On Thursday, Mark Pope hinted that he was trying "crazy stuff" in practice to fix the softness we saw against Vanderbilt. He sounded like a mad scientist trying to find a cure for a disease that was killing his season.
On Saturday night in Fayetteville, we saw the results of the experiment. And it turns out, the cure worked.
But in his postgame comments, Pope admitted something fascinating about this specific roster, something that might just define the rest of the season.
"I have never had a team that needed the kinds of things this team needs," Pope told Tom Leach.
Read that again.
He isn't saying they just needed a harder practice. He is admitting that this group requires a completely different psychological and physical approach than any team he has ever coached. He had to go outside his own comfort zone to get them to respond.
Was Arkansas or Vandy an anomaly?
The biggest fear heading into Saturday was that the "soft" performance against Vanderbilt was who this team actually is. Pope challenged his locker room to answer that specific question.
By treating the practice week differently, by instilling force into the daily routine, Pope proved that the Vanderbilt loss can be an "anomaly" and not a "trend". But only if they keep taking the medicine.
The new standard
The danger now is complacency. Pope found the button. He found the specific "crazy stuff" that turns this roster from a finesse team into a fighting team.
The question is no longer "Can they be tough?" We saw them brawl with Arkansas. We saw them survive a referee disaster. We know they can be tough.
The question now is: Will Mark Pope keep his foot on the gas?
He admitted this team "needs" things his other teams didn't. That means the "crazy" practices can't be a one-week punishment. They have to be the new lifestyle.
Pope found the blueprint in Fayetteville. Now he has to make sure he doesn't lose it before Oklahoma comes to town.