Confidence killer

There is one thing that some coaches do all of the time that I can't stand, that anyone else who played competitive sports can probably relate to.

If you are in a game, you'll likely get subbed out either for fatigue, strategy, or you're just sucking. Most coaches sub for a mix of these, but some take subbing for the latter reason to an extreme.

Penn football coach Al Bagnoli, I believe, goes too far with this. It's one thing to take a guy out for a bit, but if you sub out a player every time he makes a mistake, that's all he thinks about on the sideline. The kid's confidence may be shot, and he's then playing nervous every time he's in from then on. I allude to this in my column following the Penn-Villanova game this week.

When Kelms Amoo-Achampong rushed 15 times for 24 yards against Lafayette (mostly in the second half in relief of the injured Joe Sandberg), he essentially lost his backup job right then and there. After his first carry (three yards) against Villanova, Mike DiMaggio filled in with the next few, as Amoo-Achampong finished with five carries for -2 yards.

When cornerback Greg Ambrogi fumbled his second punt of the year late in the game against Villanova, Bagnoli immediately pulled him for Chris Wynn, who has never fielded punts in a game. Wynn (in a very J.R. Reed-in-relief-of-Greg-Lewis thing like the Eagles went through) rushed up amongst the returners to make a sliding fair catch (though he actually held on). This move has secured the fact that Ambrogi will never return a punt again for Penn, because if he does he'll likely take that second eye off of the ball and onto his coach.

Another example this week is with cornerback Tyson Maugle benched in favor of sprinter-slash-corner Joey Brown. Speed is certainly an asset at corner -- Brown, for example, came streaking back to chase down Villanova running back Michael Ball at around the 5-yard line on a play that would have been a 90-yard run had there not been a holding penalty -- but Maugle should not get sat down for one bad game. He struggled against Wildcats wideout Phil Atkinson, but had a nice year last season, and had 10 tackles along with a forced fumble and two nice pass breakups in the opener.

One could argue that Bagnoli's motivational tactics will work in the long run, but then again it failed miserably with a guy like kicker Derek Zoch last year.

And the area where this matters most is quarterback. Some positions may play well while angry or with vengeance in their minds, but quarterback is certainly not one of them (RB maybe, but certainly not CB or PR either).

Robert Irvin's confidence must be so low right now. But if Bagnoli lets him play most of the game against Dartmouth (all but a couple of drives, like normal), it'll show the junior that his coach still has faith in him.

Leave Irvin in for as long as possible, and then plug in Walker after Irvin throws a touchdown pass or leads a successful drive (after all, they are playing against Dartmouth). Then, the junior can think about what he did well while on the bench, now wallow in sadness.

Sadly for Irvin, I doubt this will be the case.