Alex Grinch: Sooners Drew Motivation from Offseason of Unique Adversity

Oklahoma defensive coordinator Alex Grinch has had his ways of dealing with life during a pandemic.

“Well, I’ve yelled at computer screens more than I ever had in my life,” he said Wednesday on a video press conference. “It’s a little ridiculous, all the Zooms in March and April and May and June. But I think it’s a tremendous example why all those things are critical when you talk about being a big believer in adversity.”

Grinch, a big believer in external motivation, said he was proud of how the players met their own personal challenges head-on in the weirdest offseason anyone has ever endured.

He pointed specifically to a weight-room stat to illustrate how the team leaned into its unprecedented situation: Strength coach Bennie Wylie reported defensive players tested on July 1 — working out on their own from March through June — improved their combined max reps on a 225-pound bench press by 102 reps since their last test in February.

“That’s just one example,” Grinch said. “Obviously there’s a lot of others. Point being, these guys having to find a way through unique circumstances. So motivation never goes away. It just kind of changes its scope.”

The Sooners got just one practice in before the pandemic hit. Grinch said when the team broke up, he challenged them to not only be diligent with the work prescribed by Wylie and the strength and fitness staff, he wanted them to embrace extra levels of commitment.

The unique thing, he said, was that nobody — no player, no team, no conference — had a pronounced advantage during the pandemic. Everyone was in the same boat.

“Everything was (equal) during the offseason,” he said. “You think about all the things that took place. Well, no one got reps. So in that moment, ‘Man, if I just had a few more reps, this or that,’ well, no one got reps. In our building or anywhere else. No one had access to weight rooms. So there was a stretch of time, like no other time in our lifetimes, where you could say everything was completely equal across the country for every college football player.

“One of the things with our guys was, if you can’t bet on yourself from a workout standpoint, attacking your meetings, getting your field work in on your own, finding a way, whether it’s pushups or whatever you’ve got to do to improve yourself individually — if you can’t bet on yourself when all the cards are even, then don’t expect us to bet on you when you come back to the building. That was a huge thing.”

That accounts for the improved bench press totals. But Grinch drew his own motivation from the shutdown.

Grinch said while it was frustrating to have to communicate every day with players over a wifi connection rather than in person, he also took it as a time to experience his own growth as a coach.

“You kind of believe in the impact (motivation from adversity) can have on you in a positive way or you don’t,” he said. “You really can’t just tread water with that thing. You have to decide if it’s gonna be something you attack and accept into your life and rally because of it and eliminate the victim mentality as you approach things.

“Probably the biggest uniqueness in this is so often, when we talk about the adversities, a lot of times it’s singular events. It’s a play or it’s a quarter or it’s a game or it’s a drive. And this one obviously presented itself as a longer stretch.

“So just communicating with the guys, one of things we say about adversity is, ‘You don’t get to choose what it is and you don’t get to choose how long it sticks around.’

“… Sometimes it sticks around. So how can you continue to respond in an appropriate way to respond to get the outcomes that you want?”

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