Stars on Sports Intro: It's time for Stars on Sports! A podcast-radio show dedicated to sharing stories about our athletic program at Lansing Community College. LCC athletics has a strong tradition. 25 national championship wins! Over 190 All-Americans! 19 MCCAA All Sports trophies! Stars on Sports will introduce you to individuals that have contributed to our program success and give you the backstory on what it takes to develop it. We'll also dive into and break down the topics and issues facing athletic departments across the nation and right here at LCC. This is Stars on Sports!

Hello and welcome to another episode of Stars on Sports. I'm joined as usual by our assistant athletic director Steven Cutter and our producer Daedalian Lowry. And gentlemen, this is a topic I wanted to talk for a long time about and I've talked before. I love just watching coaches and coach Cutter. We talk about a lot of coaches in our office every day and the one that we look at to emulate and the ones we look at not to And I'm not a Lions fan, but Dan Campbell is a hot topic for what he's done with the Lions. You know, I'm watching the game the other night and I didn't watch all of it but you know, he goes for it on fourth down early in the game on like the 20 yard line and they don't get it and they still won the But I'm really intrigued by coaches that change the game and I think he is currently changing the game. And I know in researching for this podcast I don't know where we're going to go with it because it really intrigues me on is it analytics and risk or is it belief and grit? And it's a really good discussion. I took it at the first because I think it's contagious and there's other coaches that go for it on fourth down. The Lions have gone for it the most since he's been the head coach, I think like 45% of times and they still punt. I mean it's not like they go for, I mean 45% that tells you they're still punting more. But you know, some would argue it's won them game they should have. Some would argue it's lost them games that they, they should have won if he would have fouled analytics. But the thing that intrigued me that I want to dive into today are the belief system, the way they treat the play, the risk factor, the analytics, the, you know, all of it. Is it a strength, is it a weakness? Is it just a different mindset of Is he comfortable taking the criticism when it happened? And I think if you ask lion fans, they're happy with but I think there's time they would get mad on play. So anyway, I know we've even brought Dan Campbell up before. As you know, lately I've been trying to think what event that's happened in the last week that stuck with me and that's the one because since Monday night when I watched that happen, it was in the first or second quarter, I'm wondering is this going to come back and bite them and but they're good enough to win, so maybe that's another thing too. Like and you know that's one of the things I researched or that just their mentality can this work for every other team? And I know like the Chiefs are pretty high, the Eagles are and those are three of the most successful teams in the NFL right now. So I'm pretty sure you probably didn't watch the Lions game on Monday night. But I know you and I have talked and I'm sure you, I mean you follow coaches too and playing to win or playing to lose mentality. So what are your thoughts? Dan Campbell, have you researched him much.

Or you know, to some degree it's a win win situation for him really. Ultimately. I mean I think his wins above replacement are probably pretty high. But the reason why I say it's a win win is because when a team goes for it on fourth down, that increases the fan experience. The fans don't want to watch a punter go out there and punt the ball, so that increases it. So that's a win there. But on the second part of it it's a win because the offense loves that. It shows that their coach has a strong belief that they can get these three yards, five yards, whatever it might be. So it's a combination of great for the fans, great for the belief system of the offense, the head coach believes in the offense that they can do it and more times than not they're going for it and it's been a positive experience. And now you see more teams in the NFL and that instead of punting all the time, they're going for it. So it's been a nice little shift that also helps the fan experience.

What do you think the Dallian you a Lion fan?

Well, I am to the degree that I'll watch every once in a while. As you know, I'm not really a sports watching kind of guy. But I honestly everything said, he said it more eloquently than I could have I am familiar with Dan Campbell and I am familiar with his coaching style. And I even me, who does not watch sports that often is familiar with the fact that he is a risk taker. And it's kind of interesting to hear you say that you're seeing it turn up in other teams as well, you know, going for it. And I think Cut was right on the money with the notion of the energy of the fans building up and then of course, feeding off that energy for the team. Fabulous. Yeah.

