🏈 If you're not following Alabama's Director of Performance Science Dr. Matt Rhea on twitter...you should

Just for some perspective, I live in the midwest where there resides a major Big Ten program. In my university town there is a private training gym owned and run by trainers who have extensive, lengthy resumes in Strength and conditioning from their college degrees, to internships at D1 strength programs, to every certification you can get, etc.

This gym mostly trains up and coming High school kids and have sent many boys and girls on to D1 scholarships. They also train current pro boxers, MMA fighters, olympic hopeful wrestlers, major and minor league baseball players, etc.

I saw a couple of them re-publishing tweets from Matt Rhea on social media. I decided to talk to them about it, and they couldn't have spoken in more glowing terms about the innovation from the new Alabama S&C staff. So much so that they contrasted their methods against the S&C staff from this Big Ten school who they were wholly unimpressed with and they explained why our home town/state S&C program for football was not designed well.
 
I want to point out that I am very excited about these guys being in Tuscaloosa. As of right now, their methods and data is so far over my head that I'm reading comments on here to gather information due to lack of free time to really dig in on their stuff.

My question is, if their methods are so far ahead and above others, why were they both at Indiana? How is it possible Michigan or Ohio State hasn't adapted to their methods and snagged them up? Also, how hasn't Texas, Florida, Clemson, USC, or any other big time program snagged them?

Once again, not questioning their abilities or success, just curious to how we decided to go after them at Indiana before anyone else? I get Saban wanting to change the direction of the program due to injuries and allowing science to determine it all, but I guess I'm curious why they were at Indiana without anyone nipping at them. Does Indiana know something no one else knew when they hired them?
 
BamaFan334 said:
I want to point out that I am very excited about these guys being in Tuscaloosa. As of right now, their methods and data is so far over my head that I'm reading comments on here to gather information due to lack of free time to really dig in on their stuff.

My question is, if their methods are so far ahead and above others, why were they both at Indiana? How is it possible Michigan or Ohio State hasn't adapted to their methods and snagged them up? Also, how hasn't Texas, Florida, Clemson, USC, or any other big time program snagged them?

Once again, not questioning their abilities or success, just curious to how we decided to go after them at Indiana before anyone else? I get Saban wanting to change the direction of the program due to injuries and allowing science to determine it all, but I guess I'm curious why they were at Indiana without anyone nipping at them. Does Indiana know something no one else knew when they hired them?
Click to expand...

Good questions. I don't know if there are right answers for all of the questions, but some comments:

-Ballou is an Indiana alum - he played football there, and is married to another IU alum, so that's the main connection to IU.

-Ohio St and Clemson have top of the line S&C programs. They aren't in the market to change.

Other programs just hired new coaches or hit re-start in the case of tOSU - they have staffs who've been in place for only a few years. You don't generally switch gears in S&C that fast.

Why didn't anyone else hire these two away? Not sure. Maybe their gig at IMG was really good, and the IU job lured Ballou away with his connection there. Another thing is fit - if you look back at Rhea's resume, he was emphasizing athlete optimization and injury prevention nearly 20 years ago. That is what Saban was really looking for, along with a data-driven and proven approach. For other programs, they may want more of the traditional Cochran type, in your face, loud yelling guy who emphasizes power and isn't innovative in the training protocols.
 
NickelDoubleDog said:
Good questions. I don't know if there are right answers for all of the questions, but some comments:

-Ballou is an Indiana alum - he played football there, and is married to another IU alum, so that's the main connection to IU.

-Ohio St and Clemson have top of the line S&C programs. They aren't in the market to change.

Other programs just hired new coaches or hit re-start in the case of tOSU - they have staffs who've been in place for only a few years. You don't generally switch gears in S&C that fast.

Why didn't anyone else hire these two away? Not sure. Maybe their gig at IMG was really good, and the IU job lured Ballou away with his connection there. Another thing is fit - if you look back at Rhea's resume, he was emphasizing athlete optimization and injury prevention nearly 20 years ago. That is what Saban was really looking for, along with a data-driven and proven approach. For other programs, they may want more of the traditional Cochran type, in your face, loud yelling guy who emphasizes power and isn't innovative in the training protocols.
Click to expand...

Ahh, ok. The Indiana connection really makes sense with that bit of information then.

Great stuff, and thank you for sharing all of that.
 
I'm old (how old are you) and all the talk is good but lets see some results. The CV19 is going to make preparation for all programs difficult. If they can get back on the grass come middle June then perhaps things will be OK. It's going to be a very interesting football season.

Expect the unexpected.
 
Watched it yesterday. These guys certainly do not appear to be the rah rah types. Something they said that I must have missed when all of this happened, they brought some of their S&C people with them. Seems like the S&C part is more secondary to them but maybe I am misreading this.
 
mando said:
Watched it yesterday. These guys certainly do not appear to be the rah rah types. Something they said that I must have missed when all of this happened, they brought some of their S&C people with them. Seems like the S&C part is more secondary to them but maybe I am misreading this.
Click to expand...

It would make sense they'd bring their guys. I don't think its secondary, they just use more tools and use data to make decisions on how and what tools to apply.

I'm a huge fan of data driven decisions. It's just a catch phrase to what humans have been doing for years. You'd have to be a fool to ignore the data.

Perhaps I take most of this for granted. I'm so used to change in my line of work, at a crazy pace these days.

If you're not changing...
 
planomateo said:
It would make sense they'd bring their guys. I don't think its secondary, they just use more tools and use data to make decisions on how and what tools to apply.

I'm a huge fan of data driven decisions. It's just a catch phrase to what humans have been doing for years. You'd have to be a fool to ignore the data.

Perhaps I take most of this for granted. I'm so used to change in my line of work, at a crazy pace these days.

If you're not changing...
Click to expand...
I am in the technology field (telecom) and have EE degree so I love the idea of data driven decisions. The main focus of the video was on the data. The S&C was secondary at least in the video. Just contrasting that from the historical approaches. These guys are not cut from the same cloth as traditional S&C programs was my point. They are certainly not rah rah types either.
 
mando said:
Just contrasting that from the historical approaches. These guys are not cut from the same cloth as traditional S&C programs was my point. They are certainly not rah rah types either.
Click to expand...
There's a difference in how they are training versus Cochran. It's more of a whole body approach versus Cochran's emphasis on specific muscle development (which is what the NFL guys were telling Saban after his internal review.)
 
Crimson&WhiteGecko said:
Can't be completely sure but after major injuries to the LB corp over the last 4 consecutive years, I can see why CNS hired these guys. 4 years in a row isn't a fluke.
Click to expand...


This!! I think Bama knows they lost those Championships in the preseason. The loss at LB year after year when Bama puts so much into the D...was devastating to those teams. They would never say that in the open but they knew. CNS was already looking for a way to change. Chochran is a great strength coach but his methods are how do you say "brudish" and can lead to injury. Saban was looking for a change and researching how to limit injuries and integrate more of scientific method into the strength side of things. Cochran cant keep up with the times. He is a gym rat and in this area is limited. Saban went and found the cutting edge guys that can also get them strength and mobility but also limit injuries. I am really excitied to have these guys and see how their process works.
 

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