There’s an unwritten rule in the coaching profession that basically says this: “You don’t give aid to the opponents of your conference rivals.” 

In other words, even if Coach X and Coach Y are conference rivals, Coach X doesn’t help Coach Y’s opponent with gameplan information.

Someone needs to tell that to Utah’s Kyle Whittingham.  Whittingham was an assistant under Urban Meyer before rising to replace his buddy when Meyer skedaddled to Gainesville.

Now Whittingham and Utah will be facing off with Alabama in the Sugar Bowl… a team Florida just beat in the SEC Championship Game. 

And Whittingham is talking all about the help he’s gonna get from his old buddy, Urban.

“We talk at least weekly throughout the course of the season, and it will be a situation where the familiarity they have with Alabama will obviously work to our favor, we hope.  It will give us a head start on our game-planning and what we plan on doing.  We share ideas all the time, so that’s not new to us.”

Maybe so.  And maybe this type stuff goes on everywhere.  But Whittingham doesn’t need to be talking about it. 

How do you think Saban feels about his conference mate giving gameplan info to his competition?  Might he return the favor with a phone call to Bob Stoops?

My guess is that Meyer will downplay all of this, aid his friend in silence, and hope no one spends much time on this story. 

But I’ll also guess that Saban, whether he says so publicly or not, won’t appreciate any of this.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 at 1:16 pm and is filed under Alabama, Homepage . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.