Wilson Love: Ole Miss S&C built around speed, explosion



Ole Miss first-year strength and conditioning coach Wilson Love stopped by Reb Talk with voice of the Rebels, David Kellum, on Thursday to discuss a wide range of topics, from his approach to training and player development, to the science of football and how the players come first in everything he does. Here’s everything he had to say …

On his coaching influences, including Nick Saban, Kirby Smart and Lane Kiffin: It was an incredible experience (at Alabama). My brother played at Alabama, so I got in at the start of the dynasty from 2007. I was just in middle school. My brother was on the team, and you make those relationships with those coaches — coach Saban and coach Kevin Steele. You realize now 12, 13 years later what a blessing it was to be around those guys every single day. Seeing the process and how they impact kids. It was an incredible experience — everybody I got to be around (and being) a small part of all that success.

On his style and approach to strength and conditioning: The number one thing that matters is the kids. It’s all about the players to me, and that’s what I was taught and that’s what I believe in. The whole craziness aspect (of his coaching style), that’s just me being real, and I always tell the guys, ‘Shame on me if I’m not the same Wilson Love every single day.’ I’m going to give them my 100 percent every single day. My style is simply I’m going to do everything I can to give a blueprint to each and every kid individually so that they can succeed in it on and off the field. I care more about them as a person than I do as a football player. I want them to know this and this only: I’m going to give them everything, I love them, and I’m going to do whatever I can to get them right. Everything’s going to take care of itself, ‘cause every kid’s different. When it comes to the weight-room aspect, it’s all about power, but also, too, each position’s different. We’re going to train each position totally different. When it comes to the conditioning aspect, this game’s about speed. You’re not going to find the slow dinosaurs anymore. We’re going to sprint, we’re going to jump, we’re going to be, ‘How explosive can we be?’ But also, too, the science behind all that. We have all sorts of gadgets and things like that, but the gadgets are one thing. If you’re not doing it with the right intentions, there’s no reason having it. We do baseline testing with all the guys. We give them feedback (and) we teach them why we do it. Why we do velocity-based training, why we jump, why we do the extra yoga to the side, why we do the flexibility. But more important than all that, you can have the best program in the world, but if you don’t show you love the kids every single day, nothing matters. That’s why I got out of (defensive line) coaching to be a strength coach, because you get to influence each and every kid individually rather than the one group. I’m just blessed to do it, honestly. God has blessed me, and coach Kiffin’s giving me a great opportunity, and Keith Carter, just to be here.

On Kiffin’s mix of old and new-school philosophies and the science involved: Coach Kiffin’s always going to stay ahead of the times. There’s old-school philosophies, there’s certain ways you’re taught, but you’ve got to be ahead of the times. You’ve got to adapt. Coach Kiffin’s really good with that. (Legendary defensive mind and Lane’s father) Monte, he’s 80-years-old and he’s still doing everything he needs to do for this generation of football. He’s not stuck in the 1975 NFC Championship Game. He might talk about it, but his philosophy isn’t stuck there. That’s the best thing about the Kiffin family. God gave them a great gene and mindset. It’s incredible to see them and how they approach the game each and every day. I learned from him and the Kiffin family, they’re all about the kids. Xs and Os is second. If you don’t love the kids, nothing else matters, and I’m fired up about being able to work with some people like that.

On how the current players responded to him originally and the relationship-building process: Matt Luke and his staff did an incredible job of getting great kids. Every single day, I look at myself in the mirror (and ask) how I can serve these kids? How can I get them better? One percent better each and every day? It was an easy job. It really was. It was easy because those kids, naturally, were so bought in. They were so respectful. They understand what it means, but one way we approached it differently is, when we gave them their work-out clothes, there was nothing Ole Miss on them. Because my thing was, let’s create an identity. You have to earn that right to be a team. You have to earn that right to wear that Ole Miss. That means something because anything in life that’s worth anything you have to work for it. So for me, we weren’t giving them Ole Miss shirts. Those were plain, gray t-shirts, and they loved that idea. They understood it’s one unit, one heartbeat. It’s a band of brothers. It’s a pro mindset. They understood that, and I had so much fun those eight weeks I was with them. Every day, I wake up at 3:30, kiss my wife goodbye and I get home at 8 o’clock at night because I love it. I get to serve these kids and be around a great group of guys. This staff, we didn’t have anything to do with their recruiting besides a couple of transfers. But it’s an incredible group of guys, and I’m so blessed just to do this and serve these kids every day.

On drawing from his experience as a former player in helping the Rebels adjust to the coaching/staff change: The good thing is, with our fourth-quarter offseason program, our staff was around a lot to be out there in our offseason drills once recruiting was over. The best thing about this staff that coach Kiffin’s done is he’s gotten a group of men, and women, too, that just care about the kids. We want to serve. We want to get these guys better on and off the field. This staff is incredible. What coach Kiffin and Keith Carter have done is amazing. I’ve never been around anything like it, and I’ve been blessed to be on some really good staffs when I was a young buck at Alabama. This is incredible. It’s a bunch of guys that are really good at what they do, and they care about what they do. They care about the kids, number one. Being around that, and for them to see the work these guys are doing each and every week to get better and better and better, the testing we did in the weight room from week two to week eight. We would put out the data from their speed element and their jumps. You’d see the bod pods and their body pictures and it’s like, ‘Whoa! Who are these guys?’ It’s just a snippet of it, though. We’re just getting started, because at the end of the day, if it doesn’t translate to the field, I’m not doing my job. If it doesn’t happen when we play Baylor and we don’t see that transformation of the guys playing as one unit, one heartbeat, then we’re not doing our job. So we still have a lot of work to do. We’re just getting started.