And I didn't think of the fans aspect of it, so. And I do agree, I think the, I think Detroit has that mentality and such. And to your point, Dalia, I mean, you see Lions stuff all over the place now. One, they haven't been a having a history of winning and now in the last couple years they've been one of the most successful teams in the NFL. I believe the state has embraced that mentality and it has created a fan experience. The thing that sticks out to me the most is the Lions treated as another play. You know, you couldn't, you wouldn't know if it was 4th and 1, 4th and 3. And I don't know what helps him decide, you know, fourth and five or low. I mean, he's gone for on fourth and eight depending on or if it's third and two. And then they went out there, it looked like third down to them. They didn't get it and they run off the field and the defense comes out and their defense does great. Where in the past, I think coaches and people have treated it like a high pressure play, that failure was a part of it, that if you failed it would ruin the game for you. I mean, it was a significant value of a play that the Lions have kind of the Dan Campbell has kind of changed that approach, the fourth down and that's good for everything that we do. But how that mindset has changed and watching the Lions and some of these other teams treat fourth down at another play is intriguing to me. And it is a belief system. I always looked at it as a risk system, like analytics. Like, you know, there's college and high school coaches out there that don't ever punt because the times you do make it and score out risk the times you don't. And I remember your first year here, you talking to me about baseball where getting the guy on second base gets a significant advantage of scoring that run, that you are pretty aggressive on the base path just because the runner at first, it's hard getting them the score where the odds significantly Increase when you got them to second and third base. And I see that in the playoffs a lot of the sacrifice bunting or.

The stealing, it's definitely analytical. But there's also another piece about it where you just think like this is just one play a typical NFL offense of team will have right between like 70 and 80 plays per game. So why are you going to make 1/4 down that important? Well, why don't you make every play that important and that brings it back to just one play at a time. It's just one play. You're also putting the defense in a situation where you're saying you believe in them. If it doesn't work out, so what?

Yeah, it's definitely a risk. But I mean if your coach is believes in the team, I'd say that's. Would you call it a good risk to have? I don't know. But yeah, that's the way I've just always looked at it with Dan Campbell.

Yeah, it is a risk, but it does take guts, it takes leadership, it does tell your team we're not afraid. We do believe in you. And I think players do build that belief system and I do believe that carries over to every play in that game, including like you said, the defensive. And again, I don't think he does it. I didn't bring here statistics like if he does it on one side of the 50, over the other side of the 50, but he definitely does it 45% of the time. And when I originally watched him when he first started, I'm thinking I don't know if this is too aggressive and still not 100% sure on that premise. But I do like again just watching the team and how they handle it and how that has changed the game and what I like coaches that changed the game and I believe in 10.

Years they're better with him.

You know, definitely it starts at the top. It showed leadership and it shows that he believes in them, as you've said. And it shows that we're here to fight, we're not backing down. I trust my guys, offense or defense to go out there and make the play. And to your point, it is only one play but in the past we've always treated it as a big play for some reason it's fourth down, change of possession next. I don't know. I mean so. But he's changed that. And I think again, I know analytics is huge and I know you use a lot of data for your successful program. So I do believe that has helped change the argument. But in this case, I truly believe it's more his personality, his leadership style, his just grittiness, the bold decision, big risk, big reward kind of thing that for some reason hasn't taken off before him. And there's been other coaches, I mean, Bill Walsh with passing, you know, the west coast offense that brought more passing, more quick passing. And so again, we remember those coaches that kind of changed the game with an offense or defensive philosophy or a strategy that worked. And I think we're witnessing it right now with Dan Campbell. Do you think it's just a Detroit thing? Do you think it would work other places? Do you think they're the negative to it?

No, if it works in Detroit, it'll work in other places. Doesn't mean that it's going to work overnight. But he's been a coach for what, three, four years. And so it's, it's process based, but goes back to the belief system. And that's really the single most important thing of a team and of us.

