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Post by funkfriss on Mar 5, 2020 22:30:52 GMT -6
Wingt you beat me to it! I feel that I personally don’t need to meet, but my younger coaches benefit greatly from it. They share ideas and we talk about why they are good and bad for our game plan.
For those that don’t meet, do you feel like you lose out on collaborative ideas that can snowball from meetings?
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Post by funkfriss on Mar 2, 2020 8:51:01 GMT -6
coachcb this is a trend that I don't see changing any time soon. It is a video game mindset. As soon as you start losing or something bad happens, you exit the game and try again. The game is only rewarding when things go well. It is really crazy how poorly kids handle adversity and losing these days. And you really notice a difference in kids who play video games a lot vs. kids who don't. That said, I will go back to the OP. I didn't have much of an issue with your post tripsclosed until I read: "The potential problem I see with setting something up as being about winning, or about succeeding, even if a coach's definition of success isn't winning championships, ala John Wooden, is that the downside of winning is losing, and the downside of success is failure. Losing and failure are negative, unpleasant, undesirable, wanted to be avoided, and can make players worry and/or feel pressured, which can lead to mistakes."Losing and failure are paired together as negative because kids are trained this way. Whether its parents or peers somebody has taught them that when you lose your worth goes down when in fact the opposite should be true. Losing should be a great motivator and opportunity for improvement. Now, if you go into a competition, get beat, and do nothing about it, then you lose. However, if you utilize losing as a way to teach and motivate a player or team to get better, then you are going places. Losing is not something to be feared and the only way you learn this is through losing. Nothing is more satisfying than losing at something only to come back and do better through hard work, especially if you get another chance at the previous task to overcome it.
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Post by funkfriss on Feb 15, 2020 13:55:25 GMT -6
And for the love of everything holy don’t draw chit up against BS offenses/defenses.
If I see another coach draw up Power in 21 personnel vs a 4-3 with the S and W at five yards outside the tackles I’m going to go plucking nuts!!
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Post by funkfriss on Feb 9, 2020 12:23:08 GMT -6
It is my understanding that the past few years player and coaches parents have been serving the pregame meal. I'm not sure how I feel about this... Thoughts, experiences? You’ll be surprised how supportive parents will be and they actually WANT your input on what to make. For us we keep it simple (Alfredo, small chicken breast and mashed potatoes, chicken noodle casserole, etc.). Stay away from large amounts of meats and fatty foods. We eat pre-game meals every Friday, home or away
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Post by funkfriss on Feb 4, 2020 8:49:55 GMT -6
Oh and definitely put in a plug for CoachHuey!!
The ability to get ideas and, maybe more importantly, critique of your ideas from hundreds of coaches is a great tool
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Post by funkfriss on Feb 4, 2020 8:39:52 GMT -6
Sounds like from your OP that you're looking for becoming a HC, not being a successful HC. Here are my thoughts.
Assistant Coach - Build a reputation as a good, loyal, hard-working assistant. Rub elbows and get on the good side of other coaches, teacher, admin, parents, and players. You never know who will talk about you to somebody else, good or bad.
Network - Get out to clinics, coaches association meetings, conference meetings, etc. Meet as many other coaches as possible, HC and assistants, HS or college. Just get your face out there and talk ball or just shoot the chit.
Organization - Talk to your HC about what more you can do to take stuff off his plate. Even if it's the mundane stuff like equipment organization, fundraising orgnanization, etc. you're building experience that will carry over to being the HC
X's and O's - Broaden your football knowledge. Obviously study and clinic as much as possible, but there are also things you can do within your program if your HC allows. If you've always been an offensive guy, see if you can get some work on the defensive side. It doesn't have to be a position change, could simply be involved in the defensive meetings. Also, knowledge of different position groups is a benefit. When I became the HC I had only been the DC for 1 year, but before that I had coached at some point every position group except for QBs and had been STs coordinator for 5 years. Also, I had been with HCs who had employed multiple offenses (Triple, Wing-T, I, Spread) and defenses (4-4, 5-2, 4-3, 3-3) so I had a wide knowledge of many aspects of the game that have helped along the way. That experience has been huge.
