[Papa John]

Forty years ago, a Stanford footballer told me that one of the keys to playing well on Saturday was to get a good night's sleep at home on Thursday. His logic was that it's not too hard to function on one night of poor sleep, but it's a different story with two consecutive nights of poor sleep. And this applied to both home and road games, because the team was staying at (I think) Hyatt Rickey's before home games, but adrenalin made it difficult to sleep anywhere the night before a game.

I have no idea if that philosophy is medically sound, but it looks like Shaw is willing to give it a try.

Also, flying commercial from SFO/SJC to DFW--just under 4 hours non-stop--is a heck of a lot easier than travelling from SFO/SJC to MHK--between 6 and 7 hours with a layover in Dallas. So the players get a good night's sleep in their home beds on Thursday with a reasonable 7 am wakeup call on Friday, board a late-morning flight and arrive into Dallas in the late afternoon. Check in to the hotel, eat dinner, do your walk-throughs and turn in for the night and set the alarm for a 6 am (4 am body-clock time) wakeup on Saturday. I guess that works?

[Papa John]

Forty years ago, a Stanford footballer told me that one of the keys to playing well on Saturday was to get a good night's sleep at home on Thursday. His logic was that it's not too hard to function on one night of poor sleep, but it's a different story with two consecutive nights of poor sleep. And this applied to both home and road games, because the team was staying at (I think) Hyatt Rickey's before home games, but adrenalin made it difficult to sleep anywhere the night before a game.

I have no idea if that philosophy is medically sound, but it looks like Shaw is willing to give it a try.

Also, flying commercial from SFO/SJC to DFW--just under 4 hours non-stop--is a heck of a lot easier than travelling from SFO/SJC to MHK--between 6 and 7 hours with a layover in Dallas. So the players get a good night's sleep in their home beds on Thursday with a reasonable 7 am wakeup call on Friday, board a late-morning flight and arrive into Dallas in the late afternoon. Check in to the hotel, eat dinner, do your walk-throughs and turn in for the night and set the alarm for a 6 am (4 am body-clock time) wakeup on Saturday. I guess that works?