And it is process based because, I mean, the first couple years they were real successful. I mean he gradually made them a, a Super bowl contender. And I think of Dan Campbell, I think of this fourth down plays, he goes for it, he's aggressive, but they are also gritty and they also have very good talent. I mean, they got some weapons on both sides of the floor. They've done a great job of building a team. But I still believe when you think of him, you think of his aggressiveness, his risk taking, which isn't a bad thing, it's actually a good thing. I mean, that's what in life we need to do. I encourage my kids. You know, I'm a big more training, calculated risk person. You know, I actually, I always joke with the guy that I'm an actuary dream. I think I, you know, I don't trade too far from the line kind of a thing, but, but I do like taking calculated risks and I think he's taking calculated grips, but I think it's a little higher than that.

Yeah, I don't necessarily believe it's a risk if it's really calculated.

Really?

Yeah, I mean, I kind of have to agree with cut a little bit.

I disagree. You can't really calculate it. It's still a risk. You're just weighing how big of a risk, Like a spectrum of risk.

I mean, I guess if you're counting cards, yeah, I guess you can do it that way. But then it's. Is it a risk? Because if you're counting cards, not a.

Risk, you know, if you're counting. So it's not a risk.

I mean, that's a little. I mean, there's more certainty there. But I'm talking. If you're risking that at 45% success rate, there's some number you as a person get to that makes you make that decision. I don't think anything. The 100%. And then it wouldn't become a risk if you get to the 100% point. Calculating cards, I mean, if you calculate right, you're narrowing down that percentage of error and such. So there's my take. And I think. I think I'm pretty good, actually. But.

And you're entitled to your opinion.

So we're good with that. So the risk part is a big part of this. So I'm glad we kind of dived into that a little bit, because I think that's what scared people before is how high of risk it is. And why is that to your point of. Because you go out there and continue playing. Again. The other thing that still intrigued me too, is trust. I mean, we've talked a lot about trust on a team and how important trust is in all facets of life. I mean, even in relationships, the number one factor of building a relationship. But this builds trust. You know, when we talked of ways of trying to build trust on teams, this is a tangible way of showing people, I believe in you, I trust you to do your job and get this play. So, again, that intrigued me. I don't think that's. I think the analytics and the belief are covered more in whether it's. Now, if it's a risk they're not taking.

I.

That trust is also a key factor of this. And back to the risks. I mean, all risks, I think, are calculated. I'm still on that topic now that you got. That's gonna be a whole nother podcast. We're gonna study that one and spend it back. So we're not gonna spend time on that one. But it's also with trust, it's courage. And that's something we really haven't talked a lot about on there and something I've really worked hard in my life and my leadership style. I can't say I've always been a courageous leader, but I had a supervisor. That was his main word in leadership was courage, and really helped us develop it and gave us some tangible things to work on. That this is that too. It's courage. And will it continue to be courage when it becomes normal? But it is courage, too, to go for it. We're talking about. Again, one play probably does it four or five times a game. And then the last thing, again, these are all things I've taken from it. Plus researching that. I think you build from going forward on fourth down is going for it, you know, and. And how many times in life we don't go for things, how many times we've talked a lot about being so close to success and stopping. You know why?

Because we're busy calculating the risk.

It's true, though.

We are. And if you think about courage or going for it, to have courage or to go for it still comes back to. Maybe it's just a glimmer, but it's belief. It's. I think I can do this. I'm gonna give this a shot. I don't know how it's gonna turn out, but I'm gonna give this a shot. It still comes back. Courage comes from a belief system in yourself. It might not be a super strong one, but then going for it is the same. It's that inner voice, that belief system.

And realizing that that failure, if it does become a failure, that that's not the game.

You're still playing, you're still in the.

Game, doesn't define you.

Right, right. And lastly, betting on yourself, which we tell a lot of people to do, but do we do that? Yeah. I mean, that's where it all stems from, which I'm glad we kind of dived into, because my main premise even before studying for this was it's more analytics and more risk taking. But in the end, when you really study this and Dan Campbell and going forward on fourth down, it's a belief system.

