1. Importance of pre-game talk. Everyone ranting about how badly Pearl out coached Pope yesterday because his pre-game speech was more 'firey and emotional'. I say baloney. Pre-game speeches are pretty meaningless in outcome of games. Whatever emotion is built up by a pre-game speech wears off after about 1 minute or less of game action, then it gets down to preparation, effort, and execution. Now, I'm not saying Pearl didn't do a good job of preparing his team yesterday, but the pre-game speech wasn't the difference. I'm sure Pearl said, now about 3 minutes into the game, we're going to bank in a couple three's. And, I'm sure he didn't say now today, we'll just let Miles hit 9 threes, Johni you just take the day off; we're not going to need you. Yes, UK's energy seemed a bit off yesterday, but it wasn't due to Pope's pre-game speech.
2. Yelling and screaming at officials and players indicates toughness. Yes, there are times that the coach needs to show some emotion. But, yelling, stomping, screaming doesn't indicate toughness. Sitting a guy's ass on the bench when he isn't working hard enough is toughness. Yelling and screaming at him, but leaving him in the game doesn't do crap! The way practices are fun indicates toughness. I think Pope has plenty of toughness, he just doesn't act like a damned idiot on the sidelines.
Bottom line in yesterday's game; Auburn has some dudes and they played well, and they got some breaks. Cats played poorly; seemed Auburn took advantage of every mistake. Sometimes it just goes that way.
2. Yelling and screaming at officials and players indicates toughness. Yes, there are times that the coach needs to show some emotion. But, yelling, stomping, screaming doesn't indicate toughness. Sitting a guy's ass on the bench when he isn't working hard enough is toughness. Yelling and screaming at him, but leaving him in the game doesn't do crap! The way practices are fun indicates toughness. I think Pope has plenty of toughness, he just doesn't act like a damned idiot on the sidelines.
Bottom line in yesterday's game; Auburn has some dudes and they played well, and they got some breaks. Cats played poorly; seemed Auburn took advantage of every mistake. Sometimes it just goes that way.
