No Whining From Jim Reid

The Liberty University football team beat VMI 73 to 34 last Saturday. My friend Eric was there and he left happy. Eric sent me an e-mail with the post-game comments from VMI head coach Jim Reid. Notice how he doesn't make a bunch of excuses or shift blame or whine. He takes the loss like a man and he keeps his chin up.

“It was a long afternoon. We could not move the ball with any consistency. We did move the ball in chunks of yardage and then all of a sudden we had a fumble, or an offside, or an interception. On defense, we just couldn’t seem to match their speed, especially to the outside. It was pretty much of a problem all day. In the second half we moved the ball on our first drive methodically down the field and then all of a sudden, we had that fumble, and it hurt us and we just seemed to lose a little bit of steam there. But we never did quit – we were playing right to the very end. We had a fumble return for a touchdown and that was exciting. It was almost like feast or famine on every snap. We either did something well on offense or we really got hammered. On defense, we either held them at the line of scrimmage or they moved for a huge gain. I felt bad for the players, and bad for us as a staff, and I feel bad for our alumni. But we just can’t get discouraged. We laid the plan out early and we are going to keep these guys red-shirted. I just got finished telling a reporter that in the first spring we had 26 scholarships in our program. This spring, if everyone stays and no one has left yet, we should have 45 in spring practice. Now we are at least beginning to look like a Division I-AA program numbers wise, and we just have to keep working, stay focused, and we can’t forget what happened to us today and we need it to motivate us to be better.”