Business as usual for Tide during rivalry week

October 21, 2008

By Ken Rogers

Rocky Top isn’t blaring. There are no orange jerseys on the scout team. No crowd noise is being piped in.
It’s Tennessee week in Tuscaloosa, but it sure looks a lot like any other week at the University of Alabama.
That’s no accident. Nick Saban’s business-as-usual approach is designed to eliminate distractions, not create them.
So tight end Nick Walker was asked if it seemed like Tennessee week.
“We don’t really do that. We do the same thing every week. It’s gonna be the exact same thing every week,“ said Walker, who never mentioned Saban’s name, but didn’t have to. “He don’t care nothin’ about none of that. Only thing he cares about is playing winning football. We’re gonna go up there, do like we did for the rest of the opponents we played this year. We’re going to practice hard and go up there and play hard.“
A reported noted he was drinking orange Gatorade. Walker, the senior from Brundidge, laughed.
“I didn’t even think about that,“ he said.
Linebacker Cory Reamer said that keeps things much more even than in years past.
“Actually, this year we’ve done a great job of having great intensity every week no matter who we’re playing. This is just another week,“ Reamer said.
But is it really just another week? Reamer admitted everyone knows who the Crimson Tide is playing.
“You can tell that it is Tennessee week,“ Reamer acknowledged. “Everybody’s a little fired up.“