He quotes Albert Schweitzer, reads books that address topics ranging from management (Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t by Jim Collins) to self-help (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey) and was drafted by the Detroit Pistons in the sixth round of the 1971 NBA draft.

But Jim Larranaga, head coach of the men’s basketball team at the University of Miami, is best known for something completely different.

“Well, first thing I thought about was [the] Final Four run,” said sophomore shooting guard Rion Brown when asked what initially crossed his mind when he found out who his new coach would be.

But while the famous run to the Final Four with George Mason in 2006 certainly catapulted Larranaga into the national spotlight, it was 20 years earlier that his success story started to unfold when he began his head coaching career at Bowling Green University.

“They had had four straight losing seasons. My first year they were picked to finish last in the league and we were able to go from being picked last to finishing […] tied for second,” said the Bronx native.

After 11 seasons with Bowling Green, that included three NIT appearances, opportunity would knock again when Richmond, James Madison and George Mason were all on the lookout for new head coaches.

“I inquired with all three schools and only George Mason returned my call. When I got the job they had had seven straight losing seasons from 1991 to 1997, every year was a losing season. I think four of those seasons they finished last, so they happened to be looking for someone who had already built a program. They weren’t looking for an assistant coach; they were looking for a head coach.”

It would soon become clear that Larranaga was just the man for the job.

During his 14-year tenure with George Mason, he would transform the Patriots into the winningest program in Colonial Athletic Association history and become the most successful coach in the history of the conference. His unprecedented accomplishments would eventually culminate in that much-talked about Final Four run.

But to get there he had to first employ one of his favorite quotes from Good to Great: “Get the right people on the bus and then decide where you’re going.”

“When we first arrived at George Mason […] we told everybody we were going to recruit locally and they said: ‘Well, you’ll never win, because Georgetown, Maryland and George Washington will get all the best players and you’ll stink.’ But on our Final Four team we had eight local players; the five starters were all from within an hour and a half from campus.”

It was also during his time with the Patriots that Larranaga would introduce the country to his motivational skills and powerful pregame speeches, like when he told his team before facing UConn in the Regional Finals in 2006 that the CAA (Colonial Athletic Association) stood for Connecticut Assassins Association.

“[…] that pregame talk was developed while I rode a bike in the Marriott hotel the morning of the game when I read an article [in which] the players from George Mason were interviewed and the players from UConn were interviewed and in the article it was very, very clear [that] the George Mason players knew everything about Connecticut: They knew who the coach was, what the league was, how the style of play, the personnel, the whole works. Then I read the quotes from the UConn players: They didn’t know anything about George Mason. They were asked who the coach was, they said: ‘I have no idea.’ They asked what league we were in, one of them said: ‘They’re in the Missouri Valley.’ And the other guy said: ‘No, they’re in the Patriot League.’ They had no idea what league we were in, so in formulating my thoughts going into the pregame I structured it so that our players understood that they don’t know anything about us, we know everything about them. We’re better prepared to win this game than they are.”

Often times though, Larranaga’s pregame speeches are not as spontaneous, but instead meticulously conceived much earlier.

“I normally start writing my pregame talks in July. […] I have thoughts about what a game might be like so I might use a quote, I might use one word, I might use a story to share with the team to put them in the […] best mental frame of mind to play.”

His love for reading and broad reservoir of motivational quotes often aids Larranaga in instilling this right frame of mind in his players.

“One of my favorite books is called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. So there are stories there that I always share with the team. […] They always have a moral to them; there is always a point to them. […] Some nights it’ll be a quote. It might be a quote by Albert Schweitzer […], who once wrote: ‘Success is not the key to happiness, happiness is the key to success.’”

But even though success has been following Larranaga around wherever he goes, he never loses sight of his main motivation for coaching.

“Everything he does, he does for the players. It’s not about him, it’s really about the players and that doesn’t mean that […] he’s easy on them, but I think what it means is […] he always has their best interest at heart,” said assistant coach Chris Caputo, who is entering his 10^th season working with Larranaga.

“He really sees the best in players, tries to figure out what they can do, how they can help us, tries to figure out where we can help them improve and I think it’s a great mix.”