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Post by funkfriss on Jan 27, 2020 14:59:25 GMT -6
My post was not about working. I did not read into it that way. I read into it, a guy who enjoys what he does. A guy who enjoys studying and learning the game. That’s the take away I intended. ”It’s calm, it’s dark, and then I go in this building and I study. Then when I leave it’s dark. It’s calm, and I go home and sleep and rest and then come back and do it again.” I don’t know any other way to interpret that other than he spends every waking hour away from home working. Even if he doesn’t see it as work and he loves the grind, he’s still sacrificing other things that are important. That’s great if that’s his thing, but I wouldn’t promote it or glorify it. It’s like taking the “God, family, football” idea but only making time for a third of it
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Post by funkfriss on Jan 27, 2020 11:21:33 GMT -6
Always like getting there 45 minutes before warm-ups, so ETA would be 11:45, and departure time would be 9:15. I would have the boys at the school around 8:15. Put everything on the bus, then eat a good pre-game meal with a mix of carbs and protein (pancakes, eggs, fruit). You could do this a little earlier if you wanted to schedule a midway stop to stretch the legs, but that's up to you.
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Post by funkfriss on Jan 27, 2020 11:09:44 GMT -6
I was a grinder, still am, but not even close to what I used to be due to experience and efficiency.
Grinding is great, especially when you are young, have the time, and don't have a family you're worried about taking time away from. I have some of my assistants who I would let grind, I have some who I would sit down and say "you can't do this" to. Ultimately, I can't stop them, but there are more important things in life.
Overall though, I really hope high school coaches aren't taking their cues from college and NFL coaches. Totally different planets.
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Post by funkfriss on Jan 21, 2020 19:21:55 GMT -6
Be interesting
I don’t care about your resume
Keep slides brief
Don’t read the slides
Go back in time to when you were brand new to your topic. What three things would you want that guy to know?
Go back to when you were a semi-expert on your topic. What are a couple things you learned later on that made a big difference?
Film is not necessary, only to provide a visual when needed. One or two clips per piece of information is enough. I don’t need to see 84 clips of Verts to understand the concept
**Talk about and show the screw ups!! This is very important so coaches know what to anticipate and look for when things aren’t going right. If your talking about a concept or a scheme, tell what can cause it problems and how you adjust or what the compliment is
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Post by funkfriss on Jan 21, 2020 9:57:45 GMT -6
The best way to develop competitiveness is to have kids compete. We use off-season to create competition with winners and losers. We have 1-on-1 competitions, small group competitions, and larger group competitions. We also put them in situations where we build physical and mental toughness. I am at one of the highest poverty schools in Texas. If you take a kid home 5 times you won’t take him to the same place twice. We have great kids, but they are surrounded by failure. Once something gets hard, they quit. We spend a great deal of our time building their threshold for discomfort. And it really isn’t just about football. They will need these skills to be successful in life. One of the best things we do to teach them how to pay attention to detail, be be accountable to teammates, and respond to adversity is calling them out in the weight room and punishing the team for one guys mistake. If a guy misses a rep, has the wrong weight, racks the weight early, etc, we blow the whistle and they all get in the push-up position. The coach who blew the whistle calls them out for what they did. We do 1-4 push-ups then say feet, and they are back up and onto the next set. This has been huge for us building mental toughness. We explain that if one guy is offsides, the whole team gets punished. I’d one guy lines up wrong, he hurts not only himself, but he hurts the entire team. We had less procedural issues and busts on the field than we have ever had. We also had kids that responded to adversity. The tougher things got, the more they came together. When we have competitions we reward winners. We don’t punish winners. And if a guy gives up during the competition he goes again. And again. Until he learns to compete. Or quits. FULL DISCLOSURE: IF YOU HAVE A TEAM OF @ss KICKING DUDES DO NOT READ.....OH AND CONGRATULATIONS A lot of this ^^^. I like the idea of team "punishment" for one kid's action, but you have to be careful. First, we never punish for mistakes. Those happen to everybody in all situations in life and are learning experiences. We punish for lack of effort, focus, or attention to detail. As mentioned, not doing the proper weight, skipping a rep, and dogging a drill are all good examples. One caveat to this, however, is the same kid doing it over and over again. After the third time or so you need to pull the kid aside and ask him if he really is here for his team because his actions don't demonstrate that. Usually it doesn't get to that point, but when it does, 99% of the time the kid will quit which is fine by me. I can handle kids screwing up, but I can't handle kids screwing their teammates (One of my most used quotes). One other thought on competition. You have to create situations in which a) the competition is winnable, and b) where winning the competition produces enjoyment. If you haven't noticed, society caters to easy, comfort, and lethargy. Hell, I get pissed at my own kids all the time because even their video games are too easy to beat. You know how many f@ck*^g times I had to play Mario Brothers to beat the entire thing?!? You got three lives and then you had to start over FROM THE BEGINNING. No save point, no cheat code, no infinite respawns. Now my kids will beat a game in one day. Sorry for the mini-rant, but the point is that kids will not continue to compete and try hard if there is no chance for them to succeed and/or there is no enjoyment. There are too many other things in their daily lives that can give them enjoyment/pleasure/rewards faster and more easily. So it is your job as a coach to make sure these parameters are met in practices. Keep in mind, you will never turn these types of kids into full-on @ss kickers. However, they can become serviceable and help the team.
