Football
by Danny Barletta
This has been far from a normal semester for the UConn football team with no games being played, but that hasn't stopped the Huskies from putting in a lot of work in the training room.
Matt King, UConn's director of strength and conditioning, said he's really happy with what the team has done in the last few months.
"Given the circumstances that we had to train under, they did a great job of just going through the adversity and finding ways to turn a negative into a positive," King said. "It's a tribute to the guys we have on the team."
King said he has seen massive improvements in the team from a physical standpoint. He said the team was training three times a week for the whole semester, and that has resulted in a massive increase in size and strength for everyone.
King said he feels the players that have benefited the most from this situation are the guys that never got a redshirt year and had to play right away as true freshmen, when they weren't as ready for game action. In addition, incoming freshmen who might have been playing this year are getting a lot of extra training before getting on the field. Three players who King specifically said have been doing great work are Ryan Van Demark, Jackson Mitchell and Nathan Carter.
When other teams around the country started playing games, King said it was tough on the team. But with all the issues surrounding COVID-19, he said it was better for the team to commit to a year of training and preparation rather than attempt to play a handful of games that may not have happened anyways.
"We got in more work this fall than I ever would have if we tried to play games this fall," King said. "At the end of the day, [the players] knew that this was the best thing for them and it was the best thing for UConn football."
With the team living and training in pods this semester, King and his assistants could only coach one group each. So King said his assistants Anthony Grasso, Andrew Smith and Quan Thompkins were huge parts of the successful training this fall and without them, all of it wouldn't have been possible.
When King took over the strength and conditioning program at UConn in January of 2019, he said the big thing he had to do was change the culture of the weight room to fit his style.
"When I first got here, the main thing was to instill my philosophy in terms of training," King said. "The main thing was to get everybody on the same page and to fall in love with the weight room, fall in love with the training process. Because once you fall in love with the process, everything else takes care of itself."
King has really connected with his players, including Van Demark, and they have bought into what King has brought to the program.
"Really since Matt King has been here, he's taken UConn and grabbed it and changed it really into a powerhouse," Van Demark said. "In my opinion, Coach King has been the best strength coach I've had up to this day."
King said now that everyone had bought in, this semester was all about expanding on the work with individual training programs for each player. The reason he was able to do that is because of how strong the emphasis was on strength and conditioning this semester, something he really enjoyed as the strength coach.
"As a strength coach, when I found out that we weren't going to be playing this fall, that was like Christmas Day for me," King said. "Because in terms of development, I knew that I would get the longest uninterrupted training block that I've ever been given in my career regardless of what sport I've ever worked with."
King admits he hopes he never has this much time for training again, but under the circumstances, he feels the team really made the most of the extra training to become better football players and that should show on the field next season.
"Given the circumstances that we had to train under, they did an outstanding job of making sure that we made the most of our opportunity this fall," King said.
November 19, 2020 at 03:27AM
https://uconnhuskies.com/news/2020/11/18/football-despite-no-season-huskies-have-been-hard-at-work-in-weight-room.aspx
Despite no season, Huskies have been hard at work in weight room - UConn Huskies
https://news.google.com/search?q=hard&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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