‘Nobody cares about your feelings’: Bulldogs’ mantra for the season

“I’m not even sure if I’m supposed to really share this, but just our biggest thing lately has been, ‘Nobody cares about your feelings,’” Van Pran said. “At the end of the day, whether you’re hurt, you are tired from class, nobody really cares. At the end of the day, you’re expected to do your job, and that’s just what it is.”

Harsh, but probably correct and ultimately a winning phrase from the Bulldogs, who jumped to No. 1 in the AP Top 25 poll after moving to 2-0 with a 33-0 win against Samford on Saturday. Sometimes the phrase is truncated to a simple “Nobody cares.”

The phrase turned up on one of the team’s workout shirts, junior offensive lineman Warren McClendon said, applying that mentality to the Bulldogs beginning SEC play as the defending national champions. That’s old news to opponents.

“South Carolina, they don’t care that we won the national championship last year,” McClendon said. “They’re just worried about this game Saturday. And so just putting that behind us, even though that was a big thing.”

The different sayings usually stem from that year’s group of players, Smart said.

“The messaging comes from them,” Smart said. “And you create an identity about what you believe in. And we’ve had a pretty good identity around here for a long time about being really physical. And the message might be tweaked game to game, year to year. But we hope the results and the process is the same. Because we don’t really change the approach based on who we play, based on scoreboard, based on anything. So the focus is on us. And that doesn’t change.”

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