Larranaga did exactly that with Jai Lewis.

“Jai Lewis was a terrific player for us at George Mason and he [was] 6-5 1/2, 6-6, 300 pounds when he got to us. […] A lot of coaches would have just said: ‘Hey, you need to go run on the treadmill, you need to go run on the track, we’re going to make you lose 50 pounds.’”

Not Larranaga.

He saw Lewis’ potential and knew that in order to really get him into shape he would have to be much more subtle in his approach.

“So he said to him: ‘Hey, what do you think you want to do after college?’ – ‘I want to play in the NFL, I got great size, I look really great.’ – ‘Well, I’ll send a letter to every NFL team and tell them about you, but you got to be in great shape. […] If you want to play in the NFL, you got to be 280 and you got to be able to run the 40 and all that.’”

In a sense Larranaga tricked Lewis into thinking that it was his own idea to lose weight and get in shape. Rather than demeaning him for what he wasn’t, he tried to enhance what he was.

Four years later Lewis would go on to be the leading scorer and rebounder for George Mason when the team made its magical run to the Final Four.

Go figure.

On said list, somewhere between catching a fish with your bare hands and busting down a door with your shoulder, you will find tailgating at football games.

The combination of grilling and then inhaling piles of meat that would feed your extended family for a month, imbibing quantities of alcohol that would sterilize entire hospitals and subsequently attending a sporting event whose intensity, violence and up-tempo pace is rivaled only by Steven Seagal movies is like a perfect storm of manliness.

(And if that wasn’t enough already, consider the fact that you are doing all of this out of the back of your car or – even better – your pickup truck. Cut to a shot of Tim Taylor grunting exuberantly.)

Unfortunately though, there are still plenty of men that have either failed to acknowledge the significance of a great tailgate or simply have been misguided on their quest to the perfect one. But fear not, because after weeks and weeks of deliberating and consulting, a panel of experts (Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Al Bundy, the Old Spice Guy, Mike Tyson, the Dos Equis Guy and many more) has come up with the manly tailgating guide for men by men.

(Somewhere Chuck Norris is nodding approvingly.)

GIRLS

Studies have shown that men think about sex 623, 891 times a day (all numbers estimated).

This should come as no surprise when considering our hunter and gatherer roots: We like to be “on the prowl” and collect enough phone numbers of females to make Barney Stinson jealous.

Now, while you would usually go for the age-old strategy of separating the target female from the herd (kind of like a lion does with his prey), tailgating is a different animal (literally).

Tailgating is more comparable to the crocodile-gazelle scenario that the Animal Planet is legally bound to show at least once a month: You have a herd of gazelles trying to quench their thirst at a watering hole and then out of nowhere, the unsuspecting gazelles are mauled by a 500-pound crocodile.

The crocodile knows that the gazelles have to come to the water to survive the scorching midday heat. It has something (in this case precious H₂O) that the gazelles want which is why the crocodile can just kick back and play the waiting game.

So the key in order to bring girls to your tailgate is providing goods and services that they want:

• Alcohol and food – I generally try to avoid sounding like a bratty 14-year-old girl (one of my few rules in life), but: “DUH!!!” Have you ever heard anybody turn down free stuff, let alone free booze and food? Me neither. It’s something that is about as unlikely to occur as a guy complaining that there are too many girls at a party. It just doesn’t happen.
• Music – We didn’t need Dane Cook to figure this one out for us, but it is an irrevocable truth: Girls “just wanna dance”. So by providing them with some tunes you have already won half the battle.
• Decoration and Games – Setting up some chairs, tables and a tent can do wonders for you. If you then add some decorations and games (cornhole, horseshoe and of course a football to toss), you are in good shape.

(I cannot emphasize the last point strongly enough. We all know how much girls LOVE decorations. I mean, have you ever seen some of their dorm rooms? They have more lights and garlands than the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.)

Now while these are just some basics; everything that sets you apart from the competition will work in your favor (fireworks, portable Jacuzzis, champagne, etc.). But whatever you end up doing, always remember:

At tailgates, you are a crocodile, not a lion.

