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��� News & notes By Lou Somogyi working on strength and conditioning, and finally getting back into a gradual football rhythm with hitting, timing and execution. The Fighting Irish held practices on Dec.�� 7, 8, 11, 14, 16, 18, 20 and 21 before heading off for Christmas break, reconvening on the Notre Dame campus Dec.�� 27 and then engaging in intense game preparation from Dec.��28-31. ���For us, it has been a long layoff, but one that we think we have properly put the pieces together,��� Kelly said. ������ If we did all the work that we���re doing [now] in the first week of December and the second week of December, I don���t believe it would have had the same effect. We���ve kept timing and we���ve kept conditioning as the focal point, as well as incorporating every player on the roster in the first three weeks.��� Since early December, the plan of attack all along was not to peak too early in the preparation and intensity for the Jan.��7 game. ���We���ve coached them in a sense that we���re waiting to crank it up,��� Kelly said after the Dec. 29 practice, his final session with the media prior to arriving in Miami Jan.��2. ���Every day hasn���t been [taking] a baseball bat to them. We���ve kind of paced ourselves; we���ve coached them; we���ve taught them; we���ve made sure we���ve hit the areas that need to be hit in terms of tackling and timing and conditioning. ���We have to build up as well. If it���s game day right now, we���re not going to be where we need to be. It���s getting a sense and a feel from the coaches and myself that we lead them up to that crescendo as well.��� Business Only Travelers The Jan. 7 BCS Discover National Championship Game will be Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly���s sixth bowl since becoming a Division I head coach in 2004. He has a 3-2 ledger in the postseason (1-1 at Notre Dame), but did not participate in 2009 after leading Cincinnati to a 12-0 regular season. That season he stepped down from his Bearcats post in December to become the head coach at Notre Dame. (Sans Kelly, Cincinnati ended up getting whipped 51-24 by Florida in the Sugar Bowl.) Now that he���s 12-0 again, he���s not going to let anything get in his way. Kelly doesn���t view the Jan. 7 showdown with Alabama as just another bowl venture. It is the ultimate business trip, one that requires attention to detail, discipline and dedication unlike anything else. ���I���ve always felt like in bowl games, you let your guys go down and the first night or two, you kind of let them get out and have a little fun and kind of reward them for the bowl game,��� he said. ���Maybe I had a 2 a.m. curfew or something like that. ���We���re 11 o���clock [in Miami]. This is not a bowl game. We���re playing for a national championship. We���re there on a business trip, and that���s kind of how we���ve approached it.��� Notre Dame arrived in Miami on the afternoon of Jan. 2, and was scheduled to practice from Jan. 3-5 the way it did in regular three-day preparations from Tuesday through Thursday during the regular season, with Friday a walk-through. This time, Jan. 6 will be the walk-through the day before the Monday night game. Since ending the regular-season finale with a 22-13 victory at USC Nov. 24, the emphasis has been on first recovering from the grind of the long season, then Injury Report Head coach Brian Kelly, who boasts a 3-2 record in bowl games (1-1 at Notre Dame), and his team arrived in Miami Jan. 2 with their sights set on winning the national championship. photo by joe raymond ��� Page 8 Notre Dame has almost all hands on deck along its two deep. Most notably, sophomore wide receiver