Jags Prepare For Season With Intense Workout Regimine
It’s less than a week until the Jags begin preseason camp to prepare for their first season with a full Division I schedule and a full Sun Belt schedule. Not only are they playing a full schedule, but they are playing 13 games in 14 weeks. How about that for a ‘Welcome to the FBS’ campaign?
But the Jags have not been sitting around waiting for camp to arrive. The Jags have been working in very hard in the weight room under the guidance of Strength and Conditioning Coach Justin Schwind.
Other than coach Schwind, the rest of the coaches cannot work with players. Which means everything is voluntary in the summer. But that does not mean that they are not accountable. Coach Jones and the staff selected 11 individuals to be leaders within groups of players within the team. They were charged with holding their teams accountable and by all accounts, they have been doing their job well.
This article does a good job of giving us an idea of what challenges Coach Justin Schwind has faced this summer. It also has several player quotes.
Coach Joey Jones Show Recap 2011-11-01
One of Kendall Houston's three rushing attempts versus Henderson State.
Joey Jones and Lee Shirvanian joined by strength and conditioning coach Justin Schwind for this week’s Joey Jones Radio show at Baumhower’s Restaurant on Airport Boulevard.
Lee started by mentioning that the Jags got off to a good first half, but that it looked like they just wanted to get the game over with as quickly as possible in the second half since it’s a short week. Coach Jones said that they got players out of the game to rest and give other players some time to play.
They immediately went into the Fuego hot players of the game. Lee and Coach Jones mentioned linebacker Desmond LaVelle is a great player, hard worker. The coaches love his attitude and nose for the football. He was actually named linebacker of the week by the coaching staff. Then Coach Jones mentioned offensive lineman Melvin Meggs, a redshirt freshman that really played well, probably his best game of the year. Very effective on Bakers 7 yard run for a touchdown in the game. Getting really good with the technique for an offensive lineman. They further mentioned Demetre Baker with first 100 yard game of the year even after not practicing much during the week due to a bum knee and another defensive player was Gabe Loper who is becoming a good force in the secondary with good man-to-man skills and his zone technique is getting better.
Next they went into the Orthopedic Group injury update. Coach Jones mentioned Jereme Jones hurt his shoulder in that 65 yard run against Henderson State and will not be playing against MVSU on Thursday. Jereme was the only player he mentioned.
The PAT was a fake that was preplanned that didn’t work. The blocked was wrong and caused him to get stopped, but if they had picked up the correct guy to block, then he would have walked into the end zone Coach Jones said.
Lee asked about being up 16-0 and deciding to go for the two point conversion instead of kicking the PAT to make it 17-0 and not have to “chase points.” Coach Jones said that it was to be a surprise when they may not be expecting it plus doing that tells the other teams that you are willing to fake it any time which helps with the rush. He also mentioned that they probably should have done it earlier in the year and that Coach Perry is on him all the time about faking it to keep teams honest.
Lee mentioned Keels first start, CJJ said it was mainly because of injuries. Kendall has been nursing a knee injury for a while now, but he indicated that today was the first time he looked close to 100% in the last two weeks. Also it was mentioned earlier that Baker had been nursing a knee injury as well. At one point they weren’t sure either Baker or Houston would even play in the game.
Lee mentioned that you could never have too many running backs since the Jags have a good stable of backs. Coach Jones agreed and said that Brandon Ross could possibly play in the final game of the season, but they are not going to do that but rather wait for him to come back next season instead. Jones said he’s probably 90-95% right now but they don’t want to risk it.
Caller asked Coach Jones thinks that the team is ahead of schedule? The caller remarked that, looking at other teams in the conference, he thinks the Jags could be in the “upper echelon” of the conference right now. Coach Jones said he does not know where they would be and said that they are not at their full scholarship level yet, but they will be after this recruiting class. They want to be competitive in the Sun Belt but knows it will be tough with teams like Troy and FIU with teams like Western Kentucky and Arkansas State getting better. But the biggest difference and the toughest thing will be facing good FBS teams week after week.
The next caller to the show asked about the problems Trey Clark had snapping the ball to the quarterback in the shotgun. Coach Jones said that Trey was complaining about his hands being dry from the cold air and wind. So they put a glove on him and his snaps improved. Plus with the wind and his style of snapping can cause problems because it’s not like a spiral so it can be affected by gusty winds at times.
