Not hearing a damn thing about STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING

[Tony (admin)]

Seems to me like the biggest factor in the “bad” seasons we’ve had last year and this year is injuries. I know coach has tried to implement different levels of contact in fall and different training techniques to keep the team fresh and injury free, but it seems that what we’ve done for the last 2 seasons didn’t work.

Shouldn’t our strength and conditioning take a large portion of the blame? Or is it just bad luck?

[Jim Vanderhoof]

Hard nosed physical football = more injuries. Not all players are built to play that style and are more prone to getting hurt. Strength and conditioning is a big part of avoiding injuries but they still happen.

[admiralute]

More than likely not a popular view, but perhaps the “we will be the most physical” approach is dinosaur. The most successful teams now are build on speed and finesse.

That doesn’t mean teams shouldn’t be physically, but your entire approach and identity shouldn’t be such, which has been Utah’s for the last several years. I’m curious to see the injury statistics with teams build on physicality vs. those build on speed and finesse.

I would like to see Scalley scrap the entire identity which Utah supposedly has, and bring in a new and innovative approach.

[AlohaUte]

I get what you are saying, but I disagree. I think it’s precisely our hard nosed, physical style of play that won us two P12 championships and was the key to our growth and success these last 20 years. The Utes physical play was often the great equalizer against teams with more talent.

[stbone]

I disagree with this at many levels.

First, the majority of championship teams are among the most physical in college football. For example, Michaigan, Georgia, and Alabama are among the most physical teams I can remember over the past couple of years. I think lack of physicality is one of the reasons why PAC12 teams (ORE) didn’t win the national championship as frequently as teams from other conferences.

Two, (short term) physicality in football keeps you safe. In football, you always want to be the hitter and not the hittee. Anecdotally, while the hitter sometimes gets injured, the hitter chooses when/how the hit occurs and is hurt less often than hittee. Also, physicality doesn’t just relate to big collisions, but rather it relates to all aspects of the games. (e.g., looking for contact vs. avoiding contact; finishing tackles/blocks, etc). In every one of those instances, you are more likely to be injured if you are the recipient of the violence instead of the deliverer of the violence. All this is to say, football is violent, your best chance of getting off the field safely is by being the most violent and physical team on the field.

Three (long term) physicality may lead to injuries, but a college career is too short (in my opinion) for the that to become a dominant issue. Also, many of our current injuries don’t seem to be tied to physicality (e.g., Kenan Johnson and Cam).

[Jim Vanderhoof]

I agree with physicality if you have the size. There is a fine line between bulking up to be physical and losing mobility. OLine and Dline has to be physical. I’d take speed and agility over bulk and physical in the linebackers and safeties. Watch Lander make a tackle in space or overrun a play. He is muscle bound and unable to move laterally. Lloyd had lateral quickness to go with speed.

[jshame17]

Like the rest of our coaches, the core of the strength & training has been around for decades.

I am not aware of what continuous training and certification updates they are required to get, but I know their approach is “old school.”

I know a couple former players that have attributed some of their injuries to improper recovery and being told to squat heavy after tweaking hamstrings in earlier in practice, for example.

I do know that training needs to adapt to the athlete and given they are much more explosive and bigger than they have been in the past, I hope that team training is evolving to match the current game.

Also, I have no clue if the standard strength coaches over see rehab, or if that falls on other personnel. That’s the big question for me and I have never been able to find an answer to that.

[Kellso]

It’s a legitimate question. There has to be some connection to conditioning vs injuries. I would also like to see the players on natural grass in both practices and games.

[RoboUte]

I posted essentially this same comment on the earlier version of this thread but we can’t accept elevated injury rates. It’s more than a killer for your team’s season it affects real people for the rest of their lives, it’s an issue bigger than football. Unlike most of the issues with the team it’s flat out unethical to do nothing about it. The turf, equipment (s**t UA shoes), and training protocol all need a complete rebuild yesterday.

[RustyShackleford]

It’s gotten to the point where there is something going on. No way bad luck or chance is to blame at this point.

[TruckStopTerrors]

I don’t have the expertise to answer your question, Tony. I will say that somebody brought up a very interesting point. Why is Lander seemingly less explosive athletically? Why does it seem he’s a step slower? Is it because of the injury? Or could it be they bulked him up too much? I really wonder on this. Are we changing players bodies so much physically that we are sacrificing some of their athleticism and speed in the process?

[stbone]

My experience is that if you are training right, the bulk adds speed and athleticism. I can’t imagine they aren’t being trained right.

If I had to guess, a foot injury probably cost him his entire off season of lower body training. On top of that, he probably continued his upper body training. (Not being able to train lower body could give rise to added bulk without added speed/explosiveness). I’d guess his lower body strength and explosiveness just hasn’t recovered to where it was last year.

[TruckStopTerrors]

That’s a very good point.

[2008 National Champ]

The speculation on Lander’s injury was Lisfranc. I don’t know if it was ever confirmed but for the sake of argument, I’ll assume that is true. Those little bones in your feet are so important to your mobility, speed and leg strength. I just don’t know how you get that back.

Maybe it’s an injury that will get better as time elapses? I guess that’s the hope. Perhaps he is doing what he can for now because playing won’t make it worse and we should have been looking for incremental improvement instead of expecting to see the 2023 version off the bat. He looked better on Saturday but that could be as much about Reid returning.

[Charlie Foxtrot]

Injuries to your feet and the resulting instability are hard to overcome for non athletes let alone football players. I popped my cuboid bone out of place and the amount of physical therapy, including bi-weekly treatments and taping was several months long. All that did was just keep it in place and make my foot stable again. I had to completely change what I was wearing for shoes and add additional support with orthotics to just continue to keep everything in place and stop the injury from occurring again.

The worst part is I don’t even know what I did to injure it in the first place? All I know now is that I can’t wear a pair of shoes that cost less than $150, lol.

[EagleMountainUte]

Harding injuries at QB.

Yeah we want to call them freak injuries. But if you come to Utah you get a few season ending injuries along the way.

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