of the season. And I just felt that in the locker room as we ran out, everybody was excited. The energy was great, the music was great, everybody was ready to play. Everybody was dressed maybe 20, 25 minutes before it was even time to go outside. Everybody was just ready.

As the game went on, everybody started to get more comfortable, everybody was not so tensed up. Coming into the locker room at halftime, the thing was to slow down and let’s just play the defense. We know everything they’re going to do, they showed their hand the first half, we know everything they’re going to do. Let’s just slow down, everybody do their job, do their job well and everything will fall into place.

The start of the game they were trying to figure us out. There are times they caught us in zone, called a great play against it. The times they caught us in man (coverage), the coordinator called a great play. Coach Diaz and their coaching staff know each other well, so it pretty much was a game of who could call the best game. We got caught in a couple of calls and they were able to capitalize, make plays that capitalized off that.

The confidence slipped for a while because of the way the game went last year and the way it started this year. It resembled the same thing, kind of had the same vibe. So I preached the message to everyone that let’s calm down, not let the moment be too big for us.

That message came from experience and watching other teams, too. A team might be beating a team the whole first half, then come out in the second half and play like a whole different team.

Last year at Georgia, I faced adversity losing to a couple of teams. You might not have the hot hand, but the game of football is about momentum. I learned that with experience. You learn football is a game of inches. It’s really whoever has the momentum, and who keeps it the longest that typically will win the game. The game takes a swing sometimes real quick. You can be up two touchdowns, come out and have two bad drives and you’re back to even. You never know with the game of football.

Every athlete can agree with me: When you prepare and do things out of the ordinary, your game changes. The way you perform changes. But when you stick to a routine, treat everything the same, go about everything the same way and not let one moment or one team be bigger than the other, things typically roll towards you. Once you try to do everything and be a superhero, be extra, things don’t go your way.

It was quiet at first at halftime. We all got together as a defense and were like `why not us?' Why can’t we go out here and put up points, do this stuff? We are capable out there, we need to come together.'

We made an agreement to go out there, everybody do their job, make the plays that come to you and pay attention to small details.

Even the offense, everybody came out juiced up, more ready to play than we did in the first half.

James William, Kam Kinchens - that’s them wanting to play, embracing the opportunity they got.

And I feel they did a great job.

As far as the mistakes that were made, you take those chances when you play a freshman. But they came in and they brought great energy, brought energy that we needed as a defense, just maximized their opportunity.

I always talk to them and tell them `Yeah, you might not play a lot this year, but you might as well start to get comfortable and understand how the game of football works because next year this is your defense.’ I talked to them, I was like just play with that energy but play with a level head, keep your mental game in the right space, never let your emotions dictate what you do.

And James, I felt his energy and told him I understand you want to make an impact, understand you want the other team to feel you and know you are out there, to respect you. But that comes with playing the game and with film and that comes with you just being able to control your emotions. If you do that, were playing last year, they’d respect you more how they respect older guys. But you’re just a freshman so they can be able to try you or say things or even target you because you are a freshman and they expect freshmen to make mistakes. I told him to keep the energy he played with, but also stay level-headed.

You can’t really be mad at him for the penalties. He’s out there playing with aggression, out there showing you he really wants to be on the field, doesn’t want to come off. But like I was telling him, at some point this is a mental game. Because once you are in college everybody is fast, everybody is elite, everybody is good.

I had a couple of moments my freshman year at Georgia where I got things for no reason. But that comes with the learning curve and understanding how the game works.

I remember having to run extra for some of my freshman mistakes at practice, a late hit or an opportunity on a play I should have been comfortable making. I panicked and did some dumb things. So I am trying to help our freshmen.

I felt like Jahfari gave us the spark we needed early in the game. When he intercepted it, tipped it to himself, I felt like he kind of gave us the juice we were missing after they scored the first time.

The juice kind of died down because some people on the sideline probably got shook up about how the game went last year and how easy they went down and scored that first time they had the ball. But I felt Jahfari added a spark that we needed.

I saw it happen, actually ran down after him to try to block for him, and make sure he made it into the end zone.

We understood at one point in the game that this really was our game to win. We allow people to stick around with us when we really could be a dominant team.

It showed as the game went on. I felt we stopped being so tense and so antsy and actually relaxed and played our game as a whole team.

I feel every guy wants to win, wants us to be one of the top teams in college football. Just come in and put in the work and we have to just get some things situated so we can put the right people in the right places and make sure we make the right plays when they come at us.

I feel nobody is pointing fingers, we take it in together and all accept it.

As we were moving down the field at the end of the game, I knew we had momentum. We were crushing them. North Carolina was quitting, and I felt like if we have an opportunity to take it we may as well take it now and go for the touchdown and not the tying field goal.

I had no doubt we’d score, me and everybody else, even the North Carolina fans knew what was going to happen.

But bigtime players make bigtime plays, and one of their leaders on the defense stepped up and made a play.

That last play, I didn’t see it. I was on one knee looking at the turf. I didn’t know he threw an interception, didn't watch what happened. I tend not to watch the last play, of a tight game even with Andy’s field goal attempt against Virginia.

It’s a gut-wrenching feeling to be in a football game with all that intensity, having it come down to the wire like that. A gut-wrenching feeling.

That’s because of the amount of emotions and the time and the strain you put on your body during a game. And to have it come down to one easy moment that could go either way. ..........It’s a terrible, but great feeling.

I never watch. I can’t do it. If the slant was completed, I never would have seen it. I just knew from how the crowd cheered how it went. I didn't want to see it.

When there was that interception it was `Back to the drawing board’ and just really we have clean up everything including myself. Just clean up technique, clean up tackling and just clean up everything that will make us a better defense where we don’t have to get in a shootout or strain this hard to stop an opponent.

The game is really decided by how the team comes out in the first and second quarter, and how we sustain through the third and fourth.

Life isn’t ever going to go the way you want it. And life is always going to be the one that kicks you down.

But it’s how you respond and how you get up. And just right now we might not be in a good space as a team and one unit, but my only thing is we just aren’t going to tear apart and everybody start picking sides and stuff like that.

I feel even the talk coach Diaz gave us, everybody understood that, we have a lot of things to clean up in order to be a winning team.

Coach Diaz, the speech he gave the entire team after the game, he was saying we know the things we have to do, we have to clean up a lot of stuff. Offense and special teams and defense make sure we’re a winning team.

He preaches staying together every day, because losing sometimes allows people to point fingers. That’s his message, just stay together, this is a team and a brotherhood.

Coach Diaz, I knew after this game he’d take it harder because of the history he and the North Carolina coaches have. He was just crushed. But he kept that very confidential in the meeting, just stated that he was hurt. But I understood losing to a former coach and the situation behind that. I understood.

We know about him and Mack Brown. I felt his message was just be very aggressive, be the more physical team, a dominant team all around. And I felt more in the second half we showed that, and I felt if we’d played a complete game and showed that all four quarters it would have been a different outcome.

The mindset this week is just stay the course and stay a family and stay a brotherhood. Times might be hard right now, but hard times never last forever. The only thing we can do right now is go back to the drawing board and get the things that we need to fix, fix them immediately so we can be who we are, be the defense we know we can be.

NC State, we’re going to treat it like every game, come in and prepare and just make sure we really lock in this week.