[Update]: The Process at Bama is playing to a standard from not allowing Freshmen...

[jbcarol]

Plaxico Burress was shooting from the hip.

"I was at Michigan State when Plaxico Burress was a freshman," Saban said. "We're going to play Michigan at Michigan, which is the biggest game of the year. I let freshmen talk to the media, and he said going down there will be like taking candy from a baby.

"He just about got killed. They tried to kill him for 60 minutes, and we didn't win the game."

[NoNC4Tubs]

Plaxico Burress was shooting from the hip.

His policy seems to work for them. 

[jbcarol]

"It means everything," said senior center Barrett Jones, who has turned into Alabama's unofficial spokesman. "The Process means not focusing on the results and focusing on how you get there. ... What this whole program is built on is if you worry about doing the little things right, the big things will take care of themselves. That's what The Process is. It's playing to a standard."

Alabama is one of eight clients of a boutique consulting firm staffed by former NFL executives. For a fee, Cornerstone Sports Consulting of Leesburg, Va., will come into your program and give you an NFL agent car wash.

Tide players learn how to select agents, how to interview them, how to evaluate them. At Alabama that does three things -- a) sells players and recruits that Alabama can get prospects to the NFL better and sooner than anyone; b) stiff-arms runners from infiltrating the program and; c) asks the tough questions.

A reminder, there, for everyone that Saban does pay attention to every detail -- or hires someone who does. The Process has taken on almost a mystical quality.

Six of Cornerstone's eight clients are from the SEC, including Auburn and Alabama. (LSU, Arkansas, Georgia, Washington, Kentucky and Oklahoma are the others.) Cornerstone will come to your school and basically reduce the liability of your program being undercut by unscrupulous agents.

"People still break the rules," Mula said.