The new college football trend is for a winning coach’s pregame, halftime or postgame speech to leak on social media after the victory.
Lane Kiffin and Kirby Smart had locker room rally cries go public after their teams won games.
After UCLA upset Oregon, Bruins coach Bob Chesney’s pregame speech in the tunnel before his team took the field leaked, too.
Pardon me if I don’t believe these “leaks” are random. I’m not saying every head coach is in on it, but I don’t buy that it’s just a total coincidence these moments are spilling outside of program walls and onto the interwebs after big victories.
The video and audio of these speeches serve as a marketing ploy for the program and the coach, making the coach out to be a motivational maestro on par
with Churchill himself.
Here’s my question: Why do we never see the pregame or halftime speeches leak from the losing locker room? Are we supposed to believe only the winning coach delivered a pregame motivational and the losing coach said bupkis before kickoff?
That can’t be right.
Someone please find the courage to leak the pregame speech Tavita Pritchard gave his Stanford team before Notre Dame stomped a hole in the Cardinal’s face in a 58-7 victory.
Now, that would be a speech I’d watch.
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Unfortunately, the leaks tend to only serve up the winning coach’s speech, so we're left to imagine what the losing coach must have said before the game.
In my imagination, it goes something like this:
* The scene begins with the Ball Coach screwing up his face so intensely that it can mean only one of two things: He either needs to find a toilet — and quickly — or he’s about to launch into a pregame speech that would have the "300" ready for battle. *
The coach begins: “Men, listen up! They’re laughing at you in that other locker room. You know why? Because, they think they have this game WON! Well, let me tell you something, men. We have something they don’t: BROTHERHOOD! They haven’t faced what we’ve faced! They don’t know our struggle. They don’t know the adversity we’ve overcome. They don’t know just. how. hard. we’ll. FIGHT. We’ll drag them into the pit of hell, and we’ll fight them to the death. And even after we’re dead, we’ll keep FIGHTING! They haven’t won NOTHING until we give it to them. Are we going to give it to them?!”
Team responds: “No!”
Coach continues: “I. Can’t. Hear. YOU!!! I said, are we going to give it to them?”
Team responds more loudly: “NOOOOO!!!!”
Coach: “That’s right, men, we’re not going to give it to them, and good luck to any poor sucker who tries to take it from us!"
* It is here where the coach unleashes a few profanities, with spittle flying, because if we’ve learned anything from these “leaks,” it’s that every pregame, halftime or postgame speech must include a dose of four-letter words. This is also the point where references to the media counting the team out appear. *
Coach: “Everyone outside these walls doubts you, but I believe in you, and your mother believes in you, and your country believes in you, and, you know what? You. Be-lieve. In. Each. OTHER!!!!”
Team: “Yeaaaaaaahhhh!!!”
* At this point, the coach says something about burning boats, even though there’s not a boat within a day’s march, because this is a football game, not the Battle of Julu. Anyway, let’s skip ahead. *
Coach: “Men, I’ll tell you once more, they’re laughing at you in that other locker room.”
* Dramatic pause. *
Coach: “They’re laughing at you now, but in three hours, we’ll be picking through their bones!”
Team: “AGGHHGHHGHHH!!!!! YEEEEEEEE-HAAAAA!!”
* The team storms out of the tunnel as if they’re about to lay siege to enemy walls. *
* The game begins, and despite the stirring pregame speech, the mighty opponent proves it was well within its right to laugh at this sad squad, whose quarterback nearly gets beheaded a few times in the face of a relentless pass rush. The only reprieve comes whenever the losing team’s punter boots the ball away, providing a small respite before the indefatigable opponent goes on the march again. By the fourth quarter, the opponent has cleared its bench, and walk-ons are running up the score. The game ends, and the scoreboard reads 70-0. *
* We now jump ahead to the losing team’s postgame locker room. *
Coach, with the wind sapped from his sails: “Welp, (sighs), we gave it our all, men, and our all just wasn’t quite enough. All right, hands in the bucket. ‘Team’ on three.”
* The losing coach’s pregame speech never leaks. It’s flicked into the dustbin of losing pregame speeches, but those who witnessed it say it was the most stirring oration anyone ever delivered en route to slaughter. *
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's senior national college football columnist. Listen to his podcast, "College Football Unfiltered." Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What does losing college football locker room sound like? Here's a possibility | Opinion
