How to Lose a Game

Every coach has that call he’d like to have back. It might be that defensive set on that goal-line stand that gave up the go-ahead score on third-and-goal from the five. Or that time he passed three times from inside his own 10 leading with less than two minutes left in game. If he’s lucky, maybe it’s one or two a season. Tulsa Union coach Bill Blankenship knows his share about losing, even though he hasn’t done that much of it in 11 seasons, going 116-23 with 11 playoff trips and five title game appearances (including his first championship in 2002). Blankenship hates failure so much he tries to remind himself and his staff about ways to avoid it by cataloging ideas that just weren’t so hot. “We kind of joke about this sometimes at clinics, but it’s really true. I have a file called ‘How to Lose Football Games.’ Over the years, you come back and say, ‘Oh, that was