SALON

Wednesday, Dec 5, 2012 8:15 PM UTC

For coaches, no sleep ’til BCS championship game

By

Topics: From the Wires,

For coaches, no sleep 'til BCS championship gameIn this photo provided by NASDAQ, University of Alabama head football coach Nick Saban, left, poses with Notre Dame head football coach Brian Kelly outside of the NASDAQ MarketSite in New York, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012. (AP Photo/NASDAQ, Zef Nikolla)(Credit: AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — Brian Kelly and Nick Saban expect many restless nights between now and the BCS championship game on Jan. 7.

Kelly and top-ranked Notre Dame play Saban and No. 2 Alabama in Miami. The coaches appeared together at a news conference on Wednesday at the Nasdaq stock exchange in Times Square.

“And in keeping with the venue where we are, you have two blue chip stocks that are going to go against each other,” Kelly said.

Asked what about their opponent will keep them up at night, Kelly and Saban both said there is plenty to worry about.

“Are you kidding me? Really?” Kelly said. “Everything about them.”

Saban’s response: “For me, I never sleep well, so Notre Dame is just the excuse now.”

The Fighting Irish will have 42 days between their last game against Southern California and the BCS title game against the Crimson Tide.

Alabama played in the Southeastern Conference title game on Dec. 1, so its break is a week shorter.

This is the third BCS championship appearance in four years for the Tide — Alabama won its previous two — so Saban obviously hasn’t had a problem finding a routine that works.

“Many people have asked me how you carry the momentum of winning the SEC championship game into the next game,” Saban said. “And I think the answer to that is, you can’t. You almost have to look at any bowl game, or any layoff like you have for this length of time, as the next game is sort of a one-game season.”

Both teams will go into training-camp mode this week. The players will lift weights and do conditioning and fundamentals drills.

“Right now we’re doing two weeks of offseason conditioning programs, which is always fun. Always popular with the guys,” Alabama center Barrett Jones said Tuesday, with more than a hint of sarcasm in his delivery.

Kelly said the worst thing a coach can do about the unusually long time between games is worry about it.

“First, I think it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy if you keep talking about the long layoff,” he said. “We don’t talk about that. We talk about what’s the next step here and the next stage, or it’s the national championship.”

“We think we’ve got a plan and we don’t concern ourselves with the length of that time.”

The plan is to keep the next few weeks as productive as possible.

“We try to work our way up to a routine,” Kelly said. “There’s that space there, weight training, conditioning, some fundamental work and then try to get back to that routine that they are all familiar with as we lead into the game.”

Aside from keeping the players occupied and in shape, Kelly and Saban are also facing the possibility that members of their staffs could land head coaching jobs over the next week or so.

Kelly’s defensive coordinator, Bob Diaco, was a candidate for the Boston College job that was filled Tuesday when the Eagles hired Steve Addazio away from Temple. Diaco recently won the Broyles Award as the nation’s top assistant coach.

There was speculation about Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart being a candidate for the Auburn job, but the Tigers hired Gus Malzahn.

As jobs are filled others open and there are still plenty of vacancies. There is still a possibility Notre Dame or Alabama — or both — could be dealing with this issue.

“I think those folks have every right to receive positive self-gratification professionally by taking advantage of some opportunity they have created for themselves by doing a good job,” Saban said, without talking about any specific assistant. “And I think it’s just a matter of professionalism where you can separate yourself for a day or two, not affect the performance of what you’re trying to do at your job, evaluate the circumstance.”

Last year, Alabama prepared for the national championship game with its offensive coordinator, Jim McElwain, interviewing and accepting the Colorado State head coaching job.

Alabama won that BCS title game 21-0 and Saban said McElwain, “put a great plan together” for the Tide.

And if there is staff turnover during the layoff, and a coach needs to be replaced, Kelly said there are plans in place to deal with it.

“We can’t predict it, but we know that we are prepared regardless of the circumstances, and if we were to lose somebody, we’ve got great coaches on board that are ready to step up,” he said.

___

Follow Ralph D. Russo at www.Twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP

More By Ralph D. Russo.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
FBI reportedly joins Bachmann campaign finance probe
189 points190 points | 7 comments
vote
Jon Karl makes things worse: He regrets “inaccurate” Benghazi email but says his story based on it “still entirely stands.” Really. ABC News?
160 points161 points | 26 comments
vote
Paul Krugman’s right: Austerity kills. "In an economy where we’re all in the same boat, one person’s spending is another person’s income. So when the government cuts spending, it reduces people’s income, leading to less business, more unemployment, and a vicious spiral of slowing down the economy."
118 points119 points | 55 comments
vote
“Jodorowsky’s Dune”: The sci-fi classic that never was.
68 points69 points | 15 comments
vote
Doug Henwood: Capitalism Thrives on Class Exploitation
44 points45 points | 4 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations