The word of the day for Nick Saban’s Monday press conference? Reinvest.

After a daunting regular season and tense path to the College Football Playoff, it was time for Alabama to take stock of itself: its goals, its success and its mistakes. The idea was to return not only motivated for Rose Bowl practices but refreshed mentally and physically.

“Everybody’s got to kind of reinvest into conditioning, reinvest into fundamental techniques, discipline to execute, blocking, tackling. It will all translate into positive performance in the game,” said Saban.

It’s seemed to work through No. 4 Alabama’s opening practices. Saban said players have built off the “good work” it used between studying for finals and coming together for player-led workouts and practices. The Tide held its first team practice on Saturday, Dec. 16 and will have four more practices, including Tuesday, before leaving for Pasadena, Calif., after Christmas.

More than 750 miles north in Ann Arbor, Mich., Jim Harbaugh and the No. 1 Wolverines are following suit. Players told MLive that coaches are trying to reduce “full-blown contact,” a pivot from prior years. As far as injured players returning, Michigan is hoping to return Will Johnson to its secondary while Alabama is still awaiting the status of running back Jase McClellan.

“Toward this part of the season, a lot of guys’ bodies start breaking down. A lot of people start getting sore, banged up, stuff like that, just from the constant pounding and stuff like that, just from games and practice and stuff like that. So you just gotta keep everybody’s head steady,” outside linebacker Dallas Turner said.

“We’ve taken some pages out of other people’s books. A lot more mental work, a lot less physical. So when we are going physical, you expect everybody to be 100 percent,” UM linebacker Junior Colson said.”

The Rose Bowl is set for Jan. 1, 30 days from when Alabama and Michigan teams last played against Georgia and Iowa, respectively. This will be Michigan’s third year reaching the playoffs. It’s never advanced to the championship, losing to Georga and TCU. Comparatively, this will be Alabama’s 14th CFP game (9-4). Aside from Ohio State in 2015, the first year of the format, Alabama has never been a team’s first playoff victory.

Nick Alvarez is a reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @nick_a_alvarez or email him at [email protected].