Buffs Begin 'Crucial' Summer Strength And Conditioning
June 03, 2019 | Football, Neill Woelk
BOULDER — Colorado coach Mel Tucker has made no bones about it since the day he arrived in Boulder: his Buffaloes will be a fourth quarter team.
The emphasis started in January, when the Buffs started their first nine-week strength and conditioning session. It continued through spring ball, when Tucker and his staff stressed mental toughness and resilience, an attitude that required 100 percent effort in every drill and every play.
Now comes Phase 3, an all-important summer strength and conditioning session that will set the tone for fall camp. How the Buffs maximize their time with strength coach Drew Wilson will determine whether they hit the ground running when camp begins — and whether they can take the next step toward becoming the fourth-quarter team that Tucker envisions.
"We want to accomplish Coach Tucker's goals," Wilson said Monday morning after the Buffs' first organized session of the summer. "We want to be the best conditioned team in college football. We want to be a smart football team, a physical team that takes the fight to everybody, a team that doesn't back down and never quits. I know people talk about those kind of things a lot — but that's who we're going to be, a physical, relentless team."
The vast majority of CU players, including a handful of newcomers, reported to campus on Sunday in time for Monday's first day of summer school classes and the first workout with Wilson. In a Sunday night meeting, Tucker made it clear what he expects this summer: a football team's foundation is built on running and lifting.
"That's where it starts," Wilson said. "It's why these weeks are crucial — critical — from a lifting, running, eating, learning standpoint. Everybody in America is doing it, and we are trying to get our guys to do more on their own in terms of meetings, field work, everything else they have to do to become a complete college football player."
That includes becoming a dominant fourth-quarter team, something the Buffs couldn't claim a year ago. In a season in which CU started 5-0, then lost its last seven, Colorado was outscored 73-39 in the final period. That includes a dismal stretch over the last six games when the Buffs were held scoreless in the fourth quarter five times, and managed only a field goal in the other game.
"That's on me," Wilson said. "I truly believe that. I own that. If I'm part of the success of 2016, I'm part of the failure of '17 and '18. In my profession, if you don't take that personally that you couldn't win a fourth quarter as the strength and conditioning coach, you shouldn't be doing this job. That's personal. If your team is gassed, if your team can't sustain, that's on the strength coach. That's the way I feel about it. My goal is to accomplish the head coach's goals."
While Wilson's willingness to accept responsibility for the Buffs' fourth-quarter failings are no doubt a simplification of the problems that plagued Colorado in 2018, the underlying results are still something he knows must change. That change started in January when he and Tucker retooled the Buffs' weight room and conditioning approach.
Now it will now continue this summer.
"From the standpoint of expectations, it's not all new to them like it was in January," Wilson said. "They know the energy, they know how to finish, they know what's expected. Not everybody was great today, but I'd say 90 percent of the team did a good job from that aspect — pushing with everything they did have. It's something we're going to continue to build on all summer."
The most critical aspect, Wilson said, isn't physical. Rather, it involves establishing a mental approach that allows players to overcome barriers.
"It's all mental," Wilson said. "Your mind will tell your body to quit even when your body can keep going. We all get that feeling. 'This hurts. I'm uncomfortable. I don't want to take another step.' But the thing is, you can take another step. It takes moving that needle a little bit every single day until you become a really resilient person in terms of 'I can do this.' Whether it's just pushing a little harder or taking one more step, you learn what you have to do to get through it. Then, when you accomplish something that was hard, you understand that it's going to come back again in fall camp or next season, and you know you have what it takes to overcome that."
Wilson has restructured the Buffs' summer program to be even more position-specific, with players running and/or lifting five days a week. The session will run for the next four weeks before taking a few days off for the July 4 break, then resume for roughly three more weeks before the beginning of fall camp.
"It's geared to what we need to accomplish in terms of the goals of the program at each position," Wilson said.
But the overall goal is the same for every player."We're going to be the best conditioned team in college football and be resilient," Wilson said. "We're ramping it up. We're competing. We're not trying to rebuild for the 2020 season, we're building for right now. If we do that, if we can keep punching and punching in the fourth quarter, we can win a lot of games. That's what Coach Tucker's goal is and that's what we're building for this summer."
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu