A reader emailed me today with a great idea – write an article about Pitt’s Strength and Conditioning (S&C) program. I agreed it would be a good topic… then I emailed back “Do it yourself and I’ll post it!” But he, like myself, is too busy – so what I did is to take the body of his email and will use that as a conversation starter. Here that is:
There have been many guest contributors and by now just about all facets of the team have been covered, except one: who is in charge of Strength and Training, what does it consist of, and is the program any good. I know there is one poster — I don’t specifically recall his moniker — who has been critical. Perhaps if he has special or inside knowledge, he would be a good candidate to write the article.
The reason I am suggesting this is this. I was at my athletic club last Saturday. One of the trainers there is the father of Josh Lugg, formerly of North Allegheny High School and now a freshman at Notre Dame. As a freshman he was on the two deep as an Offensive Guard. Not bad for someone Dokish always saw as overrated.
The guy ahead of him, a senior, will be in the pros this fall. Well anyway, Josh and his younger brother were also at the club — lifting weights, natch. Josh is around 6’7”, 315, and there is no body fat. (His little brother is a couple of inches shorter and about 50 pounds lighter, no body fat.) Seeing them lift, my thinking: if there is a typical fat-ass, or just plain fat, Pitt defensive lineman across from Lugg, the Pitt guy is going to lose that match up every single play.
So, what is going on with the Strength and Training program, who runs it, etc., etc.
That my friends is one excellent question and one area of the football program which there will be a bright shining spotlight on this fall. Why, because regardless of some Pitt’s fans believing that we ‘have more depth’ than we have had in the past I do not, by any means – especially in the unit young Mister Lugg above plays on. BTW – Lugg is a prime example of Pat Narduzzi’s missing out on blue chip players of need right in his own backyard.
I think most fans understand just how important S&C is – a good example for this with Pitt is that in two of our losses, and to teams we really should have beaten in Syracuse and North Carolina, our players were sluggish and pretty gassed in the last quarter of play.
SYR scored 17 points in the 2nd half to win and in the NC game we had an opportunity to keep and extend the lead but on our last two possessions we went backwards two yards on the first series and on the second we had to punt again.
pittpov.com 