These comments that become bulletin board material are overblown. If you need what Will Blackwell said to motivate you in the game for the BCS Championship Trophy then you have more significant problems to consider. Motivation come game time is not based on what any player or talking head said leading up to the game, it comes from wanting to win and be the best. If you are using those trivial things as the basis of your motivation, you'll lose it rather quickly as soon as someone hits you in the mouth. The want to compete (thanks, Les! heh) and be the very best is what should be fueling you and based on how very good Alabama and LSU are I suspect that is exactly the source of motivation each of these teams' players employ. Look, will coaches point these things out to their players? Absolutely. Might they post them in the meeting rooms? Training rooms? Sure. Many coaches do. Why? Because coaches know that the game is what is fun, but the practices are where you look to find creative ways to get your guys up for otherwise the monotony can be an enemy all its own. So many coaches look for anything and everything they can find to offer some small urging to their players to get through a particularly brutal practice or to do three more reps in the weight room or make it that last thirty yards of a sprint. That stuff goes out the window when the two teams line up across from each other and the whistle blows and people hit each other. You better be focused on your assignment and dialed in on beating the man across from you. Everything else is simply wallpaper on the periphery. This stuff makes for a lot of fun conjecture on message boards and on ESPN, but that's about it. 1976 Greg Buttle, New York Jet linebacker, explaining his contractual obligations: "They pay me to practice. Sundays I play for free."
nonsense. coaches and players use anything for motivation in the biggest of games on every level. You always hear the respect angle, the us against the world mentality. of course every team will be amped to play in a nc game but the extra motivation can make a difference. this is why les (likely) sat this kid down and hes now singing a different tune. its not because les thinks its overblown. its because these things matter and the great coaches use it to get the most out of their teams.
I honestly think that whatever impact this may have on bama is more than offset by the impact that the constant media mantra of "the better team didn't win on 11/5" will have on LSU. I'd rather be in our shoes.
So if LSU wins the NC, we should expect to hear players say they were extra motivated by Barrett Jones to upset the order of college football? Nick is already telling his players that people think they don't belong there, he didn't need Blackwell to confirm that. Was it a smart thing for him to say? Not at all. And if this were a game against an overmatched opponent who needed some motivation to put up a fight they otherwise wouldn't, this would have a bigger impact. Will it mean the difference between Bama winning or losing the NC? Highly doubtful.
