Kats enjoy Christmas break
12/25/2011 7:58:00 AM | Football
The Bearkats have certainly had their work cut out for them this month.
In its three playoff games, all of which were at home by virtue of being the No. 1 seed, Sam Houston had to scratch and claw to survive to this point of the season. Now they can begin to prepare for North Dakota State in the Football Championship Subdivision title game on Jan. 7 at Pizza Hut Park in Frisco.
While the Kats coaching staff has utilized this past week to study video on the Bison, come up with a game plan and also take care of media responsibilities, the players were given extra time off to recuperate physically and mentally and will hit the ground running later this week.
"We decided it was best for the team to get a little well-deserved time with their families," said Sam Houston head coach Willie Fritz on his staff's preparation for the NCAA Division I national championship game.
"On Saturday after the (semifinal game in which North Dakota State ousted Georgia Southern 35-7), we went over our wrapup for Montana and we cut (the players) loose. We're all coming back on the 28th and we're going to start going through things then. They'll be starting preparation right then and there.
"I think you can prep for somebody too long and you certainly don't want to prep not enough. Sometimes you have paralysis by overanalysis. ... I think that will be good for us, coming back on the 28th and going on from there."
The news was more than welcomed by the players, who are looking to recover from physical playoff games.
In their second-round playoff game against Stony Brook, the Bearkats churned their way down the field, milking five and a half minutes off the clock with a 7-yard game-winning touchdown by All-American running back Tim Flanders. The defense followed suit, forcing four straight incompletions to ice the win.
One week later, the Kats rolled Montana State 49-13 in the quarterfinals to advance to the semifinals.
Against Montana, which knocked the Kats out of the playoffs in 2001 and also again in '04, Sam Houston rolled to a quick 21-0 lead in the first quarter and led 28-7 as halftime neared. The Grizzlies came roaring back and got to within 31-28 with 11:26 to play. The Bearkats, however, did enough to hold off Montana and ran out the final six minutes, including a critical fourth-and-1 conversion from their own 47 in which Flanders gained 22 yards on to effectively end the game.
"I think this was huge for us," Kats senior linebacker Kash David said Thursday. "There's a lot of us that have a few nicks and bruises from those physical games. This will be good for us to have everyone back to 100 percent again."
"They just got finished with a grueling schedule, both physically and mentally, not to mention finals last week. We're really going to start back with the process on the 28th," Fritz said. "What I want them to accomplish is to heal up, don't lose the conditioning and strength level they've attained to this point."
Even the Bearkats are enjoying the opportunity to spend the holidays with their families, they're itching to get back to their routine.
"Having all this time off, we're kind of missing practices," David said. "We have our workouts that we have to get in, but I've received texts from some of the guys that they're ready to get back to practicing."
Once the Bearkats report back on Wednesday for a team meeting and practice again on Thursday, they'll have roughly a week and a half to get the game plan implemented before the national championship game kicks off.
"We still have 10 to 11 days to prepare for this game. This is what we've been for all year. This is what every team dreams of," David added. "We're going to be working even harder now to go 1-0 one more time.
"The extra time, I think, will allow us to be more mentally prepared and I expect us to pick right up where we left off. The practices we had during the playoffs were the best weeks all year. Knowing that we have to be the most prepared, we can't miss a step.
"The stakes are higher now."