FOOD

Ahhh, the barbecue. One of the last truly manly domains. Nothing is more macho. You have the dangers and excitement of an open fire, the satisfaction of preparing the goods yourself and of course lots and lots of dead animals.

Obviously a great barbecue is vital to the success of your tailgate. Not enough or the wrong kind of food, misuse and abuse of the grill and/or unpreparedness and ignorance can turn what should be the highlight of your tailgate into a downright disaster.

So make sure you have the right tools: tongs, a thermometer, a long spatula, coarse grain salt, pepper mill, olive oil or vegetable oil, some spices, an industrial-sized bag of charcoals, liquid oxygen to light them and of course a knife (Think along the lines of Rambo’s combat knife, if you can’t get that a machete will do).

(Sidebar: If for some reason you forget any of this stuff, no need to panic. Just improvise. Really the only thing you need is the comically oversized tactical combat knife. Other than that, just channel your inner MacGyver and git-er-done.)

Now let’s take a look at the Tailgating nutritional pyramid so you know what food to bring (going bottom to top):

Level 1 – The foundation of your pyramid should consist of the tailgating basics: Hot dogs, burgers, everything that goes with it (buns, cheese, ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, etc.) and bacon. This is where you want to go with quantity. You don’t want to be the tailgate that runs out of food. You want to be the one that could stay in the parking lot and survive till the next game.

Level 2 – Now we move away from the basics and go for something a little bit more extravagant and exquisite: ribs, steaks, polish sausages, brats, chicken and bacon. A good old chili has never hurt anybody either so if you have the time to prepare some beforehand, do it.

Level 3 – Chips, dips, shrimps, s’mores and … wait for it … here it comes … so crispy, so delicious, so unhealthy … more bacon! This level will be the icing on the cake of your tailgate. A good five-layer bean dip and some home-made guacamole will bring out the “ahhhhs” and “uhhhhs”. This last level will come into effect at two points during the tailgate: At the beginning when everybody is still waiting for the food to be cooked and of course at the end when everybody is already painstakingly full but keeps eating while sporting the same slightly confused “I don’t even know why I keep eating, I was full 30 minutes ago” look.

Level 3 concludes our Tailgating nutritional pyramid. (Notice how there is no vegetable level and bacon is included in every one? You’re welcome.)

Gentlemen, start your grills!

DRINKS

While life is an ever-evolving hodgepodge of uncertainties and change, there still are some undeniable truths that we can bank on: the sun will always rise in the east, Charlie Sheen will always be winning, Maverick will always be dangerous, the pancakes at Chartwells will always taste like anything but actual pancakes, Notre Dame football will always be overrated and finally … tailgating and alcohol will always go hand in hand.

(Just like let’s watch a movie is code for let’s have sex, tailgating really means let’s get plastered. That’s the power of football ladies and gentlemen; it has made drinking during the day and in public socially acceptable.)

Now here is a list of the most important alcohol-related things you should know come game day:

• Get a keg, any keg, as long as it is beer you’ll be fine. (One undeniable truth I forgot to mention: Sometime after your fifth and sixth cup, every beer tastes the same.)
• Make sure you have a bottle of Jim Beam for a shot now and then. It’s a good way to sterilize your tongue after the pong ball rolled under the car for the third time in a row.
• For early games: Mimosas (champagne and orange juice), Screw Drivers (vodka and orange juice) and/or Bloody Marys (vodka, tomato juice and then pretty much clear out your spice rack, throw everything together and take cover).
• Change it up every once in a while and make some Skippy. All you need is 30 beers, a bottle of tequila, country time lemonade and a reckless disregard for your liver.
• Play drinking games:
  • Beer pong (aka. America’s actual favorite pastime) – Greatest (drinking) game ever. Hands down, the perfect blend of skill, drama and drinking. How it is that we still don’t have a competitive league with nationally televised games I will never understand.
  • Flip cup – Another classic among drinking games. Try survivor flip cup to make matters even more interesting (last one to flip is out and so on, until there is one person left).
  • Hockey – Screaming “GOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLLLL” at the top of your lungs has never been more fun.
  • 7-11-doubles – Whether you are on the street or at a tailgate, beware of games that involve dice.

