Alabama football: Bowl practice limited to 15, right? Check again.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- The Friday two-a-day practices made it feel like August all over again for the Alabama football team.

Workouts Nos. 2 and 3 of the Capital One Bowl preparations came three weeks after the Crimson Tide’s last regular-season game. In all, the Tide has 13 practices and one walk-through scheduled before playing Michigan State on Jan. 1 in Orlando.

But is Alabama leaving practice time unused? What about the 15-practice rule?

As it turns out, there is no such limit restricting bowl teams to how many practices they can hold before a postseason game. Still, it is commonly quoted as fact in news reports from all branches of the media.

A search of the NCAA rule book turns up no mention of a practice limit, and NCAA spokeswoman Stacey Osburn confirmed the absence of a rule.

“I’m not sure where the media has gotten the number 15 either,” she wrote, “because it’s not accurate.”

There is a rule limiting spring practice to 15 dates.

Though there is no regulation for bowl preparation, natural barriers to training exist.

Schools generally take finals week away from practicing. For Alabama, that week was Dec. 6-10. After that, players got time off.

The same can’t be said for their coaches. Recruiting season reaches its peak soon after the regular season ends.

The NCAA rule book dictates the Sunday following the last Saturday in November opens the intense final push for the next crop of prospects before February’s signing day. Coaching staffs fan out across the country to knock on doors and make the final sell, leaving players on campus to do conditioning work.

When it is time to get back to the present, Alabama coach Nick Saban said, he likes to schedule between 12 and 14 practices before bowl games.

“I think it has something to do with how much time you’re off between games,” Saban said. “We’ve been off a little bit more than we were last year.”

The Tide will have gone 36 days between games on Jan. 1 -- three days longer than last season’s layoff between the SEC Championship Game and the BCS title game. The team went two weeks between beating Florida in Atlanta and resuming practice.

Alabama had 14 practices and a walk-through before beating Texas in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 7 to win the national title. In Auburn’s case, it will practice nine times before leaving for the BCS national championship game in Glendale, Ariz., which will be Jan. 10.

Michigan State will have 35 days to get its bowl practice completed, and it took a much different approach to its routine. Instead of taking a long break, it is dividing nine practices between Dec. 4 and its departure for Orlando. A Spartans spokesman did not know how many total practices are scheduled before kickoff.

But with bowl games starting earlier and earlier, some coaches are forced into limiting practices much more than those playing New Year’s Day or later.

Former USC coach Pete Carroll took heat last December when he used just 10 practices before playing in the Emerald Bowl. He told reporters that the final exam schedule and having just 21 days between the final regular-season game and the Dec. 26 meeting with Boston College forced his hand.

The biggest issue for Alabama and its three weeks without official practices was mental.

Considering how the regular season ended with the blown 24-point lead in the loss to Auburn, there idle time was spent thinking about what could have been.

There was also the issue of losing some of the conditioning edge that was built during the 13 weeks of the regular season. There was some huffing and puffing on the practice field for the first workout Thursday, Hightower said.

Getting back to the grind was a welcome change of pace for defensive end Marcell Dareus.

“Yeah, I don’t like to sit on my butt too long,” he said. “It’s fun to get back out there with your teammates. Everybody went home for a little break, and everybody had a little fun, but it’s more fun when you get back together.”

This story was originally published December 18, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Alabama football: Bowl practice limited to 15, right? Check again.."