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Post by funkfriss on Dec 19, 2019 2:14:49 GMT -6
Does anybody else feel a general disdain for media personnel that cover the sport regardless of level?
On the pro and college level it seems like every media personality (tv, radio, paper/website) is a Monday morning QB. Or, one of their 20 opinions was right so they have to constantly harp the same issue until you know they were right.
On the high school level I feel like the media has absolutely no clue as to the ins and outs of a HS football team and therefore constantly misplaces credit and/or blame in the wrong direction.
I miss the days of just factual reporting. I don’t need some Ahole’s opinion because he thinks he knows what he’s talking about and has the platform to do so.
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Post by funkfriss on Dec 17, 2019 14:11:00 GMT -6
Never too late to get the kid recruited.
What I would do is sit down with the kid and get a hierarchy of schools put together. You’re there for the realism, he’s their for the want. Make a list of top 5 or 10 schools and hit them up IMMEDIATELY. Forget the highlight tape, get his name to the coaches now! Explain the talent and the reason for not being recruited in the past.
From there, start working through the other schools he’d be interested in and contact them. This requires a lot of leg work on both of your parts, but it can be done. Teams are never finished recruiting if there’s players that can help.
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Post by funkfriss on Dec 10, 2019 14:17:55 GMT -6
About five minutes. To me, the best recruiters lie and blow smoke up kids' asses and I'm not doing that. You either want to play or you don't.
Granted, we don't have very many good athletes to begin with and we're not really missing out on kids where I'm at. Maybe one per grade.
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Post by funkfriss on Dec 10, 2019 14:14:42 GMT -6
For example, take 10 quick shallow breathes and try to touch your toes. Next take 10 deep breathes and try to touch your toes again. You should have more range of motion. The reason being is that when you take quick shallow breathes your body associates that with your fight or flight response. When you take deep breathes your body relaxes and isn’t as tense. This is basically rpr in a nutshell. Getting your body and cns to function in a state of high performance. This is not a slam against RPR. I am actually very interested in it. But this is a slam on these type of examples. I actually read this while in bed. So I was completely not ready to do anything. Got up and reversed the experiment. Took 10 deep breathes first and tried to touch my toes. Then took 10 shallow breathes and tried to touch my toes. And you already know what happened. My range of motion of motion was much greater the second time after the shallow breathes. Why? Because I was now more limber after already trying to touch my toes the first time. Go and research all these types of examples and you can see how they "trick" us into believing these types of things work. Again, not really trying to dismiss RPR. Hahaha I thought I was the only one! I'm a born skeptic. I'm always looking for more information, studies, etc when I see something that I question. I actually used my wife as my guinea pig. I told her that I would increase her hamstring flexibility in 10 seconds. I had her do a baseline, then rubbed under her clavicles (supposed to stimulate neck muscles, but she didn't know this). I then had her stretch her hamstrings again, and wouldn't you know, she was more flexible the second time around! More limber? Placebo? I'm not sure, but either way it worked! For the low price of $79.99 I'll show you how it's done
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Post by funkfriss on Dec 2, 2019 10:52:27 GMT -6
I don’t think anyone would say the is a “bad” call. But, you have to realize that means you are playing for overtime. Which, again, is not a “bad”, it just doesn’t maximize your chances of winning that particular game. How many of you factor in playing for OT vs. the win when at home vs. when on the road? I think on the road you are more aggressive, vs. at home, but that's just been my preference over the years. I also think you are more aggressive when you're the underdog too. Duece At least where I'm at, I don't feel like there is much of a home field advantage most weeks, so I don't go into a game thinking that way. I 100% agree with the underdog theory though and if you have a an opportunity to tie or take the lead late in regulation we're most likely going for the win. To me, you're taking what essentially amounts to about a 50/50 shot to win vs. a team you a much less than 50% chance of beating. When you think about it that way, I think most would take the 50/50 opportunity. Overtime, however, depends on whether we get the ball first. If we score first, assuming we have a good kicking game, we're taking the PAT and forcing our opponent to match us. It we score second, and assuming they converted their PAT, we're going for two for the reason stated above.