Now if you make sure to follow all of the steps, tricks and tips covered in the manly tailgating guide for men by men, then there is no reason your next tailgate shouldn’t teem with manliness.

And then maybe, just maybe, you’ll be able to make Ernest Hemingway proud who once cited four things one must do to be a man:

“Plant a tree, fight a bull, write a novel and father a son…”

He then paused for a moment and added a fifth:

“… and throw at least one tailgate party you will never forget.”

I am pretty sure that’s what happened, but don’t hold me to it.

Baltimore at Kansas City

To Baltimore:

1. Stop Jamaal Charles. I know. I know. That’s like saying eat a giant larva without throwing up all over yourself  like you just played ginpong for four straight hours (a variation of beerpong played with … yup you guessed it gin … that made me turn into Peter Griffin after he takes emetics on New Year’s Eve and erased all my memories from the first few hours of 2011) but it is the key for the Ravens if they want to win this one. (Sidebar: In my opinion Bear Grylls is the only human being on planet earth that could eat that giant batch of grossness. That is if he is human of course.) Anyway, if I was Baltimore (or Baahlmore like the natives call it) I would rather live with Matt Cassel and his 58.2 completion percentage beating me than Charles and his 6.8 yards per rush attempt (leading the league among runningbacks). Crowd the box and dare them to throw. It’s not a guarantee for success but this is survival time: You stack the odds in your favor and hope for good things to happen.

2. Use your experience to your advantage. This Chiefs team your facing is relatively young and unexperienced. You have, especially on defense, plenty of vets (think Lewis, Reed, etc.) that have been there before. Intimidate your opponent. It’s like the old survival trick of making yourself appear bigger than you are to fend off large predators. You play on the road but that doesn’t mean you can’t rattle an untested quarterback. There has to be trash-talking and chest-bumping after every tackle for loss. I mean hell, Reed and Lewis both played for the U, now that brashness needs to be translated to the NFL level.

3. Finish strong. Not counting their overtime loss to the Raiders the Chiefs gave up 62 fourth quarter points in their five losses. They were outscored 19-62 in those fourth quarters.

To Kansas City:

1. “Whenever you can, use what nature gives you.” – Bear Grylls in the bear-infested forests of Romania. In Kansas City’s case nature gives you Arrowhead stadium (the third largest NFL stadium in seating capacity) and an awesome crowd. Use it! The Chiefs only lost once at home this whole season. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

2. As Bear fights through the thick vegetation of Sumatra he stops for a second and has a look of almost desperation on his face (except it is freaking BEAR GRYLLS and giving up is not in his vocabular). He turns to the camera and recalls what a soldier told him when he went into a jungle for the first time: “Try not to concentrate on what is immediately around you but try and look through the vegetation.” As I’ve mentioned above, the Ravens should and will try to focus on Charles. They will play aggressive. This means three thing: play action, play action and some more play action. Hope that the Ravens are so close that they won’t see through the vege…errr… play action. Next week on Man vs. Wild: Bear explains the importance of press coverage in short yardage situations.

3. Make plays on special teams. The Ravens are an extremely balanced team (attempting only four more passes than rushes all season) with a solid defense. This means you have to look for other ways to gain an edge. A good punt return or even a score on special teams could swing the momentum of the whole game in your favor. In order to survive you must be resourceful.

Green Bay at Philadelphia

To Green Bay:

1. “Prepare for the worst and hope it never happens” – Bear Grylls. The worst is Vick being in the zone and making plays that only Vick (and probably Bear Grylls) can make. The problem is how do you prepare for something like Vick? One Houdini-move could mean a 40-yard scramble or worse a touchdown. Maybe they try to get in his head, send him a dogtag, buy him a hot dog or something like that.Whatever it takes, right!? (Sidebar: The irony of the whole thing is that it was the Packers who unleashed (no pun intended) Vick on defenses across the country. Had Clay Matthews not concussed Kolb in that Week 1 game, who knows if the Eagles ever had discovered Vick’s true potential. They created a beast that may very well slay them now. Shakespear anyone!?)

