USC coaching staff pushes players in practice, seeking maximum stamina for the fall
How can you tell this is no longer Clay Helton’s shop at USC football? Players are getting pushed in practice.
This is not a time to take it easy. This is a time to build the fitness base and the overall level of conditioning in each player. A team with some legitimate concerns about depth, especially on the offensive and defensive lines, will need supremely fit players this fall. If an injury occurs, a backup will be thrown into the fire and might need to play a lot more snaps than he currently expects.
Clay Helton did not create physical, supremely conditioned teams at USC. They were tissue-soft. We saw how the defense crumbled under pressure last year, and we saw from 2018 through 2020 that the offensive line simply didn’t make the grade. Conditioning was not where it needed to be.
That’s over. That’s in the past.
Alex Grinch discussed having the defense run after a recent scrimmage.
The Trojans ended practice with the defense running gassers and Grinch confirmed that they were scheduled and not reflective of how the defense played in practice.“So what you’ve got to protect against as a coach is say a bunch of things, put up a bunch of PowerPoints and say, ‘We’re gonna be the best conditioned defense of the country,’ and then just hope it happens. These camp weeks are designed to establish who you are. We don’t play a game on Saturday. We’re supposed to be sore. And so we take the opportunity to condition during this time of year and the guys have for the most part responded to and then we’ll have some some additional ones if there’s there’s certain moments in practice where we don’t feel like running. So it’s run during or run after. There’s some awareness training attached to it as well, but no, we do it every day.”
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