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NFL scouts spend years, months, decades, heck, their whole careers searching for a quarterback with the perfect arm or the cerebral know-how to win a Super Bowl.
Which is why it was so puzzling when an Atlanta Falcons scout turned to NFL commissioner Roger Goddell’ at the scouting combine last April and explained why Matt Ryan was the best quarterback in this year’s draft class.
‘He has that ‘it’ factor,’ the scout said.
Apparently, even the best and brightest sports figures sometimes can’t seem to find the right words.
Consider Ed Cooley a prominent member of the club.
‘No one has defined ‘it’ in sports yet,’ Cooley said a season ago after a come-from-behind victory over Manhattan. ”It’ is an intangible that every coach loves and if you can define it, let me know, because I’ll buy stock in it.’
On that night, Cooley tried to explain the concept after senior Mamadou Diakhate came off the bench, drew an offensive foul, and sparked the Stags to a 66-61 come-from-behind win against the Jaspers.
Two years ago? Cooley saw ‘it’, too.
That season, the rookie head coach told us that guard Michael Van Schaick, his senior captain, was ‘Mr. It.’. Sometimes it was a quiet word in the huddle; others a shot with the game on the line. But as Van Schaick went, the Stags went.
Cooley: ‘Van Schaick has ‘it.”
Two season later, the Stags (6-3) are off to the team’s best start in Cooley’s tenure. After a thrilling road victory over Holy Cross and an Alumni Hall win over American, last season’s Patriot League champion, the Stags took two straight games to start the MAAC schedule for the first time since Tim O’Toole and Deng Gai in 2004.
‘I’ve been saying it since the first day of practice, there’s something different with this group,’ Cooley said after the Stags trounced St. Peter’s, 76-56.
‘This group is beginning to get ‘it’ and I’ve told you 100 times it is hard to define what ‘it’ is,’ Cooley said.
Here we go again.
What exactly is ‘it,’ though?
It may be the team’s senior presence and leadership, guards Jon Han and Herbie Allen, the most impressive backcourt in the conference this side of Albany.
It may be Warren Edney, who has shown flashes of brilliance, averaging 12.2 points through the season’s first nine games and is gradually developing into the team’s premier scoring option.
It may be the revival of forward Greg Nero, who has recovered from his sophomore struggles and led the team in either scoring or rebounding in all but four games.
It could be a deeply talented roster unparalleled in Cooley’s previous three teams. A season ago, it was hard for Han to take one minute off. Now, with freshmen guards Jamal Turner and Sean Crawford as bench options, Cooley has that luxury. Throw in veteran forward Mike Evanovich and 6’10’ freshman Ryan Olander, and you have yourself depth that Jimmy Patsos could use right about now.
But it is more than that.
‘It’ seems to be a mindset, a swagger, a snarl. It is confidence and poise, leadership and guile. When the Stags take the court now, the body language tells the story: We expect to win.
In past years, it would have been invisible on a road trip to Holy Cross. It would have been non-existent in a preseason tournament in Puerto Rico. It most certainly would have been intimated to take the plane ride to Memphis on Nov. 15.
And, as much as he barked and glared at his players after the team’s second half lapse to Iona on Sunday afternoon, even Cooley knows that it would have never recovered from Iona’s 9-0 run in the game’s final minutes and emerged in the form of a three-point shot from Edney with 3.7 seconds to play.’
It remains to be seen if the Stags will sustain their success, as conference schedules always prove treacherous and the team awaits imminent holiday road games with Connecticut and Siena.
Still, based on early-season showings, if there is a team ready to announce itself as a threat to the Saints’ claim to MAAC dominance, this is it.
‘They believe. They’re focused,’ Cooley said. ‘We have fun, but it is business. I really think (our fans) are missing something special going on here.’
If only the fans would get it, too.
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