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Post by funkfriss on Nov 23, 2019 12:52:33 GMT -6
There is far too little information given for most of these questions (example- should you run or pass? You don't know the makeup of my team and the opposition, so how can you tell me I am right or wrong for making my choice). Also, the first question has little to do with situational football, it is essentially making the point that going for two is mathematically a better choice. But once again it is predicated off of Generic Team vs Generic Team, not enough information or too many variables that are not answered. I actually just read an article saying the same thing. Football, more so than any other sport, has so many factors that renders analytics to be less relevant. Not irrelevant, but less relevant. 4th and 4 on the -40 when we’re down 6:00-4:00 left in the 4thQ? We’re punting every time this season and not thinking twice. Our offense was not very good and we didn’t have the type of QB that we could trust to get this most of the time. We had a great punter (and align in offensive formation for quick kick ensuring no return), good defense and difference making returners. Much better chance for us to get the ball back and gain field position. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun exercise and fun read, but I hope coaches aren’t using this to make future decisions.
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Post by funkfriss on Nov 17, 2019 9:48:41 GMT -6
Yeah ours are terrible. At least 6 or 8 plays a game like that. Some are labeled penalty when no penalty has occurred. It might also be safe to assume that schools that pay for this service do not verify its accuracy. I've found more and more incorrect stats as I've checked further. Not slight errors either. I try not to get my panties in a bunch over many things, but I'm rather frustrated about this. Go back to entering it all in yourself and save some money
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Post by funkfriss on Sept 6, 2019 9:39:06 GMT -6
National relevance definitely has something to do with the lack of talent staying in VA, however, you also have to take into account that for the #8 HS talent state in the country there's only one school many of these players can get into academically. I understand that there are ways around admission standards, but you have to remember, these kids also have to complete 3 years (ok well 2 1/2) of classes and many aren't looking for rigor.
Go one state south and there are 4 ACC schools, two of which aren't easily accessible, and UNC is so-so. Go to the SEC and most have lower standards, with the noticeable exception of Vanderbilt who mostly struggles. Weird.
My biggest takeaway, you've got to give it up for schools like West Virginia, Nebraska, Iowa, Iowa St, and Wisconsin who despite being in the bottom half for home-grown talent tend to produce decent to good teams every year. And let's be honest, none of those states are destination spots either.
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Post by funkfriss on Sept 6, 2019 8:48:44 GMT -6
Does anything in your game day strategy change when playing on turf as compared to grass? One that we do is more squib kickoffs on turf because the ball skips forward a lot more than it does on grass and also tends to take higher bounces making it somewhat tougher to field.
Any other strategy changes for other areas of the game?
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Post by funkfriss on Jul 25, 2019 10:04:20 GMT -6
We have lifting at 6:30 AM, but we have a good number of kids who either have to work that early or are working manual labor jobs outside in the heat and don’t want to be tired at work after a workout. Is 6:30 the best time to work out, then? Trust me, we’ve definitely had many discussions on this. Our biggest issue is we’re in Iowa, the only state that still has Summer baseball, so there’s that “problem” too...
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Post by funkfriss on Jul 25, 2019 8:52:12 GMT -6
Been my problem for a while now. Ultimately I’ve come to the realization that my job as a football coach is to take what’s given to us and give them the best chance to succeed. We have lifting at 6:30 AM, but we have a good number of kids who either have to work that early or are working manual labor jobs outside in the heat and don’t want to be tired at work after a workout.
Does it suck? Absolutely. Are we missing out on our potential? No doubt. But at the end of the day these kids want to play the game of football and it’s our job to give them that opportunity and make them the best they can be. The funny thing is, when our dads was playing nobody saw this as an issue because nobody was doing chit in the summer for football. Now that everybody is #grinding you gotta keep up to compete most of the time and though is tougher than chit to do when you’re playing against affluent schools where kids have all the time in the world to lift, sprint and practice.
Don’t like it? Better move on...
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Post by funkfriss on Jul 21, 2019 10:09:01 GMT -6
Every year
“We’ll see. We lost some great guys from last year so it’s up to the rest to step it up.”
