But what about the internal battles that play out inside the minds of the athletes themselves? How important can the mental and psychological be to the physical?
Georgia Tech place-kicker Scott Blair has found that out the hard way.
The former Calhoun High star, who pulls double-duty kicking roles for Tech, had trouble making field goals from beyond 40 yards, and he routinely kicked into short kickoff coverage.
All of that combined to make him the unsuspecting poster boy for problems with the Yellow Jackets’ special teams.
But then, Dec. 5 happened.
“I calmed down a lot,” Blair said, remembering that day.
On his brightest stage so far this season, the junior sank into the rhythm his teammates long knew he had, and booted four of the timeliest field goals of his career.
Burying three of those kicks from beyond 40 yards, Blair instantly earned hero status among the Yellow Jacket backers.
“That was a whole different guy,” B-back Jonathan Dwyer said.
“That’s the guy we heard about in high school hitting 50-yard bombs and stuff like that. Hopefully, that gave him a little confidence.”
Entering that early-December contest — Georgia Tech’s ACC championship game with Clemson — Blair had been 10-for-15 in the field goal department, making just one from beyond the 40-yard line.
But coming out of a mental fog before that game, a new Blair had emerged. Deciding to think of his four field goal attempts — from 48, 48, 28 and 40 yards — as mere chip shots, he helped lead the Yellow Jackets to a 39-34 win that placed them into Tuesday’s Orange Bowl with Iowa.
“I used to psyche myself out a little bit on the longer field goals and try to over-kick,” Blair said. “I just relaxed. And with the shorter ones, I always knew they had the distance, so I just kicked all my kicks like the shorter ones. I just really tried to treat them the same as an extra point and keep my mechanics going straight toward the goal post.
“It turned out pretty well.”
The tactic turned out a lot like the type of performances head coach Paul Johnson knew he had seen before.
“We didn’t do anything different,” Johnson said of Blair’s physical preparation that week. “Scott just came out and did a great job kicking. He’s very capable. He just needs to be consistent.”
Speaking briefly with the mild-mannered, quiet kicker during the game, Dwyer said he knew the old Blair had returned.
“During that game, I told him, ‘Kick the ball as hard as you can,’” Dwyer said. “He said, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ So when I heard that — and he doesn’t talk a lot — I knew he was ready.”
Blair contends that being ready that night was the result of his more refined mental approach.
“I guess I always want to do better. Even if I had a great season throughout, I’d still want to be more accurate and just get consistency by kicking everything right down the middle,” he said.
So which Scott Blair will be on hand in Miami next week?
“You can tell during practice that he’s kicking the ball hard and far,” Dwyer said. “He’s on his game right now. Bless his soul that he continues to do his thing when it’s time to play.
“Hopefully he has that same mentality; I think he will. We have confidence in him now.”
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