2. DO NOT LET UP! Just ask Giants fans…

3. Don’t punt to Desean Jackson. How about this for a rule of thumb: The less Jackson touches the ball, the better. Again, ask Giants fans.

To Philadelphia:

1. Dare them to run. Until they prove to you that they can run it, you can live with Rodgers handing it off (3.8 yards per attempt, sixth worst in the league). What you can’t live with is Rodgers throwing for 300+ yards and 4 TDs. Any more questions?

2. Protect Vick at any cost! I don’t care if you have to play out of a shotgun on every down; you have to protect your number one weapon. Vick gets hit often enough as it is, you can’t have the Pack use him as a punching back INSIDE the pocket. Your team stands and falls with Vick. He is not an MVP candidate for nothing. If you want to put it in survival terms: Vick=water; You won’t go three drives (=days) without him (=it) and survive.

3. Let Philly fans be Philly fans. R-rated chants. Unruly behavior. Inapropriate signs. Your fans are one of the most notorious in all the land. Let them show it. The more hostile the environment, the better. Think about it: Would you rather step into the Lion’s den or a cage full of kittys. Now unelss you are Bear Grylls you prefer the second option.

One more random thought: If Jets-Colts was the Hatebowl than this is the Poor-time-management-bowl. Let’s hope Reid and McCarthy don’t screw up so much that there is an aberration in the space-time continuum and we all get catapulted back into the Stone Age. McCarthy!!! Reid!!! The Clock!!! It’s the NFL playoffs on FOX!!!

With that I wish all you fans out there all the best (except for Jets fans of course) and hope your team fights to live another week. Stayin’ alive stayin alive hah hah hah hah stayin’ aaaaaaaaaalive!!!!

(For example: Every time I sit on a chair lift when skiing and it suddenly stops for a while, I map out how I would survive the jump into the deep snow below and play out different scenarios in my mind for escaping from the chair lift.)

I am fascinated by the thought of having to survive in the wilderness and how my body and psyche would react in such offbeat situations.

Personally I like to think that I would put up a descent fight. Heck, I made it through my first semester of college at the University of Miami and with the scorching heat, the stomach-turning cafeteria food ( A shoutout to our friends at Chartwells!) and ferocious wildlife (squirrels that don’t move an inch when sitting on walkways so you actually have to walk around them and goose-like creatures that could snap your fingers in half) it can’t possibly be much more difficult than surviving in some African jungle. Right!?

Anyway… You know what else is all about surviving!?

Exactly! The playoffs (for all our friends from the NCAA reading this: that is a system in which all of the good teams get a fair shot at a championship. Say it with me! PHH-LLL-AAAAA-YY-OHHH-FFFFFFF-SSSS!) of the National Football League.

That is why I have taken a page from the playbook of Bear Grylls aka. the real-life Chuck Norris and contrived a survival guide for the playoffs. The first part will deal with survival strategies for fans of teams still in the race and fans of teams that missed the cut. The second part is dedicated to the teams that will face off this weekend.

Off we go!

First Part

Fans whose teams made the playoffs

-To all fans of teams that have a bye week: Relax! This is the best part. You get to watch your friends freak out and there is a 50% chance they will be absolutely devasted. So break out the imported Lager, kick back and watch the wildcard-mayhem begin. WARNING: Be careful with the trash-talk and condescending remarks to your scorned friends, because we all know karma is a bitch. Just ask Rex Ryan.

-To all fans of teams that are playing this weekend: Here are some precautionary steps and guidelines.

1. Don’t do anything different than you did the rest of the season. That means don’t try to be fancy and wear that new throwback jersey you got for christmas and don’t change your pregame meal if you have one. We all know that athletes are all about routines so why should we fans be any different. And don’t let anybody tell you that you don’t have an impact on the game even if you are thousands of miles away and have no personal connection to the players whatsoever. It MATTERS that you sit in the same exact spot on the couch like you did all season and that the sandwich crumbs on your stomach are arranged in the same triangular pattern as always. And no I am not superstitious. Wait, where is my rabbit’s foot!?

2. Avoid watching the game with fans from the other team or in a large setting UNLESS this would compromise the previous (1.) step. Why deliberately put yourself in a situation where you run danger of being ridiculed and mocked should the unthinkable happen and your team loses!? Don’t engage in obvious dangers if they can easily be averted. That’s just Survival 101 right there! Spare yourself the additionally agony.

