Shula back in ’Bama for Senior Bowl

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January 20

The Associated Press

FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Mike Shula was working with quarterback John Parker Wilson again Monday, putting him through passing drills and giving him both instruction and a little grief.

Just like old times.

The former Alabama coach is part of the Jacksonville Jaguars staff that is leading the South team for the Senior Bowl, and the job includes tutoring his former recruit. The grief is for fun.

“I can tease him a little bit better than I can the other quarterbacks, and he can take it,” Shula said after practice in a rare visit with reporters. “He understands me.”

Wilson finished up as the Crimson Tide’s all-time leading passer. Shula is the former Tide quarterback who led his alma mater’s program for four years before getting fired in December 2007.

Shula repeatedly said he has “moved on” from that difficult end to his first head coaching job. He’s still getting a weeklong walk down memory lane with four of his former players manning the South team — Wilson, center Antoine Caldwell, tight end Travis McCall and safety Rashad Johnson.

“I saw him in the lobby and it was like yesterday that I saw him,” said Wilson, who had spoken with Shula a few times since the coach’s firing. “He hadn’t changed at all. He’s still the great guy that recruited me. Talking to him, it was like no time had passed.”

Shula was surrounded by cameras and tape recorders on his return to the state where he once held the most high-profile coaching job and for a change drew far more media attention than his boss, Jaguars and South head coach Jack Del Rio. He has kept a low public profile since.

“We’ve got that on tape so we can have fun with it,” Del Rio said of the scene.