Coach ,

We continue on with our top 25 preview and today it's the #19 UNC Tarheels. Coach Kauffman gives us a quick preview of the season outlook and then shares how the Tarheels make gains in the weight room during the season. There are takeaways here for every level.

-Coach Grabowski

Season Preview Capsule

UNC continues their trend of having a commanding offense led by highly regarded quarterbacks. Drake Maye is the face of the offense and largely touted as one of the best quarterback prospects for the next few years. He may have lost some of his receiving targets that were a part of an offense that finished second in total offense per game but, in response the Tar Heels added Nate McCollum (Georgia Tech) and Tez Walker (Kent State) via the transfer portal. Returning to the scene in Chapel Hill is a trio of TE’s that accumulated 1,087 yards and 8 touchdowns as well as RB Elijah Green who accumulated 558 and 8 TD’s in arguably the deepest room on the team. 

The Defense is nothing to be forgotten though, it bolsters one of the most touted name combinations in the trio of Gene Chizik, Tommy Thigpen, and Charlton Warren. While the defense did not yield the greatest of statistics in 2022 they still were a piece of the 9 win season. In addition, the Heels return their top 2 tacklers and bring in back-end talent in Armani Chatman and Alijah Huzzie. 

A Key to the Tarheels Success - The Strength Program

Long-term success is sustained through having an excellent strength program. The idea is not to just maintain, it’s about getting better as the season progresses. Strength and COnditioning Coach Brian Hess explains in this video:

Video: Brian Hess - Make Gains In-Season

Structure

Understanding the structure in which you use in your program is one of the most vital portions to advancing the size, speed, and strength of a team. With this means there is a trade-off you simply have to recognize the yearly calendar and where you are going to set your blocks based on games, holidays, seasons, and available training dates. 

The common structure is winter is a building period where you add size and strength. The summer period transitions to speed, power, and agility. Ultimately culminating in a “tune-up” phase where in the season we look to maintain and keep the engine big and tune it up throughout this period. With all this, our players should be at their most explosive point come the end of the season. 

Know the Finish Line

Understand where you want to peak. I like to think of it relative to a Dan Gable wrestling quote, Gable said “The 1st period is won by the best technician. The 2nd period is won by the kid in the best shape. The 3rd period is won by the kid with the biggest heart”. While this is all true, we need our body to be in the best health and physical form possible to execute this across a long 10+ week season. 

Utilize the taper in workload that is necessary not just in practice reps and stress but in working out and the steps etc your players are taking. Everything applies varying levels of stress on the body, understand the acute chronic levels of stress and spikes in workload that you are putting your players through an immense change in bye weeks and big decreases across the season can cause the body to react poorly. 

You can additionally apply a greater workload and amount of stress on those on your team not partaking in a varsity game that week therefore they have a larger growth cycle across the year. 

Variation

Alternate your lifting blocks! Have a plan but, have things changing. Utilizing the entire year to get into speed, power, and agility training is great but where is the application in season? 

Think of it as a time when your guys are not putting on much mass but you are in a situation to maintain or increase marginal gains. On the flip side, we want to decrease the workload on the body so we utilize this time to increase our speed and power output. 

Utilizing lower volumes and intensity creates less stress on the body by varying the weights, reps, sets, and intensity that are being placed on the athlete. This can drive the body to have favorable outcomes toward on-the-field production. 

While it isn't as cut and dry as weight, also understand that you can drive competition and production during in-season lifting. You may not be trying to increase the weight anymore during the year but utilizing tempo and measurements of bar speed and the idea of beating that each week can pay dividends. 

Want to know how the Tarheels structure their strength and conditioning week? Coach Hess explains it in this video:

Video: In-Season Week

There’s plenty of takeaways in this clinic from Coach Hess. These are applicable at any level.

Strive to Succeed!

Coach Kauffman

Other Clinics from UNC Staff:

Program Building, Culture, and Leadership - Mack Brown, HC

LIVE DEMO - Offensive Line - Randy Clements, OL

UNC Offense Analysis:

UNC OFFENSIVE STUDY (2019 - PRESENT) by Zach Slone