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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 9 Notre Dame has almost all hands on deck along its two deep. Most notably, sophomore wide receiver