Alabama taking it easy before preparing for bowl game

TUSCALOOSA | For the University of Alabama football team, it was a long week after the Nov. 24 defeat to Auburn. Naturally, the emotions arced from denial that the Crimson Tide lost its sixth straight meeting against its bitter rival, anger that the 6-2 season slipped away and turned into a .500 year, and confusion about how and why it all happened.

Although some of that is still ongoing, the end result has been acceptance of the fact that the season actually isn’t over yet, with Alabama set for a return trip to the Independence Bowl to face Colorado on Dec. 30.

“I don’t know if Shreveport is excited about us and we are about them,” senior linebacker Darren Mustin said. “I’m surprised we got a bowl bid. I thank God we got a bowl bid. I haven’t spent Christmas at home in a while and I really wasn’t looking forward to it.

“I never thought Shreveport again.”

A bowl bid means a number of things to a college football team, and for a variety of reasons.

It’s:

A one game season;

A second chance;

A springboard into next season for those returning.

“Bowl practices are a blessing in disguise for the people who are going to play next year, not just for the gifts and the opportunity to play another football game,” senior linebacker Darren Mustin said.

“[Last year] helped us work on little things for everybody. If you’re on scout team the whole year, you’re used to running and free-lancing. Once bowl practice comes around, you have to practice like you’re actually playing and coaches really get on you. ‘Quit free-lancing. You have to do this, this, this, this and this.’ It really helps.”

Saban’s predecessor, Mike Shula, would also use bowl practices to give players a look at different positions, or if the coaching staff had already decided a move was imminent give that player a head start.

For example, two years ago was when sophomore Baron Huber went from being a linebacker to a full-time fullback.

Of course, the tricky part is weighing something like that against the desire to finish strong this year, and the depth chart usually plays an important part. For example (and to speculate), if freshman Rolando McClain is going to be an outside linebacker, do you make the move now or later? Would it be a better idea to give junior Jimmy Johns a look at linebacker in December, when he hasn’t had a chance to really train for it the right way, or make sure there are enough running backs against the Buffaloes?

“There are a lot of positives and I don’t know of any negatives,” Coach Nick Saban said about accepting a bowl bid. “It’s never a positive if you don’t win, but that’s the challenge of what we have to do against a very good opponent which played well at the end of the season.”

But there are other factors that weigh in to this time of year as well, including finals and academics, with the always the looming threat of players not getting the necessary grades. Simultaneously, senior defensive end Wallace Gilberry is set to graduate Saturday before beginning preparation for an all-star game, the NFL Combine and the NFL Draft

Meanwhile, coaches are on the road recruiting, with official visits during weekends that can make a huge difference in the next signing class. Many players help with that as well, and there’s also the holidays.

Saban’s approach has been to give players a break, but not from conditioning and the weight room with some seven-on-seven drills on the side, and let them also concentrate on academics. He also learned from his years at Michigan State, where his Spartans went 0-3 in bowl games, that working a team too hard this time of the year usually results in a tired team come kickoff.

“There are two kinds of rust, mental and physical,” he said. “The thing is if you practice too much, then you wear on them mentally. Because at this point of a season, after 12 games, players are not used to practicing 14 practices for a game.

He later added: “You can’t carry the momentum of a season, positive of negative, into a bowl. There’s just too much time.”

Alabama is set to start return to the field Sunday, Dec. 16, and take a couple of days off for the holidays prior to leaving for Shreveport on Christmas morning. Game installation will begin a couple of practices before departure to offset some of the distractions once at the bowl site.

“We have some practices that are dedicated to what I could call camp-type practices, and in those practices everybody gets reps and everyone gets to develop,” Saban said. “You have install-type days in which you emphasize certain things.”

So the coming days and weeks will provide different opportunities to different players, but the bottom line is that the bowl preparation sure beats the alternative.

“Definitely honored, definitely pleased to be going back to Shreveport,” Gilberry said. “We had a pretty good time last year with a different staff and a different group of guys. We’re looking to have an even better time this year.”

But at the same time wasn’t there the thought, “Not Shreveport again” when pairings were announced?

“You sometimes think that, but at the same time you have to be grateful for any opportunity,” the outgoing senior said.

Reach Christopher Walsh at christopher.walsh@tuscaloosanews.com or at 205-722-0196.