University of North Carolina Athletics
Countdown to Camp: Get the Power
July 14, 2005 | Football
July 14, 2005
Welcome to the fifth installment of TarHeelBlue.com's "Countdown to Camp" series. Every Thursday between now and the opening of training camp (which opens August 11), we'll have a fresh story on the football Tar Heels. If there's an aspect of the team or player you want to see highlighted, just drop us an email.
Previous Countdown to Camp stories:
By Adam Lucas
Jacoby Watkins just wanted to pick up his team-issued laundry bag. It was early summer in Chapel Hill, and he had stopped by Kenan Stadium to pick up the mesh bag issued to players during the summer to keep their gear organized.
That's when he saw them: 20 bags of powdered concrete resting on the Kenan concourse. The rising junior didn't have to ask about the bags. He knew.
"They were just sitting there waiting," Watkins says. "I knew they couldn't be for anybody but us."
He was right. The bags (they weigh 70 pounds apiece, but don't tell that to safety Kareen Taylor, who claimed to want to remain blissfully unaware of the actual weight) are part of the strenuous summer conditioning program implemented by strength and conditioning coach Jeff Connors. A sample from the conditioning regimen:
"The first thing we do is run with the bag, hit every step, and run to the top of the stadium," Connors says. "Then we bring it back down. Then we do a sprint without the bag. Then we come back down, grab the bag, and do what we call a power walk, which is three steps at a time, all the way to the top. Then we come back and sprint another round.
"That's one round. We like to do four rounds."
It's not cutting-edge technology (the Tar Heels save that for the weight room, where they are measured both on pounds lifted and meters per second as they lift the bar). But it's awfully effective.
"One day it was probably about 95 degrees and we asked Coach where he got the idea," Watkins says. "He said, `They're $3 per bag and you can't beat that.'"
Not being beaten is precisely the goal. During the 2004 regular season, the Tar Heels held a cumulative scoring average in just one quarter--the fourth, where they enjoyed a sizable 95-69 advantage. Even with Boston College's 16-0 fourth quarter outburst in the Continental Tire Bowl, the Heels still won the fourth quarter 95-85 for the year.
When Connors examined the challenging 2005 schedule, he saw a slate packed with numerous potentially tight contests, games that would likely be decided in the fourth quarter. He was pleased with his team's performance in the final stanza in 2004, but thought it could improve.
That's why he devised the concrete bag workouts, and why the Tar Heels have increased their repetitions of the dreaded 300s (one lap around the field) from six per workout last summer to eight this year.
"He's really pushing us even more this summer," Taylor says.
But conditioning is only half a strength and conditioning coach's job description. The other half involves what happens in the weight room, where Connors has continued to try and develop new ways to evaluate his troops.
His latest creation is the power quotient. His explanation of the formula comes on a two-page handout headlined "Dynamic Interrelated Movement Package" and includes a flow chart and a complicated three-part equation. The power quotient, which is found by adding an athlete's power clean, their vertical jump times five, and their broad jump times five, then dividing the sum by their 40-yard dash time, forms the backbone of this summer's training package.
Don't worry if you don't follow the formula.
"I don't understand the formula either," Jarwarski Pollock says. "He comes up with all kinds of stuff and it's so impressive the way he can break it down from top to bottom. He understands it and that's what's important."
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Countdown to Camp: 28 Days
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The early power quotient numbers have been encouraging. Wide receiver Mike Mason's 208 figure is the team leader, followed by Linwood Williams, Jacoby Watkins, and Ronnie McGill. Hilee Taylor, Tommy Richardson, and Victor Worsley lead the "combo" workout group (linebackers and tight ends) with scores of 177 or better and seniors Tommy Davis (who is up to 268 pounds and is bench-pressing 480) and Chase Page lead the linemen with 176 and 174, respectively.
"I can't tell you how many things I had to put down on paper in order to come up with the power quotient," Connors says. "After I put it on paper I was pretty happy with it. The key is we can evaluate a kid and we don't have to do a lot of lifting tests. We use standard tests everyone recognizes as being important to evaluating a football player's power. The NFL Combine uses the 40, the vertical jump, and the broad jump."
Carolina again faces an imperfect strength and conditioning scheduling situation. The second session of summer school ends almost two weeks before players report on August 11, which means everyone will be on their own for training during that time period. In an effort to make sure everyone remains full-speed for the start of camp, Connors hasn't conducted his usual battery of summer tests. The Super, Elite, and Iron Ram figures are based on the latest testing sessions available, which happened before summer conditioning began.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. He is the coauthor of the official book of the 2005 championship season, Led By Their Dreams, and his book on Roy Williams's first season at Carolina, Going Home Again, is now available in bookstores. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly or learn more about Going Home Again, click here.
