Are Certain Teams Really "Tougher"?

Ask my Grandma's sewing finger.  

It's damn damn real.  Damn real.

You really shouldn't get high before noon.

No, there is no such thing as toughness.

My stepdad cuts trees for a living. His climbing spike slipped and stabbed an inch and a half deep into his thigh. He poured superglue into the hole in his leg, climbed back up the tree, and finished the job. Tough exists.

I can think of two things off of the top of my head that separate some players from others:  the willingness to play through pain and a taste for violence, for lack of a better way to put it.  It's somewhere between hard and impossible to know how much pain someone is in, so it's hard to say how tough a player is being in the face of pain.  As for a taste for violence (maybe "enthusiasm for physical violence" would be a better way to say it), you can see that more in some players than others.  I'm particularly excited about 2012 recruit James Ross because he's a kid who initiates a lot of very violent contact.  He could be contrasted with other players who do not. 

Ask Profit.

Ask Profit.

Ask Profit.

Ask Profit.

Ask Profit.

Kovacs is an example of someone playing tough. Sometimes the "tougher" team loses because of a lack of technique, athletic ability, etc. But for a team to achieve it's highest possible level, each player has to be willing to face his own fears, overcome adversity, and play each play as though it were his last. In the end, I don't know which team was tougher last weekend--it's impossible to know without being in each player's head. I think the pundits, however, sometimes mistake dirty play with toughness. Toughness is letting the open receiver run by you because you know the safety has him, and you trust the system. Toughness is not responding when your adversary cheats and tries to injure you. Toughness is putting the team ahead of yourself. I see toughness in UM this year, and no, it doesn't always show up on the scoreboard, but it's why I could never root for any team but ours.

I think it's mostly a way for analysts and commentators to speak to the lowest common denominator. I.e. most people watching the ESPN talking heads or reading their local sports columnist would have their eyes glaze over if told that Michigan's problem against MSU was the constant A gap blitzing of the linebackers and Michigan's inability to adjust to it. Instead we get 'tougher' or 'wanting it more' because that helps feed the passion for fans.

We don't want to hear that our team won because they were bigger or stronger or faster or out-executed the other team. We want to believe that our team won because they wanted it more.

On the one hand,

I recall Rueben Riley playing with two broken thumbs in the '05 season.  So that's toughness right there. 

I think most people would define toughness as being able to push yourself physically, at the cost of aggravating your injuries.  On another level it's something of a state of mind. I'm going to accomplish X no matter what - that sort of thing.

On the other hand,

I don't think "toughness" had much to do at all with the MSU loss.  Go watch the snap count post Brian put up:

http://mgoblog.com/content/picture-pages-snap-timing-death

and ask yourself if Dave Molk having to block 2 guys at once has anything to do with toughness.

Not blocking the corner blitz on a 4th and 1 doesn't have anything to do with toughness.

Vincent Smith running a hitch instead of a slant that led to the pick six doesn't have anything to do with toughness.

Those were mistakes, plain and simple, on the coaches and the players.  When Hoke said he was outcoached... he was right.

always manifest itself on the field every game but instead occurs when a team faces adversity.

For example, I would say the last few years Michigan didn't have that mental toughness as evidenced by their late season collapses, whether that was a coaching or player thing is yet to be determined because the same thing could very well happen this season also.

Nickel has it right.  Talking heads and ignorant people make shit up to explain what they don't understand.  "UM" was getting blown off the ball ----> MSU is Tougher"  No, MSU brought the house every other play..  More guys pushing on less guys = blown off the ball.

Slow linbacker picture pages example.

MSU 12 yard run.  They must be tougher? Nope, UM got push by 2 guys singled, 1 walkon who was doubled held his own, 2 LB made poor/slow reads, one small CB missed a tackle, Onle LB missed a tackle.  Bad Tech, not low toughness. 

When we marched down the field early was state not tough then? 

All BS.  We need to learn sound D, not toughness.  Although a LB or two willing to knife a couple dudes at a nightclub (but not get convicted) might help??

"I love doing what ifs."

 Here's a few for you:

• What if the javascript was working so I could have block quoted you?
• What if water wasn't wet?
• What if fire was cold?
• What if, when asked, Profit actually answered?

sadism, and a lot of sadists are secret chickenhearts. Being tough is being able to TAKE difficulty en route to some higher goal. Certainly, Hoke has shown more insight about this distinction since last Saturday than Mr. Dantonio.

Dantonio's crybaby demeanor when his team gets whistled is anything but tough. 

Maybe Profit knows

Well, Hoke and the team believe it is!

I have to admit I was shocked when M players were openly stating that MSU was the tougher team. Then Hoke said the same thing.

That was no accident. Hoke believes the team is not tough enough and IMHO he told the seniors and leaders to make these statements to motivate the rest of the guys.

When Hoke and the players talk about "playing Michigan football" they are not talking about merely winning the game -- they are talking about being the tougher team.

Hoke has also stated that a main reason he does not like the spread is because it does not allow the D to practice against tough offenses.

I can imagine the practices for this week and next are pretty intense (and will continue to be).

......

Yes it is real.  Ask any veteran who has been in combat.

Toughness is the ability of a material to absorb strain energy.  To over-simplify, it's the combination of not bending much in response to a push, and bending far before beaking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toughness#Mathematical_definition

I think anyone who has comptetively played or coached a physically gruelling sport knows that toughness is a real thing.