The past two weekends of Mississippi States football season have been a dramatic roller coaster ride: ascending to a euphoric high and dropping to a sobering low.First, there was a stunning 35-28 win over then-No. 4 Texas A&M on Nov. 5 that shook up the national playoff picture. Then last weekend, the Bulldogs were totally dominated in a 51-3 loss to No. 1 Alabama.Theres certainly no shame in losing to the Crimson Tide, but the fact that the Bulldogs (4-6, 2-4 Southeastern Conference) werent competitive was frustrating for the program. Now Mississippi State must win its final two games, starting with a home game against Arkansas (6-4, 2-4) on Saturday, to become bowl eligible for a seventh straight season.We just have our backs in a corner and we have to find a way to win, Mullen said.Mullen didnt seem concerned that the lopsided Alabama loss blunted momentum from the Texas A&M win. Sometimes, he said, you just have to acknowledge a tough game and move on.I think Alabama has done a great job of separating themselves a little bit, Mullen said. But I think when you watch every other game, I dont know if there is a result with any two teams that would shock anyone within the SEC West.With that in mind, the Arkansas-Mississippi State matchup appears to be much more fair fight.Mississippi State has a fairly balanced offensive attack, but leans toward the run game. Sophomore quarterback Nick Fitzgerald is tied for seventh in the SEC with 854 yards rushing and eight touchdowns. He often teams with running back Aeris Williams, who has improved as the seasons progressed, to form a potent combo when running the Bulldogs read-option offense.Williams, a 6-foot-1, 217-pound sophomore, became a bigger part of the offense when starter Brandon Holloway missed a few games with an ankle injury. Now Holloway is back, but Williams is still getting plenty of playing time.He was given that opportunity and certainly made the most of it, Mullen said.Arkansas has struggled to stop the run. The Razorbacks are giving up 217.6 yards per game on the ground, which ranks 12th out of 14 league teams.Mississippi States current predicament is similar to 2013, when the Bulldogs were 4-6 in November and had a young team, but rallied to beat Arkansas and Ole Miss in the final two weeks to make the postseason.Mullen hopes the current young nucleus that includes Fitzgerald, Williams, freshman defensive tackle Jeffrey Simmons and linebacker Leo Lewis can pull off a similar feat.There are a lot of similarities, Mullen said. Both teams were very young we suffered a lot of injuries that year. We had some tough games and there we are with two games left having to go battle and fight.-----Follow David Brandt on Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidbrandtAP . 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Now, with Game 6 set for Fenway Park and an 8:07 p.m. ET first pitch, the Detroit Tigers face the unenviable task of having to beat the Boston Red Sox twice, on the road, to advance to the World Series.Day three of the UEFA A licence (part 2) was broken in four parts; a morning lecture and on-field practical, two afternoon lectures and an evening lecture. The morning lecture and on-field practical was delivered by Kevin McGreskin, who has acquired his UEFA A licence from three separate football associations. Kevin is an elite performance specialist, and is the Technical Director of SoccerEyeQ. McGreskins session was entitled Developing Game Awareness, and centred on the idea that the technical, tactical and physical difference between elite players is often minimal; the thing that separates the best from the rest is that the best players consistently make better decisions while under pressure. The execution of skilled performance in football involves three stages: perception (the input of what the player sees), decision-making (the processing or thinking that the player does) and action (the output of the player doing). In a 90-minute game, elite players spend less than two minutes in possession of the ball. They take less than two touches per possession and have between 40-50 interactions with the ball. Over the course of a game, 98 per cent of a players time is spent in the perception and decision-making stages - yet very little time is ever spent developing a players ability in these areas. The three levels of situational awareness in a game are basic perception (the ability to take in information), realization of relationships (putting context and meaning to the information) and anticipation (recognizing patterns of behaviour). The five things that dictate the roles and responsibilities of players on the field are the ball, teammates, the opposition, the area of play and the state of play. The first three are dynamic variables (always changing), while the final two are semi-static variables (sometimes changing). The on-field practical session focused on the dynamic variables - and it was one of the best sessions Ive ever seen or participated in. McGreskin used visual overload to train the players abilities in perception and decision-making. He did this by introducing colours; coloured gloves, bibs, footballs and tennis balls. McGreskin started with a very simple passing drill; two players 20 metres apart, each with a ball, with a player in the middle. The middle