Gophers Strength & Conditioning Coach Eric Klein is a critical member of the Gophers program.
With the Gophers Spring Game complete, Head Strength and Conditioning Coach Eric Klein’s busy season is just beginning. There is a saying that football players are made in the off-season, and that is why Klein’s role is so critical. The players that left TCF Bank Stadium will be bigger, faster and stronger when they take the field again in August against UNLV in the season opener, and Klein will make sure of it. GopherHole’s Jay Ingber caught up with Klein before today’s Spring Game.
GH: When August workouts begin, what’s the greatest weakness you see in players?
EK: Well hopefully if I did my job, we’ve covered everything we were supposed to cover so that isn’t a problem. What we need to get our guys ready for is the day-to-day practices, being able to recover in between practices and most of all be sure they’re ready to give it their all at the next practice. We need to make sure our guys are both physically and mentally conditioned enough so they can go 100% on Monday morning and again Monday afternoon or Tuesday. They need to have faith in the plan we have in place to get them into the shape they need to be in. Once they get to camp, that’s when players need to be in game-specific shape.
GH: There’s a lot of high school recruits attending today’s game, talk about some of the challenges incoming freshman face making the transition from high school to college?
EK: It’s definitely another step up, it’s no different than our guys going to the NFL. Coming in from high school, we’ll usually get the best player or one of the best players on the team, then that kid is with a group of guys who were all the best on their team. These guys realize they can’t take the day off, they need to tell themselves, “I can’t take a rep off, I can’t take a play off, I can’t cruise, I can’t coast, I have to go all the time”.
From a training standpoint, just like they’ve learned how to play football, they need to learn what it takes to be a college athlete; they need to learn our playbook in the weight room and in conditioning because our expectations will be different. Our drills and techniques are probably explained differently from what they’ve heard, so they’ll have to be able to make those adjustments.
GH: What role do you play in the recruitment process in terms of evaluating a recruit’s physical condition?
EK: I get to meet all of the recruits that come in and we explain to them what we do in the weight room and our philosophy of how we work. I don’t pull any punches because I want them to know that when you come to Minnesota and work for Jerry Kill or Eric Klein, we expect you to work and you better be prepared to work or else this isn’t the place for you. We lay that out for recruits on their visits and I get a chance to talk to them and make sure that they understand that. I trust the talent level the coaches bring to me in order for me to give them a well-conditioned player on the field.
GH: What do you do as a strength and conditioning coach to give the Gophers the best chance to compete against high caliber Big Ten opponents?
EK: Our nitch has always been that we’re going to be the most conditioned team and we’re going to be the fastest team from top to bottom. There may be teams out there who have individual players who are faster than ours, but as a group, our team speed should be unmatched with any other team in the conference.