The football team returned to the practice fields for the first time to begin preparations for the Discover BCS National Championship game. The Crimson Tide stuck to the basics in shells for a two hour practice on Tuesday. “It was a good first day back and good to get started again,” said Alabama head coach Nick Saban. “The focus has been on fundamentals, conditioning and basic things that we need to do to try to play good football. When we’ve had a couple weeks off, we want to go back and almost reinstall the basics of what we need to do. This is a really important time, these five practices before Christmas, to get those basic fundamentals down.”