Part II: Army’s S&C Head Coach Tim Caron & Team look to take Black Knights

As we mentioned in Part I of our S&C coverage, “Army’s S&C Head Coach Tim Caron & Team look to take Black Knights to the next level” what is often overlooked by the majority of fans is how significant a team’s Speed, Strength & Conditioning program is to the overall success and in some cases, the failure of the on field performance.

We continued by stated that when it comes to the Army Black Knights, leading the charge Tim Caron, who is heading into his 3rd off-season as the Army Football Program’s Head Football Strength & Conditioning Coach.

GoBlackKnights.com had the opportunity to a detailed Q&A with Caron, who is clearly is very excited about the progress that he and his staff are seeing from the of players currently on the roster.

So, let’s pick up where we left off the Black Knights’ Head Football Strength & Conditioning Coach, as we move into Part II of two part Q&A.

GBK: Last year’s 2015 recruiting class had several freshmen who came in direct and via the prep school, who were able to contribute in back-up roles, special teams, but also starters like former DE Kenneth Brinson and OLB Gibby Gibson. Is there anything that you work on or with differently regarding the current frosh versus the upperclassmen?

Caron: So, our first year is really really trying to establish No. 1 in how our guys are going to respond to stress. We purposely put our guys in a kind of progressive program where every week we add a little bit more. I want to see the point where ... where are we going to break down. We do a lot analytics. tracking and a lot of questionaries. We actually know exactly when to back off and when to really start tapering back off our guys, but I want to see where that point is.

Our program is center around that fact, so I know what I’m working with the next couple of years. The program that we are doing at the Elite level it is a grind and it is mentally, physically and emotionally taxing.

I would never have been able to get that point unless I knew what these guys could handle stress wise. So, that’s one thing that we are trying to do with our Bravo (1st year players) guys, which is to find out how they respond to physical stress and emotional stress. We put our guys in high pressure situations and we are very demanding and I want to see how our guys respond in that regard. It’s critically taxing and tiring, but we are really holding the expectation standards high.

The next thing is our motor learning aspect and we really try to put movement that I think for a lack of a better term, impossible to screw up. We want to get our guys in these key patterns, squatting patterns and lunging patterns or cadet lift pattern. We want them to push, we want them to pull things and we want to do it in a horizontal and vertical plane. We want our guys to be doing this key fundamental patterns, but we don’t want to put our guys in positions where they get hurt ... too much load to early and create a lot of bad habits.

And eventually and honestly, we teach them how to progressively overload. We simply want to say that we want to add a little bit more weight every week.

The way we start is not going to be indicative of where we’re going to end. Because we are going to progressively add. So, I rather you start a little bit lighter and work up until you get more confident, until you understand how to put the weight you can lift with a specific exercise and specific tempo. So we just add add add and we instruct and work with them.

When it progresses to the Alpha, we know the loads, we know the movements and when it progresses to the Elite, we know a lot more about them.

Pushing past that threshold .... that’s essentially how we are going progress the program, by adapting to more stress, put more complex movements and really start to get it more advance in terms of how we’re going to load and use intensity and things like that.

GBK: Also, from current freshman group, who has been the most impressive in terms of their progression during your winter S&C?

Caron: When it comes to combo and skill, Chris Carter (quarterback) is an absolute beast and he is a really really explosive, powerful and good athlete. He’s doing a fantastic job. He is fast and he is smooth and he’s getting strong. He played last year about 180-185 pounds and he’s about there right now, but he’s getting stronger. We really believe in relative strength for all of our skilled guys, which means we want to improve your strength relative to your body weight. For a guy like Chris, we are going lift and work really hard, eat and do all those things to take of our body and let that unfold naturally. My big thing for him is that I want to make sure that he’s changing direction well and that he’s running well and getting physically stronger and moving well.

For our combo guys, Darnell Woolfolk (fullback) is doing a fantastic job. He is strong and he is fast and he is tough.

Then for our big guys, there is a lot of really good big guys in this group. I think there are some really impressive guys. But, the guy who sticks out to me is Wunmi Oyetuga ... he is developing, he is strong and he has a quite presence about him. He’s got something to him and he’s doing a fantastic job. I really think that he is going to be special.

But all our freshmen. There are some really talented guys in that group.

GBK: There’s a several direct admits for the 2016 recruiting class. Can you talk about some of the challenges those incoming freshman will face making the transition from high school to college?

Caron: Honestly with those guys ... the guys who were direct kids from last year, some of those guys were pretty darn good and they made an immediate impact and they were game ready.

So, it’s hard to say. I think every freshman when they first get here it’s going to be essentially ... it’s going to be a hard first semester. But I don’t know if that really effects you based off of USMAPS or a direct kid. It all really depends on the guy, on how he views and how it approaches it. Chances are if they are committing to something like West Point and what this place is, they will strive in that role. We saw a lot with our direct guys and even with our prep guys. I don’t know if there’s something that direct guys feel that it’s going to be hard transition versus the prep guys.

It’s kind of like the same thing we are doing in the weight room. We are just systematically adding more and more and see how you respond. We also learn when to back off and I think with all the things we do football wise. You are adding reps to the kid and it seems like he is overwhelmed, then you back off and the same way academically. It’s going to be hard and things are going to be progressively added and militarily the same thing. It’s just a cool thing to watch unfold and watch a young man develop and honestly, they develop really quickly in all facets. They become more mature and physically they become more developed and emotionally more dialed into who they are.

GBK: Specifically regarding football this offseason, is that a time when you can just go full bore on the strength and conditioning side of things?

Caron: Yeah, we’re going all out. This is the point of the year where we say that we have to develop as much speed and power as we possibly can. And this summer we want to get ... we want to put on a little size, but we want to get in really good shape and we want to physically condition our guys. That’s the most important thing. I feel like when you go into camp, you have to be in great physical shape or you can have a lot of soft tissue injuries. I’m not saying that is a diminishing of your speed and power, but it’s certainly not as directly focused.

So right now as we look out entire year plan and we were to put up a pie chart in developing speed and power, this would be the big slice of that pie for our guys.

GBK: Do you gear workouts differently as the season approaches? Does Jeff Monken ever come to you and say, “We’re looking for more speed. Tailor your workouts towards that?"

Caron: Yeah, oh yeah he definitely does because he’s seeing it on the field and that’s my job. I would say hey coach, what do we need and what do you feel will give us more of a competitive edge and help us go out there an win those games?

It’s not my job to be saying we should be doing this or doing this on the field, but it’s letting the experts, which is Coach Monken and our coordinators and position coaches and hear them say that we need our guys to be more of this. So, we go out there to do our best job to go out and get that and have the results that we want as a program.

GBK: How many assistant coaches will you have working under you in the football strength and conditioning program? And who are they relative to specific duties?

Caron: We have guys and I make the fifth. NCAA permits five strength coaches to work with football and so we have the most we can get.

Myself and two others are directly with football and another two who work with football, but are also do olympic sports at the academy.

Darren Mustin, who football only and he oversees all of our competition stuff. He’s the one who kind of created the 4th quarter warrior program and something we made a big ambition to do last year. So, we have to be a lot better in the 4th quarter. Basically what he did was devised a whole plan/program to basically say, how are we going to get better in the 4th quarter. It was just a series of challenges and competitions .... things that we felt would help us become more mentally and physically prepared in the 4th quarter.

Will Greenberg is the other guy who works specifically with football and he oversees all of our nutrition. He’s the guy who comes up with our plan for weight gain/weight loss. You know, like what supplement do we need, when do we give it to them and working around the mess hall schedule.

Now both of those guys, we have a develop squad program in the fall for all our non-travel athletes and they oversee that program.

Brian Philips is the next guy and he also works with track & field. But he oversees all of our analytics. He’s actually created the whole deal. He takes in all of the data that we do on a daily basis and tracks everything ... all year long. As such, we have a quantitative value on how our guys are really doing all year. He also oversees all of our GPS technology.

The final guy would be Coach Scott Swanson and he oversees the department and helps with in his down time, because he has a lot on his plate. So, when he can he gets out there with us and helps coach.

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