3. Drink a lot of alcohol! Either your team wins and the victory is that much sweeter when you gloriously jump around the room burping like a pig drunk-texting all your buddys and colleagues who doubted your team OR your team loses in which case you might want to up the dose even more in order to forget the game as quickly as possible. Who says alcohol doesn’t solve problems!? To those people I say: HA! Have some of that … Bourbon!

- To all fans of teams that were left out:

1. Drink a lot of alcohol! See forget, quickly.

2. Bet. Bet. Bet. If there is no shelter there, make your own one. If there is no rooting interest left, make your own one.

3. Take joy in your friends defeats. Often times a nasty facebook post on your buddy’s wall about how his team got absolutely trashed can make you forget how much your own team sucks. Including a little videoclip of a memorable collapse can work sheer wonders in lifting your own mood while conversely making the loss even worse for your buddy which then keeps the natural balance of happiness between two friends in check. I don’t think Dr. Phil could have said it any better.

4. The draft is only 111 days away.

Second Part

New Orleans at Seattle

To Seattle:

1. Pray! Somebody up there must really like Seattle considering that the Seahawks made the playoffs as the first losing team in a full 16-game season and got a freakin’ home game no less. Might as well look for even more divine help at this point. My guess it is the weather gods that are trying to throw Seattleites a bone here.

2. Speaking of weather, the Seahawks should hope for a lousy Seattle-y weather to throw off New Orleans’ high-octane passing offense. There is nothing better that could happen to Seattle than a rainy Saturday in the 30s to slow down the most efficient pass offense in the league (leading the NFL with a completion percentage of 68.1).

3. “Knowing your environment always improves your survival chances” -Bear Gryllz while roaming the jungle of Belize. He might as well have been talking about the NFL playoffs. The Seahawks biggest advantage is their home-field advantage. They are one of the last teams left that have a real home-field advantage and they should not have any problem selling out the stadium.

Quickly to recap: Pray, hope for bad weather and a ferocious home crowd. Ladies and Gentleman, your 2010 Seattle Seahawks! And still … they have a theoretical chance at a Vince Lombardi trophy. Every Giants and Bucs fan just threw up a little in their mouths and reached for some more Jack Daniels.

To New Orleans:

1. Throw the kitchen sink and then some at Matt Hasselbeck right from the start. It is key for the Saints to come out swininging so the crowd never has a chance to become a factor. Apply pressure to a banged up quarterback, knock him to the ground a couple of times and good things will happen for your defense. Sometimes it is as easy as that.

2. Whether you are lost in the desert, trying to hold your own in a fantasy football playoff battle or a real playoff battle; don’t ever try to get cute. It just doesn’t work. Trust your abilities, dance with what brought ya and stick to your strenghts. For the Saints this means trusting your future HOF quarterback to make plays and have him pick apart one of the worst pass defenses in the league (tied for third place with 31 pass TDs given up and 3994 passing yards allowed). Sure you’re going to try to keep them on their toes, but really if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Now let’s move on before I use even more old football adages and turn into a crusty SEC coach with a ridiculous name. Yes, I am talking to you Joker Phillips of Kentucky.

3. Don’t underestimate your opponent or situation. Never a good idea no matter the circumstances, but especially not a good idea when you are the defending champ facing a team that shouldn’t even be in the playoffs. That just has improbable sports-movie-upset written all over it and let me tell you as a Pats fan, it’s even worse than you can possibly imagine to be on the losing side of that one. So leading up to the game, talk of them like they are the champs and you are the underdog and prepare the same way. It has never hurt anybody to sweet-talk their opponent. The other way around is more problematic.

