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Prep school: Mike Holmgren offers SOPs to cope with the preparation minefield that is the Super Bowl.(Super Bowl Preview)(Interview)
The preparation schedule for the biggest game of the year is unlike the schedule routine of any other, and the path leading to the Super Bowl is filled with land mines. One coach who knows how to avoid those mines is Seattle's Mike Holmgren. The head coach of two Packers teams that played in the Super Bowl and an assistant on two 49ers Super Bowl teams, Holmgren shared some of his thoughts on game preparation with senior writer Dan Pompei.
DP: Once you have won your conference championship game, do you continue to do the things you have done in practice or do you change your approach, given the two weeks and the length of the season?
MH: What you try to do is take something that is extraordinary and make it as much like a regular game as possible. Before we left for the Super Bowl city, it was pretty much business as usual in the week you were at home. That first week of practice was very much like we had to play the Super Bowl the following Sunday. Once you get down to the Super Bowl city, there are distractions and your schedule changes a little bit. Our practices weren't quite as long the second week. We were a little more specific in situational defense and offense the second week. But the bulk of your preparation was done while you were at home.
DP: Is there a danger of leaving it all on the practice field?
MH: You have to talk about that. It was my experience that most of the guys were ready to play the game on Thursday of that second week. They are so conditioned during the season to a particular timetable, and coaches and athletes are creatures of habits. So you have to coach to that and make sure you do not peak too early and that you're ready to play the best football you can on Sunday. In Super Bowls over the years, there have been some great ones and some when the teams did not play like they did in the championship game, for example. I think that's one of the reasons why--the time clock for the player and the coach gets a little goofed up.
DP: So what do you do to offset that?
MH: You have to pace it a little differently. You don't relax that second week, but you change it up so it wasn't the same old, same old.
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