The more academic way of putting it is that intrinsic motivation should be enough and often is enough. However, the "hoopla' we call the build-up to the national championship - the race or hunt or whatever, begins to pound an extrinsic motivation into these players, and when it's removed, something is lost.
The coach's challenge is to prevent 70 college age kids from buying in to the extrinsic motivations, which is hard to do. The cameras, interviews, talented ladies, trophies, awards, etc......replace that intrinsic motivation, and having all your players block it out is probably impossible, so you try your best to not have your 20-30 best players not buy into it all.
This is perfectly obvious, guys.