Sullivan: 'Bulletin-board material' overrated

Mark Stoops went from zero to "furious" as if his temper were Top Fuel drag racing. He blew past "irked" and "annoyed" and "miffed" and "steamed" the way Jojo Kemp might so many tackling dummies, before finally coming to rest at "outraged."

The University of Kentucky's head football coach reacted to Kemp's playful prediction of victory Saturday at Florida much as baking soda reacts to vinegar: explosively. He interpreted the running back's statement — "It's going to be fun walking out with a victory and rubbing it in their faces" — as a dangerous breach of decorum and potential bulletin-board material.

Football coaches tend to agonize about that sort of thing and, simultaneously, to study opponents' statements for rhetorical fuel. Less than 24 hours after Kemp had talked out of turn following UK's Tuesday practice, the Florida native's image and most incendiary sentence had been turned into a poster that already was on display in the Gators' dressing room.

How much any of that might affect Saturday night's game in Gainesville is probably none. Florida has won 27 straight games against Kentucky, is favored this time by between 17 and 18½ points and needs another motivational chip on its shoulder pads the way Adam Levine needs another tattoo.

Loose lips might sink ships, but if there is evidence of the effect of pregame trash talk on football games, it is mostly anecdotal and likely exaggerated. For every victorious team that crows about the disrespect it had been shown by a vanquished opponent, there is a vanquished opponent feeling disrespect from the victorious team. Though coaches are quick to seize on perceived slights (and have been known to fabricate them in a pinch), few players are capable of changing a game with their mouths.

"If you asked me 25 years ago, a bulletin-board thing might move the point spread two or three points in some cases because it was so rare," Las Vegas oddsmaker Jimmy Vaccaro said Wednesday. "Now everybody's doing it. ...

"Those things are so overblown anymore. With all of the social media, if you try to follow all those things, it will make your head spin."

Vaccaro, who sets odds for the South Point Casino sports book, cited Notre Dame's 31-0 victory over Michigan last week as an example of the dubious value of extra incentive. Two days before the last game of a series Notre Dame had unilaterally ended, ostensibly for scheduling reasons, the Fighting Irish announced a home-and-home with Michigan's fiercest rival, Ohio State.

If the Wolverines were offended by this apparent snub, their pursuit of payback was pathetic. Moreover, if disparaging opponents is inherently counterproductive, it hasn't prevented Steve Spurrier from repeatedly tweaking rivals and winning a national championship at Florida.

Stoops said Wednesday that "it's not very smart to challenge (an opponent's) pride before you play them," but that conclusion runs contrary to the perceived benefit of getting in an opponent's head to distract him from the task at hand. Neither does it appear to be supported by empirical data.

In 2008, Ph.D candidate Oliver Conmy submitted a trash-talk dissertation at Florida State based on a controlled experiment involving football video games. Contrary to his expectations, Conmy found no discernible difference in scoring, rushing or passing success when players were permitted to trash-talk versus when they were required to compete in silence.

"It makes news when a team wins with the bulletin-board material," Vaccaro said, "but you don't hear about the next eight teams that lost with bulletin-board material."

Just as history is written by the victors — an axiom usually attributed to Winston Churchill — winning teams tend to dominate the narrative of our games. Typically, those games are determined by better talent, but the winners are often credited with superior strategy, stronger character, greater effort or extra incentive.

Though these attributes are often overstated, it is generally wise to wait until the deed is done before declaring victory. Pregame bragging might not affect the outcome, but it can backfire if you can't back it up.

"Kentucky better get good," Vaccaro warned, "before they start spouting off."

Tim Sullivan can be reached at (502) 582-4650, by email at tsullivan@courier-journal.com, and on Twitter @TimSullivan714