Posted by ESPN.com's Graham Watson

For most coaches, if you tell a team a story that has a lesson at the end, some of the players get it. If you show the team the lesson, let the players live through it, they'll learn the lesson on their own.

Such was the case with Western Michigan last season when after a few close losses the team started to drift. Coach Bill Cubit decided to combat the problem by forming a leadership council comprised of players from all classes and he asked them what they thought the biggest problem was from the Broncos' 5-7 season.

"I went to the leadership council and asked them to give some reasons why the season wasn't as successful as it was the year before and No. 1 was the leadership and No. 2 was that we didn't finish games," Cubit said. "We had a practice where we went over every play that we thought beat us last season. You know, if we had just made this play, we would have had a chance to win this game."

Cubit had T-shirts made that read, "Just Finish" drawing on the four games the Broncos lost by four points or less. He's also preached togetherness. After those close losses, the team started to splinter, which made it even harder to squeak out victories.

"We're more of a team this year and the team wants to play for each other now," senior defensive back Londen Fryar said. "We've had the best summer since I've been here. Everybody's out there playing for each other. There's no selfish reasons. It's more of a team drive."

To drive home the point of togetherness early in camp, Cubit sent 10 players on his starting defense onto the practice field with gold jerseys and left Fryar in black. Cubit offered no explanation during practice, but afterward he asked his team to tell him what was different.

"I just wanted to make a point that when all 11 guys aren't playing on the same page, we lose," Cubit said. "Football is the one sport where you've got to have all 11 doing the exact same thing. One guy can't take the ball and make a shot while four other guys stand around, it just doesn't work that way.

"I think our team is finally seeing that."