How to handle bad games

So my name is Trenton Lohre. I'm a former college quarterback. And so today I'm going to be talking about bad games because I've had plenty of bad games. And this is a topic that I can talk a lot about because I know from my own perspective how much that bad games ate at me because I faced a ton of them. And so I want to talk about that more not only from the framework. I talk a lot about recruiting because I help families get recruited personally, but also just from. Also mentally. How to get over that? How to. How to get over that, Humphrey? Because I think if there's one thing that I did really well is I was able to suck on a daily basis, but I always got back up. And so I think that's an important trait to have not only as a player, but as a person. So let's dive into it. This is gonna be raw, unedited. If I mess up, you're gonna hear it. So let's dive in. And I'm really excited about this. So first up, a little bit background about me. So bad games happen again. I said that I sucked on a daily basis. That is the truth. My. I mean, shoot, I could go all the to when I was super young. I mean, I saw some kids playing like T ball and baseball and stuff like that. I was not an athletic kid growing up. I was not an all star kid. And then flash forward to when I started taking football more seriously. Seventh grade, I didn't even play on varsity as a seventh grader. I got a few plays, but like I fumbled snaps, all that stuff. Eighth grade, got benched. Freshman year was like my first year. Really getting a shot at things. And fast forward to my junior senior year. I didn't start my first game until late my junior year. I got benched. Homecoming of my senior year. Didn't even start my last game of my senior year because they felt like the other guy was better. And yeah, plenty of times I threw picks. I had bad games. In my JV year, I had two games where I threw three picks and it was just embarrassing bad. And so how do you bounce back from that kind of stuff? And again, I've. I've had experience with this and so I feel like I can talk about it. And I think one of the biggest frames I always thought through first off just mentally going through this stuff was I will have an advantage over anyone else because I know what it's like to face those bad games. And it was just a weird mindset. I always had was like, man, I've got such an advantage over everybody else because, you know, everybody's going to fail eventually. Everybody's going to get into a slump, everybody's going to do bad at some point. And I always felt like I had such a stack of failures that it's like, I messed up again. Like, obviously my goal was never to mess up, but I was like, I messed up again. I'll shake it off. I can bounce back. I know I'll get back from this because this is my 2000th time messing up in my life. And I always felt like the people that I was going against, whether that was like I was competing in someone in a quarterback competition or I was playing in some of their team or, or whatever it might be, I always felt like, man, they don't know how to deal with failure. Like I do. Like, they're gonna mess up. I'm gonna put pressure on them. They've never been in a situation before. And so I knew, like, man, I've got these failures. And anytime I failed again, I was like, this is just another ad add up to that stack and it is what it is. I'm gonna bounce back. And so that's. That's kind of a mindset that I had. And I challenge anyone listening to this. If you were an athlete, definitely take that mindset on because those failures do help you later in life. Like, it. Not everybody, like, you don't really recognize in the moment if you're 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. Even then, even now, I have times where something bad happens. I'm like, shoot, that sucks. Like, why does that. Like, I wish that didn't happen. But then you fast forward and next thing you know, that failure that you had years ago, you're able to either help someone or it helps you in the future because you learn from this lesson early on. Whereas if you didn't learn from that lesson, maybe you don't get this bigger thing later on. And a good example of that is I think about my own recruiting. Like, now I have this big brand around recruiting, and I've amassed a following of over 50,000 people across all platforms. And it's all about recruiting. And my recruiting, by no means was a success. I made plenty of mistakes, plenty of failures. I definitely don't look at it as, like, my recruiting. I absolutely crushed it. But I did pretty, pretty good with what I had. And I look at it back and I'm like, dude, if I knew what I knew now, I'd obviously crush it. But I've been able to turn it into this cool thing where I get to teach people about it. And going through all that stuff, if I didn't face that stuff, I wouldn't get to be here today. And so definitely take that on. Anytime you have failure, anytime you face challenges, you face a bad game, realize that, hey, I get to learn from these lessons and these mistakes and get to move on with those. So that way I don't make them again. Because that's what smart people do is they learn from their lessons and mistakes. Dumb people try to always win and never lose. So that way they just never learn from their lessons and mistakes and always lose. And so make sure that you learn from this stuff. Going