I guess Savage is turning them into muscle bound supermen

GatorJ

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An interesting article about strength coaches, with some quotes from Savage and Polite: How strength coaches run modern college football

For those who don’t want to hunt for it:

Partly for the same reason, Ohio State stayed internal, tapping offensive coordinator Ryan Day to replace the retiring Urban Meyer in December. Buckeyes AD Gene Smith calculated that hiring from within would increase the likelihood that strength coach Mickey Marotti, who has worked for Meyer at Florida and Ohio State, would stay in Columbus.

But hiring the wrong strength coach can damage a program: When Jim McElwain coached at Florida, between 2015 and ’17, some players paid out of their own pockets to work with gold medal Olympic sprinter Tim Montgomery, who runs a speed training program in Gainesville, because they didn't feel they got enough from the team workouts. That all changed when McElwain, after going 22–12, was fired and replaced with Dan Mullen, who brought strength coach Nick Savage along with him from Mississippi State.

Savage, who had started working as a strength coach for his old high school while just a freshman at Youngstown State (an injury kept him from playing football), changed the atmosphere quickly. “I’ve been working like I haven’t before in college,” Gators defensive end Jachai Polite said in an October interview. “Our previous strength staff wasn’t all that good.”

Polite also began playing like he never had before. After slimming from 270 pounds to 245, he finished eighth in the nation with 11 sacks. “He’s more demanding,” Polite says of Savage. “Everything is more intense.” As if to prove his point about Savage’s team, Polite has struggled during the pre-draft process. He was apparently at his best when working with Savage.


While that may be exactly what you expect to hear from a player after his team's strength staff changes—The old coach made us do a Jane Fonda VHS tape three days a week; now we bench-press Volkswagens every day!—at Florida and Oregon, the results on the field have backed up the words.

In October, Mullen beamed after his team's 27–19 win over LSU because it reminded him of a drill Savage had put the Gators through the previous summer. Florida led by one when LSU got the ball at its own 12-yard line with two minutes remaining. Previous Florida teams might have given up a game-winning drive, but this outfit “held the rope,” in Mullen's parlance. That summer, in the sweltering Gainesville sun, the Gators had literally held ropes. Savage divided them into teams and made them race around Ben Hill Griffin Stadium—up the bleachers and around the concourses—while holding a rope together.

To win, every player on a given unit had to maintain his grip. The fastest players couldn't simply race away from their slowest teammates; they had to find a way to make them run faster. Against the Tigers, the defense didn't collapse. It held together. Brad Stewart intercepted Joe Burrow and returned it for a touchdown to seal the win.
 

Swamp Donkey

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"While that may be exactly what you expect to hear from a player after his team's strength staff changes—The old coach made us do a Jane Fonda VHS tape three days a week; now we bench-press Volkswagens every day!—at Florida and Oregon, the results on the field have backed up the words.

Luckily Clowntown hired the other McElwain away from Oregon.
 

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