Disaster: Alabama Boss gets slammed by former player “as the worse coach he has…

I want to ask you about self-scouting and tendency-breaking stuff that you do as a staff normally during an idle week. Is that an exercise that gets repeated, to some extent, at this time of the year, ahead of a bowl or playoff game?

There’s no question about it. We do quality control just about every week on what our tendencies are in what we’re doing. What we can do to try to break those in some way, shape or form. And certainly with this extra time here that’s something that we most certainly are trying to do.

Could you just speak to the decision to bring in George Helow and what kind of role he’ll fill on your staff?

George has been here before. He was with us for a long time. Knows our system. I think every year that we’ve been in the playoffs we’ve tried to bring somebody in, primarily because we spent two weeks really on the road recruiting. So somebody to do a little extra work that has good experience. And when we get off the road, being able to give us a good scouting report of what we need to know. So that’s the purpose, just to add sort of a special assistant to me, whatever you want to call it to when I come off the road be able to get me up to speed on what’s happening. So that’s the reason we’ve always done that.

Given everything that’s come out about Michigan this season, are you planning on doing something different with your signs in this game?

Uh, not really. We always change things up a little bit. We’re focused on what we have to do to try to get good execution and we’re not really concerned about any of that stuff.

How has Jase McClellan progressed since the SEC Championship game?

He’s getting better. I think it’s probably still too early to tell. He’s getting ready to do dry-land running and some things. He’ll progress through the rest of the week and we’ll see where he lands by the end of the week.

Is the plan with Helow to ultimately replace Coleman Hutzler? Is that on the table? Or was he brought in just for this?

Look, we’re not concerned about any of that stuff right now. We got a game coming up. Coleman Hutzler is here, he’s finishing the season. I don’t have time right now to go through the due diligence of hiring anybody or even be concerned about that. We’re focused on what we have to do right now.

Can you speak to your relationship with Jim Harbaugh and the connection with Tom Crean and meeting in New Orleans several years ago?

Tom Crean was an assistant basketball coach for Tom Izzo when I was back at Michigan State. He’s a good man, good friend. It’s a great family, the Harbaugh family. I knew the dad. He used to help me when I was a secondary coach. His brother John are great football people. I’ve got a lot of respect for the entire family, and Tom Crean is part of that family.

Has Kool-Aid progressed through the concussion protocol? Is he back?

Yeah. He is. He’s doing fine.

When you get into preparing for Michigan, they’ve shown a trick play or two almost every week offensively. How do those wrinkles influence what you do defensively from a preparation standpoint?

I think they do a really good job on offense of week-to-week they’ve got a pretty good plan formationally, in terms of their ability to go out and give you some different looks. It’s a challenge for the players to have the discipline and the eye control to look at the right things so that, when those kind of plays come up, you’re in position to play them. I don’t think that they do it any more than anybody else that we play. I just think it’s a good part of your offense to be able to have those things that complement some of the things you do, down in and down out.

Last time we talked to you, you said you’d hold an office hours for some of your players if they wanted to talk about their futures. How did those conversations go?

I did talk to all the players after the Georgia game. But what I talk to players about is really not for public consumption. I mean, there’s some things that I think are still sacred on a team. If you want to talk to a guy about his future, that should be sacred. If he wants to share his feelings with you, I think you should ask him.