WHAT ARE WE DOING TO PREPARE TO WIN?

In a matter of months, first-year coach Jimbo Fisher has changed the entire strength program and weight room, which now includes about 15 plasma-screen TVs. The locker room has been rearranged so that offensive and defensive players alternate and hulking linemen are next to smaller skill players. The offensive and defensive staffs now meet together to break down film instead of watching it separately. The team eats every meal together. The meals are chosen for the players. "He's taken control of pretty much everything," quarterback Christian Ponder said.

After three seven-win seasons in the past four years, somebody had to.

"Everything is coming from one voice," said offensive line coach Rick Trickett, one of the few holdovers from Bowden's staff other than Fisher, who was Bowden's offensive coordinator the past three years. "He knows what he wants to do. He knows exactly how he wants to do it, and we're doing it that way."

Fisher said the most important thing he wanted to change was the team's attitude.
"It goes back to the process," he said. "If we want to win, what are we doing to prepare to win? How are we preparing our bodies, how are we preparing our minds? How are we preparing to be a teammate and understanding what being a teammate is? If those things take place, the big things come. We have talented players. Do we have the most? I don't know that, but I don't think we have the least. I think we know we're pretty good. Getting the mind right, and getting them to understand and care for each other and take ownership of each other, that's crucial." The players seem to be buying in.

"We're not having to coach effort anymore," Trickett said.

"We just didn't have the coaching mentally that we needed. It was all about being tough, and we were tough, but mentally we were taking the wrong steps... he's put a big point on us to actually learn how to play football instead of going out on the field and counting on our athleticism."

(Thanks ESPN)