TAT: 1-0 Philosophy Catches On

This article originally appeared in the August 30, 2013 Football Preview issue of The Arkansas Traveler.

Football coaches are constantly trying to find ways to motivate their players and keep them focused on their goals, whether it’s in the form of a story, video or even a short saying.

Head coach Bret Bielema’s way of doing this is with a very simple saying that can be written without words: 1-0.

The saying came from his time at Kansas State, where he was the co-defensive coordinator from 2002 to 2003.

During the fall, Bielema allows his players to talk about anything in front of the team in an open-mic session. It was during one of these that Bielema first heard the 1-0 philosophy.

“A tight end got up and talked about how his high school team took this philosophy,” Bielema said. “(He) talked about just taking every game for what it was and it made a lot of sense to me.”

Bielema has carried this philosophy with him from Kansas State to Wisconsin and now to Arkansas, where he introduced it to Twitter.

The main reason he has latched on to it is because of its effectiveness off the field, on top of its effectiveness on the field.

“It also just goes beyond the game,” Bielema said. “It goes to taking it one day at a time, one scrimmage at a time, one opportunity at a time.”

The saying itself refers to going 1-0 every game, meaning not to focus on previous or future games. If you can go 1-0 this game, then you have accomplished your goal and can move on to the next week, where you again try to go 1-0.

However, Bielema teaches his players that it can be applied to everything in life.

“Everybody wants to jump to the end of the rainbow and grab that pot of gold. Of course, it’s never there,” Bielema said. “My philosophy is, if you take one step at a time, you just keep tracking that rainbow, you probably will find it, but you can’t do it by jumping to the end.”

After discussing it with them during the spring and summer, Bielema said he thinks many of the players have bought into it. Several have even followed in his footsteps and started tweeting it.

Because of its visibility on Twitter, fans and students have been able to embrace the saying, as well.

“I like it. It’s unique,” senior nursing major Nick Hopkins said. “Everybody uses the same saying nowadays, like ‘grind,’ so it’s cool that (Bielema) has his own thing.”

Students that are well versed in the way Twitter works even look past the fact that “#1-0” doesn’t work.

“It’s somewhat cheesy, but that’s most sayings,” sophomore Conner Presley said. “I think it’s a good message, though. I like it, even though they try to hash tag it and you can’t hash tag a dash.”

While a majority of students like the 1-0 saying, some think it is a “very common thing for coaches to do” and “everyone does it,” freshman computer engineering major Garrett Tallman said.

Bielema’s and the Razorbacks’ first chance to go “1-0” and start the season 1-0 is Saturday at 3 p.m., when Arkansas takes on Louisiana-Lafayette in Fayetteville.