Lee asked about the strategy at the coin toss and if the wind was the major factor in choice after winning the toss. Coach Jones said it was, they wanted the wind at their back in the first quarter and more importantly in the fourth quarter. Around 4:00 the wind is pretty strong but by 7:00 it has died down. So after looking at weather forecasts they wanted it at their back when it is at it’s strongest.
When asked by Lee about concern about not being able to run the ball consistently inside the five yard line Coach Jones said he was very concerned. It has kind of snuck up on them, it was something they were very good at early in the year but now it has been clamped down on. The coaches have looked at it and changed some things. He also said that they should have picked up on that a week or more ago. They have some changes they are making that they think will get them back in gear again.
Lee and Coach Jones introduced Coach Schwind by saying that he has been with Coach Jones for about five years. He is very good at his job, is a great person and is a great motivator for the players.
Coach Schwind answered the question about how he motivates the players to work out and get stronger is by showing them the purpose of why they do it. How it translates into better performance in the game on the field. When asked who was the hardest worker in the weight room, Justin immediately said Paul Bennett.
Lee said that the jags are a very physical team and asked Justin if they meet his expectations for a physical team. Coach Schwind’s answer was yes, they are a very physical team and coaches from other teams tell them that the Jags are the most physical team they have played.
Talking about the Kent State game, Lee mentioned how the Jags were being pushed around by their defense and how physical they were with us. Coach Jones agreed and said that their defense was the most physical team they have played so far. He gave them credit for their play.
Lee also asked about the difference between workouts during the season and during the off season. Coach Schwind said that the off season is about getting bigger and stronger. In-season, the idea is recovery. Your emphasis is recovery and to maintain what they have.
A follow-up question by Lee was asking if there was such a thing as too much weight training. Justin answered with a “yes and no”. If you are doing the same thing every day then that is not good. You are going to hit a wall and over train an area while under training other areas. You have to plan the regimen to meet the needs of the kids and how they recover so you do not cause injury.
Later Lee asked about changes to their workouts as they go into an FBS schedule next season. Coach Schwind said that he has already talked to Coach Jones about this and that they have mainly discussed emphasizing discipline. Justin’s job in the off season is to focus on this in every thing they do. Strive for perfection and hope that continues into the season and onto the field.
Another follow-up question from Lee was about the possibility of strength and conditioning helping to prevent injury. Coach Schwind said that there is no doubt about it, it helps to avoid injury. If you are in a perfect anatomical position of the body to do something, your susceptibility to injury is greatly reduced. They train for a complete balance of the body, if you do not have a sound weight training regimen then you are opening yourself up to possible injury.
Coach Jones also chimed in to help explain. He said that if you only did benchpress without any Lat pulls to strengthen your back, you will have shoulder injury. He said Herchel Walker always talked about pushups, but he had shoulder injuries, possibly because he wasn’t balanced that way.
Turning towards Mississippi Valley State, Coach Jones said that they are very athletic. Defensively they very dynamic, they have a very big number of different blitz’s that they can run. They have lots of different coverages and different types of fronts they can use. Which is a lot to go through in a short week.
Offensively, they have quarterback who can throw and who can run some. They try to get him to the edge a good bit so they have to keep him contained and to watch down field for the big pass.
Talking about last Saturday’s game some more, Coach Jones liked the blue uniforms and said that they would wear them again. But he wanted to get some input from the fans about them. He said the players and President Moulton both liked them.
Free tickets to the game for high school kids with $5 companion tickets for the parents. These are end zone tickets.
A caller asked about designing plays. When the Jags play a team do they try to use plays that they see and like and put it into their offensive system. Coach Jones said not really, they don’t want to be what he called a “Monday football” team. Where they play a game and add plays that they see on Monday morning. First off, different teams have different personnel which factors into a play being fit for one team and not another.
Coach Jones used an example of a team using a speed sweep against the Jags. He said that, with T.J. Glover out, they are not a speed sweep team because they lack that speed to get out to the edge quick enough to make it work.
The previous question lead to Lee’s next question to Justin about developing speed in the weight room. Justin said that it can be done by technique. They can work on how to run and how to run fluidly. He said that fundamentally there are two ways to run faster; by improving frequency and by increasing stride. Improving frequency is about getting their legs and feet to get up and down faster to take more steps. Stride length is how many yards they cover in each step. Lots of times, when players get to college, they find out no one has emphasized to them these things.
The next caller asked about recruiting Junior College players to help the team as they begin their transition to FBS with a much tougher schedule next season. Coach Jones said they are probably looking at four to five JuCo players to add to the team. Mainly in the secondary the offensive line. They also want to find a rush type defensive end to rush off the edge and get after the quarterback.