to more recruiting stuff, tactical recruiting stuff. Bad games happen and coaches know that. And so you have to realize that one game doesn't define your recruiting by no means, because it's not necessarily about one game you're recruiting. It's about the whole picture of your film and what you show. It's about your potential. Because definitely, like, if you're, if you're trying to play powerful football, okay, it's a little bit different if you're a senior trying to play power four. Like, yeah, you need to stack game after game. Like, yeah, might be a little tough to get recruited by Clemson if you throw four picks your senior year and you're still trying to get, like, their attention. But even then it's not impossible. I mean, you'll see as you go through this journey that kids don't have great stat lines sometimes when they get recruited and you don't need great stat lines. And one game, again, doesn't define you. And so with that, you have to realize that it's more of, about what you put on the field and how you really just play overall rather than like, it's more about the highs and the lows. And so, yes, you're going to have that place everybody's going to. And so you just need to make sure that you're still putting yourself out there consistently because it's much more about the marketing yourself. And so, like, again, I didn't play it to my senior year. I figured, like, shoot, I got benched as a senior quarterback. Like, what college would want that on the roster? Next thing you know, I had 10 plus offers later in my senior year, probably in January, I'd say. And so that goes to show that it's not necessarily about the bad games or about how much you play or anything like that. It's just about what you put on film, what you show coaches not only in your film, but as well as when you interact with them. Because if your stat line is good, then, okay, you're gonna have to check some different boxes. You're gonna have to check the personality box, the work ethic box. You have to check all these different boxes. Just like if you're undersized. And that's okay as long as you can check those boxes. And so don't let. If you're in the season and you're having bad games, don't let these things get to you, because that's the worst thing you can do is you have a bad game, you get benched, whatever it might be, you don't play, get hurt, then you immediately just throw in the towel and you say, it's over. That's it. I'm not going to get recruited. That's just not the case. If you want to get recruited, if you want to play college football, there's always a way. And you just have to continue putting yourself out there, believe in yourself. So ultimately, just hopefully you're listening to this, maybe after a bad game, and so reflect on that, learn from that stuff. Also realize that your recruiting is not over. If you're constantly following up with coaches and you're like, shoot, I have nothing to send them this week. Shoot. As long as you have one play, you have something to send them. So don't ever feel like too little is not enough. You have nothing. That's fine. You don't have to send them anything. Like, I remember that game. I got benched. I probably still sent a couple of coaches to film. Like, I had, like three or four plays that were decent, and so I still sent it to him or anytime a coach would bring it up to me, I said, yeah, we won. And that was it. If they asked how I played, I would tell them. And sometimes coaches know that you don't play. When I was in juco, I got benched my sophomore season about halfway through the year started, like, the four games, and I got benched in that fourth game. And I think we were playing a couple games, and one of the coaches I was texting back and forth with, and he was like, oh, how'd you guys do? And he was. And I was like, oh, yeah, we did good. We won. We. We did this and that, whatever. And he was like, oh, that's awesome. Like, how'd you do? And I was like, oh. Like, I was like, oh, shoot, here we go. And I said, oh, well, like, to be honest, I didn't really play too much but, you know, just, just ready to go for next week. And he was like. And it was this really awesome moment where he was kind of like, hey, man, like, totally get it. Know you're, you're kind of in a tough quarterback room right now, but we love what we see on tape. We love, love the way you play. And yeah, just keep putting things week after week and we'll be in touch. And you'll never be like. Coaches obviously are recruiting you for the player that you're on the field, but they're also recruiting you for the player, the person that you are off the field. And so don't take it for granted that coaches only care about what's on the field. They do care about what's on the field because that's what's going to let them keep their job. But they also want a great person with that as well because that's what helps the team overall, because that's just important and they know that as well. So don't let a bad game get to you. It's. It's just a blip in hopefully a very large amount of games that you're going to play in, in your career and in the span of recruiting, there's many ways that you can go about it to make sure that it doesn't affect it and you're still able to get the scholarships and interest that you deserve. So hope this helps. If you like this, be sure to like and subscribe. I'll see you in the next one. Peace.