Yes.

One other point, too, it's authenticity, too, because of who he is. And again, that's where it might not work for everybody, because it's his belief system. It's. He believes in this. He believes in himself. He believes in his team. He developed that trust. He has the courage.

He's also had success with it, too.

Yeah, that's huge.

It could be a whole different story, a whole different podcast if he. This was his grand premise and they were failing on four downs, you would have seen the belief system start to mold and change a little bit because of the external results of it. So he's had success, and that's why having success does factor in to belief systems and everything else and how important it is. And sometimes when you're not having a ton of success, you've got to find the really small stuff that you're successful at to keep that Growing.

And that's interesting because he has had success. But why has he had success? Because of all those things we have mentioned we wouldn't be talking about it. Danny probably wouldn't be doing it if he didn't have. And then what is success? I mean we're talking. He goes for it 45% of the time. I doubt, I wonder if it's over 50% of his success rate or not. And again, some of them are 4th and 1 or something. But that's a great point in the sense of success helped build that belief system we've talked about that. That if he wasn't having success, would he continue to go for it? Or if he didn't have the talent or the trust or all those things we just mention it changes everything. And again, I would love to know what his success rate is, but it's enough. And he has had it because it hasn't. You know, I can only think of the one playoff game against San Francisco that some really question thankful to.

According to a quick search here, overall success rate approximately 52.8 to 55.6 since 2021. And that is for fourth down success rate.

So that's over 50%. Yeah, I mean that's, yeah, that's.

That's impressive actually.

And I wonder if he would have changed his philosophy if he didn't have.

If it was at 10%. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's. Normally it's going to change.

You think so it's who he is too.

You have to have, you have to have some form of success. It's.

I agree. Required that.

Required that.

Then again. But I think he's helped lead to that success by the things he's done. So it played right into him doing this because it is. But to your point, we won't know the other side because he has had success and he's worked hard to get his team to be successful at it. And again, the one thing and.

But they all work hard.

True that. Yep.

They all work hard. Extremely hard.

Yeah. But then it goes back to those other things and to me, when I watched them go for it on fourth down, if you didn't know it was fourth down, you wouldn't be able to tell. And I think that's intentional practice.

You've talked about it before. Like the better teams that you've seen, you can't necessarily tell if they're winning or they're losing. When you look at them on the sidelines or whatever, it's hard to tell. And so that plays into that as well.

And this applies to every sport that. I mean we're talking about fourth down plays, but we've talked about it in baseball, it's in basketball, the last play of the game. It those high pressure situations where he is made it not high pressure. It's normal. It's the mindset of do your job. This, you know, execute. Focus on the process, focus on your training, focus on your belief system. So again, it symbolizes a lot of things that we talked about. And who would have thought I'd ever be using a Detroit Lions coach to use as an example of those things?

Growth. Growth.

Yeah. For me and the Lions. So again, I wanted to talk about him for a while. So many things we could dive into. It'll be interesting to see moving forward where football goes.

The only other thing I would say is I think this is the first time since Barry Sanders that I've ever heard Detroit Lions and Super bowl all mentioned in a paragraph.

So a couple other interesting stats you have up there. Daedalian, well done that he had 51% success rate going for fourth down in his own territory and 55% in the red zone, which is 20 yards and into the end zone. So again, that success rate is pretty high.

That it's consistent no matter where he's at on the field is.

And again that goes back to belief. Trust, preparation.

Consistency builds that belief system.

Yeah. You know, and it leads to that high of success rate. And we can argue 50% good enough.

Because if he was 20, if he was 20% in the, in the opponent's territory and 50% in their territory, then belief system changes a little bit. We've got to pun it away here.

So would it be safe to say that and I don't know if this is the appropriate word or not, that risk and belief are cyclical so they kind of feed off each other.

Absolutely. That's a great way to put it. It's just a very much a circle that kind of feeds each other.

Yeah. And you see that as we've talked about the third thing in podcast here, in a season where belief and trust and risks are high and then you start slumping and you got fine. That brick, the little fine wins. I mean most teams go through a slump in the regular season or lose a game that.

