LAST SEASON, THE University of Central Florida suffered just one defeat on the road to winning the Fiesta Bowl – one of the most prestigious prizes in college football – and two of their star players, Blake Bortles and Storm Johnson, were rewarded with trips to the NFL.
But just what does it take to make it to the next level?
Well, talent is obviously important but so to is conditioning and any path to the NFL goes through the weight room with teams no longer willing to take a risk on a player who could turn into the next Ryan Leaf or JaMarcus Russell.
While you can’t coach talent, you can get players in peak physical condition and one man responsbile for helping Bortles and Johnson get to the NFL was UCF director of strength and conditioning Ed Ellis.
“What we do is give players a base with which to build their career on,” Ellis told TheScore.ie this week.
“But, it still happens, some players just get lazy when they get paid. Some guys go as hard as they can, to be the best player at their position, not just on their team but in the league and of all time.
“Others go the opposite way. As soon as they get that signing bonus coming their way they get lazy. Personally, I don’t understand how or why - you would think you would want to be in the best possible shape – but it’s such a business, and they make so much money, I think some people are afraid to train as hard as they should because they don’t want to get hurt.”
It’s not all about laziness though, there are times when players can be unlucky and other occasions when the very skill-set that makes a player great is the one that puts them at risk of injury.
“I do think some people are genetically predisposed to injury and, when you have a player like Robert Griffin III for example, he is putting a lot of pressure on his body and putting himself in danger and he just has a a greater chance of getting hurt.
“Others are unlucky and freak injuries happen.”
There are players who continue to train above and beyond the required amount, even after they’ve been rewarded as handsomely as the Houston Texans’ JJ Watt, on course to be named the NFL’s defensive MVP once more, proves.
“Right now, when I look at the league and I think of who is the perfect example of what a player should be, I look at JJ Watt with the Texans and see how physically dominating he his.
“I know he works real hard with Houston too, even though he got paid this year, because I know the their strength and conditioning coach and he’s told me about the effort he puts in.
“That’s what you hope to see from every player.”
That work ethic should be developed in high school but, if it’s not, Ellis and his team in Florida are quick to enforce it.
“The biggest thing you notice in the weight room from the new guys who are just out of high school is that they’re not prepared for the physicality of college football. You have to realise that every level is a step up which is why so many players fall away from high school to college, college to the NFL.
“We try to tell them what it takes but they only fully realise it once they get here which is why we also design the programme around, not just succeeding here, but taking their game to the next level.
“The whole programme prepares them, especially someone like Blake [Bortles] at the quarterback position. He’s able to take everything that’s thrown at him, all of the hits, and remain calm and collected.
“You look at him and he looks physically different to the typical rookie and we played a part in that because we prepare them to get them as strong and as quick as they can possibly be.”
It’s important, says Ellis, that players realise that the weight room is only one part of making them the best they can be.
“The biggest thing I tell athletes is that we’re here to help you become a better football player and not a weightlifter. As good as a guy might be at lifting weights, they might not be a good football player.
“There are guys who can’t push and move people around the football field the way they should. They’re strong in the weight room but not on the field. I’ve seen the reverse too with guys who might struggle in the weight room but who have great strength on the field.”
With so many diverse skill-sets required on an American football field, personalised programmes are key to developing the perfect player.
“As I’ve said, the one thing we can’t train is talent, you either have it or you don’t.
“So, if you do have talent, we look at the position you play and design your conditioning programme around that.
“Linemen for example work on short bursts of speed – we’ll do some shuttle runs, etc to keep their cardio up – but, for the most part, we concentrate on short bursts and explosive weights.
“But you can’t take everything from the field and put it in the weight room. With wide receivers for example, they need speed but in long bursts, that’s something that guys are going to have to work on on the field.”