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Post by funkfriss on Jul 15, 2019 20:13:26 GMT -6
Furthermore, I know that if I don’t personally play any basketball for a few months, that first time back is tough. If I play a week later, it is easier. One week after that, even easier, and by the next week, I feel “in shape” by my standards. That is your perception, and that was what I was referring to. I don't think it is accurate for someone to say "the only way to get into game shape is to play games" and that "nobody is in 'game shape' for game one." Rather, I think what happens is simply the perception changes. I think it is probably more of a mental issue than a physiological one. Of course, in this case, perception is reality, and if the guys are flying around in the 4th because they don't "feel tired", that is all that matters. I’m not going to argue whether it is psychological or physical, but I agree with silkyice ‘s analogy. I’ve never seen a team that was in the same conditioning week 1 as they were week 4. In fact, I’ve been a basketball coach for a long time as well and have had many players come straight from football where they have been well conditioned, practice basketball for a few weeks and then are dead tired during/after game 1. It takes a few games to get to peak game condition even if it’s a different sport. Again, as silkyice alluded to, athletes get conditioned to the exact conditions they play in. Pace of play, amount of time played, effort played at, and even time of day all factor in. Players get conditioned to practice and even if you try to mimic games and game speed as much as possible it just isn’t the same thing and therefore most kids are not at peak game shape Week 1. But then again I’ve never coached a two-platoon team, so maybe that’s different.
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Post by funkfriss on Jul 15, 2019 13:50:17 GMT -6
trackfootballconsortium.com/new-ideas-for-old-school-football-coaches/Agree or disagree I think this is a good article to at least think about what you are doing. I think football, especially small-school iron man football, is more aerobic than this author and others acknowledge, but I agree with the basic premise made. I don’t care what offense or defense you run your priorities should be 1. 100% health at the end of the season 2. 100% excitement and buy-in at the end of the season 3. 100% speed, effort and efficiency at the end of the season I’ve coached under five different HCs, myself included, and been a part of different philosophies and practices for conditioning and the one thing that has been exactly the same every year is that no matter what, the team is never ready for Game 1 from a conditioning standpoint. Game day is a different beast and the only thing that truly gets you conditioned is playing games. That’s my opinion.
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Post by funkfriss on Jul 5, 2019 7:17:10 GMT -6
The school I am HC of currently has never had a winning season since 2006. We won 3 games last year which is the most this school has won since 2010 I believe...I really wonder what would happen if we made it to Thanksgiving Week in the playoffs...I really worry that we would have to forfeit our playoff game because half our kids won't show up the week school is out, while the other half would rather be in a Deer Stand...It's funny to think about but, I am starting to wonder if one day I won't be faced with this.
Well, that perhaps explains your school's record before you took over.
Again - there are some schools-communities where the attitudes, environment, socioeconomic makeup - however you want to describe-define it or which apply - simply do not allow the conditions for a competitive much less winning football program (regardless of who or how good the coach is) to exist.
This can not be overstated.
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Post by funkfriss on Jun 25, 2019 10:21:23 GMT -6
I think a lot has to do with your location, school size, culture, etc.
Being a small school with multi-sport athletes I feel that having kids come in over the weekend is too much. The majority of our kids aren’t living and dying football and putting in six days throughout a long season is tough. Also, keeping reserves motivated to come in early on Saturdays was always a problem in the past and you start dealing with the excuses of not showing up which slowly start trickling into the guys that do play. Therefore, it seemed more beneficial to not come in on Saturdays and I feel we have less burnout as a result.
I think like most things you’ll find that people are successful doing it both ways and you, or whoever the HC is, have to decide what is best for your team.
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Post by funkfriss on Jun 1, 2019 19:43:47 GMT -6
I think what you really need to ask yourself isn’t what you should scrap, but how much time you should invest and when you should invest that time. We have some concepts, run and pass, that are best vs certain fronts or coverages, so we may not run a certain play for three weeks and not practice it at all, then need it for the next opponent and rep it more that week.
One of the ways we get away with this is that there’s quite a bit of carryover in our plays. For example, we run multiple run plays using a down blocking scheme (Power, Power Read, Jet Read, Toss Read, GT, etc). We haven’t had a reason to run Trap recently, but it really wouldn’t be that expensive for us to put in Trap one week for an opponent if we thought it necessary b/c it would be a variation of our Down scheme.
I also agree with others who have said how effective the play is matters as well. We ran a reverse at most twice a game, but had great success with it and would never think of cutting it. Now, we didn’t practice it a ton either...
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Post by funkfriss on May 31, 2019 10:07:33 GMT -6
5 5 3 0
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Post by funkfriss on Apr 20, 2019 9:09:10 GMT -6
I’m gonna sound like an old man, but the best “speeches” are when you go through the game plan, tell the kids exactly what’s going to happen, and then it actually happens on the field.
Best one I remember, we were down 13 at half, but weren’t playing terribly. We made some defensive adjustments and I told the kids, “We’re going to get the ball to start. We’re going to march down and score. They’re going to go 3-and-Out. We’re goig to march down again and score and take the lead. Believe!”
We did exactly that. Ended up losing by 2.
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