Yeah, it's the law of thirds. We talked about that a little bit too. And there's going to be some low times too.

You know, that it is cyclical, man. What we got words and vocabulary.

That.

It'S flows and if that Percentage starts going down, maybe he changes his velocity. Again, the thing we talked about a little bit, you got to have talent. And he has some nice offensive weapons in different spots that keep the defense guessing. But again, that's a tribute to his coaching and the personnel they put on there. So good stuff. Again, we'll bring him up again. I mean, I think he's an innovator and, you know, it's always good studying coaches that are innovators in our business. So now to the question we've all been waiting for, for the day. And that's not one of my best ones. And we talked a little bit about it before. But, you know, walking over here today, it's raining out, it's cold out, it's gloomy, it's fall in Michigan. So on most fall days like this, people eat soup. That's a comfort food, I guess. And we've talked a little bit about my tomato soup background before. I had tomato soup last night with grilled cheese, which is one of my favorite meals. No macaroni in it. But we talked about chili before. And we can talk about chili all day long. I mean, CL and I both like chili. You missed that part. Yeah, we'll.

We'll come back around to that, I'm sure.

Yeah, we. I got questions for that because that was a hot topic at a wedding I was at this weekend is chili and how you prepare it and do it. But anyway, so soup. Do you like soup? Do you have a go to soup? Is this a time of year you eat soup or.

I think, of course, if you're in Michigan or a cold weather state, you know, soup is somewhat of a staple. But yeah, I love soup. I really. I love all kinds of different soups. You know, chicken and rices, tomato.

Okay.

You know, chicken noodles. Doesn't necessarily matter so much. It's got to have some flavor to it and it's got to be warm. Those are really the two prerequisites.

Those are good prerequisites. Well done. Cutter, do you have a favorite?

I don't think so.

Do you like lobster bisque or clam chowder?

Love it.

Really?

Yeah.

I've never really.

Usually on point. That's excellent.

That surprises me a little bit. Okay.

I gotta say, when you were talking about rain and things like that, I thought you were gonna be heading towards comfort food in general.

Well, we can, and.

But the point is, the very first thing that came to my brain is broccoli and cheese soup. Oh, that is something I really get into. And I like to dress it up with some tomatoes in there, as well as extra cheese.

Of course, you gotta have extra cheese. Noodles.

Noodles I've never tried, but I would try that. I would try that.

Broccoli and cheese soup. I'm not a big soup guy, really. I'll eat tomato. I like meaty soups, you know, with beef in them or something.

Well, that was. The other thing that came to mind was it's not a soup, but it kind of is. And that's pot pies. Pot pies are absolutely awesome, in my opinion.

I love a pop on pot pies. But that's funny what the definition of a soup is because in looking in this and some people. Is cereal a soup? Is chili a soup? I mean, those are. I don't know those answers. Maybe we'll dive into that someday.

But definitely gonna say no on the cereals.

Chili, maybe it doesn't match the prerequisite.

Right.

Although oatmeal, then.

It is a good time of year to eat those things. And, you know, on a day like today or a week like we're having, with the rain and cold we have that. I thought we'll dive into the soup. And I would have brought up comfort food. But every time I think of comfort food for you two, I think we go to pizza. So that's why I have to be a little more specific next time.

But you just gotta describe the scene you did. Cause, I mean, don't get me wrong, pizzas would be good on a day like this, too.

But you do. I think pizza's good that way. Soup would be tasty every time a day.

I agree. Are you gonna finish with go soup?

Pardon? I wonder. Come up with that one cut then. Until next time. Go Stars.

Stars on Sports Outro: Stars on Sports is recorded live at the WLNZ studios. Engineering and production assistance are provided by Daedalian Lowry. You can listen to this episode and other episodes of Stars on Sports on demand at LCCconnect.org to find more information about our athletic program, visit LCCstars.com thanks for listening. Go Stars!