Mississippi State co-offensive coordinator / run game coordinator / offensive line coach John Hevesy has been in Starkville for seven seasons total, which include some of the most memorable years in school history. Bowl trips, setting offensive records, and national rankings have been commonplace for the program over the last several seasons.
This weekend, the 2016 season got off to a rather rocky start with a 21-20 loss to South Alabama.
Hevesy recently took some time to talk about what went wrong in that game, and traced the loss back to way before kickoff took place.
"They found out very quickly, in a bad way, you're not just going to walk out there and win a game. I don't care who it is. You can play the lowest level team, you better be ready, it can be a high school team, you've got to earn every play in that game."
"I told em, and I told you guys [the media] earlier on, what do we do during the summer? That's what I ask them every day. We're going to find out during the season what we did in June, July and August. And Monday through Thursday at practice, what are you doing to win on Saturday? It's picked up, but the fact that they didn't learn that early on is a mistake."
Hevesy went on to point out that it wasn't necessarily conditioning that was a major factor, it was more about "the strain".
"I think it's the strain, whether it was bench pressing, or a gasser or a technique in one of their drills, the strain and effort that was put into every one of those reps shows up on Saturdays."
"The strain that you put into morning conditioning or those mat drills that we do is going to affect us is September and October. It shows up then. When we needed to get 11 reps on the bench, did you just do 10 and say 'I'm good'? Or did you push for 11 or 12? Because that's what it comes down to on Saturday's."
"I don't care who you're playing, that's what it comes down to every rep, in every game."
Hear more from Hevesy in the clip. The Bulldogs hope to get back on track this weekend against South Carolina on Saturday. Kickoff is scheduled for 7pm EST and the game will be on ESPN2.
https://youtu.be/VmllehJ6xt8?t=1m9s