New York at Indianapolis

To New York:

1. Run. The. Ball. Ask any football expert currently employed by CBS, ESPN or FOX and they will tell you: “To win in the playoffs in the National Football League you have to be able to run the ball and stop the run. Also I get paid waaaaaay too much for stating the obvious and/or laughing akwardly at unfunny jokes.” I only made up one of the last two sentences. Now while we certainly can’t trust some TV experts’ competence we do know that the Jets were at their best early in the season when they ran the ball. And really I don’t know why they ever got away from that. In any walk of life is it ever a good idea to get Mark Sanchez involved MORE!? From Week 2 to Week 12 the Jets averaged 34.4 rushing attempts per game. They went 9-1 over that stretch. In other words everytime the Jets attempted to run over 31 times a game they won. Hopefully Rex never realizes this because then we all can look forward to an uber-somber Jets press conference and the 0.5% chance that some reporter will make a foot fetish joke hidden behind a condescending question.

2. Keep Manning off the field. Guess what!? If you just run the ball this will be taken care of easily.

3. Do not panic when down early. Really, to panic is never a good survival strategy. The consensus feeling when playing the Colts is: “Crap, we are down seven to Manning we MUST start throwing now and make this into a shootout!” That is like saying: “Crap, the shark just bit me. There is blood in the water. I should bite the shark back.” NO! You have hands you punch the shark in the freakin’ nose! Why would you not use your obvious advantages but instead stoop to your enemies’ level where they will obviosuly kick your ass or eat you depending on the situation. One more thing: In the six games the Colts lost this season their opponents averaged 37 rushing attempts per game. Conversely in the ten games they won their opponents averaged 22.3 rushing attempts. Need I say more!?

To Indianapolis:

1. Don’t blitz Mark Sanchez. According to this very interesting blog post Sanchez actually has a higher passer rating against the blitz than against a non-blitz formation. So all you have to do is cover. Which coincidentally is also the theme of the Detroit Lions season this year who were 12-4 against the spread. Bravo Lions! Bravo!

2. Pump in additional crowd noise. What they don’t do that anymore!? Never mind then.

3. Let Manning do work. It’s a night game. It’s a home game. It’s the Colts. We have been here before.

One random thought before we go: As a Pats fan I dub this game the Hatebowl because there are no two teams in the NFL I loathe more than the Jets and the Colts. That’s why I am hoping for a tie so that by some quirky loophole in the rulebook both teams are eliminated.

-TO BE CONTINUED with survival tips for Sunday’s teams-

The Miami Hurricane: Going into your 18^th season here at Miami talk a little about coaching at UM in a city like Miami. What are the difficulties you have to face, if any? What are the advantages? What sets it apart from your other coaching stops?

Morris: Well, there is no question, being in a large metropolitan area like Miami, as a coach there are good things and there are bad things. Good thing is [that] there are a lot of players here: Strong influence of Latin kids and normally the Latin players’ number one sport is baseball, particularly the Cuban-American kids, which is why probably half our team is Latin, most of them being Cuban. It is a big advantage [that] baseball down here is very good. The good news is there are a lot of things to do. The bad news is there are lots of things to do. So you always have to just be concerned about trying to talk to your guys about doing things that are right and wrong, whether going to the Grove, the beach or wherever it may be. But overall I think it is a great place to live for me and for our players; to be here, to have a great school to go to and a great school for me to coach at. So I don’t think there is a better place.

TMH: What made you go into coaching? At what point did you know that this was what you wanted to do for a living?

Morris: I kind of thought … whoops … not so fast. I said a taste! For the complete interview go to http://www.themiamihurricane.com/2010/11/17/17-years-17-questions-with-jim-morris/ And yes, you’re damn right I just pulled the old cliffhanger move on you.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/recap?gameId=303290251

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=5849496

According to members of the Cavalier’s organization there will also be an increased number of police at the game to ensure that the home crowd’s emotions are kept in check.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/truehoop/miamiheat/news/story?id=5847505

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5847101

Here is what he said according to espn.com:

“Well, I don’t know enough about the Xs and Os of college football,” said Gee, formerly the president at West Virginia, Colorado, Brown and Vanderbilt universities. “I do know, having been both a Southeastern Conference president and a Big Ten president, that it’s like murderer’s row every week for these schools. We do not play the Little Sisters of the Poor. We play very fine schools on any given day.

“So I think until a university runs through that gauntlet that there’s some reason to believe that they not be the best teams to [be] in the big ballgame.”

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=5845736