player received a pass from the first player, played it back and turned to get the ball from the second player. McGreskin then increased the visual stimuli to overload the players visual perception and decision-making process. He did this by getting the players to wear one red glove and one yellow glove. When the player in the middle received a pass, he had to look over his shoulder to see the opposite player (who was instructed to hold up one coloured glove as the pass was struck). The player in the middle then had to call out the colour of the raised glove, before playing the return pass and going to receive the second ball. Adding more and more variables increased the difficulty; shouting out the colour of the glove being raised, tapping the inside of the opposite foot from which the coloured glove was on, introducing coloured cones around which the ball had to be carried before playing the return pass, etc. McGreskin then proceeded to introduce interactive passing drills, where two teams of eight players (one team in green bibs and one team in blue bibs) passed two balls in a 30x30 grid, alternating passes from a green-bibbed player to a blue-bibbed player. Again, more and more variables were introduced to increase the difficulty; recognition of an external player holding up a coloured glove, calling out the colour of the glove before receiving the pass, introducing coloured footballs to correspond with the bib colours of the external players, introducing coloured tennis balls that had to be released to a teammate before receiving the pass, etc.dddddddddddd It was an incredible session, and put paid to the myth that training perception and decision-making skills cannot be done. The morning session was adequately captured by a quote in McGreskins lecture, from Abernathy, 2008: "Coaches should consider routinely using demanding secondary tasks concurrently with the practice of primary sports skills as a means of stimulating the continued automation of primary skills and the refinement of multi-tasking skills of athletes." The first lecture of the afternoon was delivered by David Platt (not the former England international), who is a UEFA A licence coach, a performance coach for the Team GB Olympic squad and a regional scout for Manchester United. Platts lecture was entitled, The Winning Mentality: Recruiting, Assessing and Building Mental Toughness. Platt explained that of the four components of player development (technical, tactical, physical and mental), only the mental side of development has yet to be fully explored. He gave numerous examples from his previous work, including as a coach at Liverpool FC. In his work with Team GB Cycling, he outlined the core values that the team has created: commitment (sacrifice), ownership (its up to you), responsibility (benchmarks) and excellence (do your best). An interesting area of discussion surrounded the recruitment and retention of players. Platt stated that off-field behaviour reflects on-field behaviour - you simply cannot flick a switch and expect a players behaviour to change. So how a player behaves off the field - on social media, for example - often impacts a clubs decision to recruit or retain that player. Platt ended his presentation by advising the coaches to identify and be clear on their cultural and generic criteria for mental toughness. These core values should then be central to their recruitment, retention and development processes. Phil Abbott, from Academy Soccer Coach (a session planning software company that the Irish FA uses for all of its coach education courses), delivered the second lecture of the afternoon. While Abbotts session was very brief, he outlined the many areas in which technology plays a role in the modern game. He outlined the criteria for professional club academies in England to enter the EPPP (Elite Player Performance Program), as well as the funding that is involved for clubs in that program. Abbott presented some other interesting bits of information: 65 per cent of the population are visual learners; the brain processes information 60,000 times faster than text; and visual aids can increase retention of information by nearly 400 per cent. The message to the coaches was clear - technology can aid in your ability to get information to your players. How you choose to use that technology is entirely up to you. Desi Curry, the Technical Director of the Irish Football Association, delivered the evening session. His topic was Modern Trends in Football, and was an extension of the lecture delivered the previous evening by Phil Melville and Nigel Best. There were five topics that were discussed and debated by the coaches: - What are the key technical aspects that are increasing/decreasing in the modern game?- As a coach, which tactical formation would you choose to play, and why?- How, as a coach, would you plan to counter the counter attack? - What are the key factors affecting set plays?- As a coach, how do you prefer to defend/attack corner kicks? I wont go into to detail about the discussions that took place, as it would likely fill a book! But I will leave you with this quote from the evening lecture that I found especially pertinent to Canadian soccer: "Leaders take people to where they want to be; great leaders take people to where they OUGHT to be!" ' ' '