On what’s new in the world of strength and conditioning: A big thing now is people are so caught up in lift heavy, heavy, heavy. I love lifting heavy, man. I tried to lift heavy (Wednesday) morning and I about hurt my back, but whatever. The point of not always lifting heavy is this game’s about speed. It’s power. You’re not always lifting 100 percent max of weight every single time because you’re not moving it fast. It’s about bar speed. It’s about training (on) how to be fast. How to jump. Core stability. You can’t just be dinosaur thinking. You can have dinosaur values when it comes to the mindset of training — the bread and butter, the main lifts. But what’s going to get you different now is how fast you are. How explosive you can be. How an offensive lineman can come out of his hips faster when it comes to not coming so fast when you just lifted heavy weight. It’s all about being fast and explosive. Yeah, you’ve got to be strong, but the data we’ve been getting is the faster you move the weight at max effort, it’s going to make you stronger. It’s going to make you better. And we tested our guys (and) it was unbelievable. The theory, it’s there. For our recruits, we’re going to do whatever we can to be the best version of us on that field. If there’s data out there, if there’s a product out there, we’re going to do it. But I know this, though: We’re going to lift weights as fast as we can with the best technique and the best effort and we’re going to be fast and that’s what we’re going to do. That’s what football’s coming down to. It’s not a bunch of big ol’ dudes that can’t move. We’re going to do yoga, all right? That’s who we are, and that’s what’s going to make us a better team when it comes to the physical side of it and the injury-prevention side of it. My number one thing is making sure the kids have everything they need to be the best version of them. You could have the best science program, you could have all the data, you can have all that, but if the kids aren’t bought in, if the kids aren’t going the right direction, nothing matters. The science is great, but the number one thing there is is the players. It’s as simple as that. Care for the players. Serving the players. Never self-promote yourself, it’s all about the kids, and nothing else matters. That’s just who we are, and our strength staff’s incredible. We have a lot of young men in there, too, that help us out. We’re so blessed to have what we have here at Ole Miss.

On the players being spread out and how he can help them: We finally got the go-ahead from the conference to send them exercise stuff, so they have different types of bands, jump rope. We can send them programs, nutrition stuff, we sent them a stretching plan. Everything they would do here, possibly, without weights, we give them a plan. Now, I can’t monitor them and say, ‘Hey, how was that band pull today?’ We have a whole running program for them based on sprints, based on jumps, change of direction. A lot of jump-rope workouts to keep their feet going fast. We can’t monitor them, but you know what? The guys are doing a great job. They’re staying positive, as hard as it is. The best thing about what we’re doing right now is coach Kiffin is all about … we have a team speaker every Monday. Eli Manning talked to the kids Thursday. Every Monday we have a team meeting and a really good motivational speaker talks to them, puts new things in their minds just to keep them going, to keep them motivated. During these times it’s tough, and every kid's hurting because they’re not playing football. They missed spring. They’re not with their guys. They’re at home, and there’s so many worries in this world, but having that Monday motivation, to me, is just as important or more than the workouts they’re doing because it keeps the mindset going in the right direction.

On the advice he’d give fans on workouts to do at home: When it comes to the general public, you’ve just got to keep moving. You can’t sit on the couch all day. First thing’s first, you have to have a great mindset when you wake up in the morning. You need to write down what your goals are. When it comes to the fitness side of things, move around. Do bodyweight pushups, all that. You could do isometrics. You can hold a squat at the deep position or push against a wall. There are different variations you can do. If you have the funds, buy resistance bands. Buy a jump rope. Go outside and jump rope. Do some yard work. You can get towels to pull yourself up; tie it to a tree. You can do so many different variations, and there’s so much great information out there about what you can do in a home workout program. I’m not a big Twitter guy. I’m not a big social media guy because I never try to self-promote. Whenever I do anything on social media, it’s for the kids and for the program. I try to never do anything that involves Wilson Love because that doesn’t matter to me. I try to retweet as much stuff as possible so the Ole Miss family can see, ‘Oh, this is kind of a cool thing to do.’ The good thing about people staying at home, man, if you need something, we’re going to keep putting it out there. If there’s something cool, we’ll retweet it, we’ll send a video. Our kids now, we give them video instruction stuff if they need it.

SOURCE: Garrett, Ben. "Wilson Love: Ole Miss S&C built around speed, explosion." OMSpirit - 247Sports.com, 24 April 2020, https://247sports.com/college/ole-miss/Article/Wilson-Love-Ole-Miss-SC-built-around-speed-explosion-146417048/