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AIPROPX ReportYahoo Sports · 1h ago
Florida strength and conditioning coach talks offseason progress
Florida strength and conditioning coach Rusty Whitt broke down all of the physical improvements the roster has seen over the offseason, and there are plenty of reasons to be excited.
Speed and strength are two obvious areas of focus for any team, but elite measurements in those categories are necessary for success in the SEC. Whitt rattled off lift numbers in four separate workouts, adding up to more than 14,000 pounds in strength improvement. A good chunk of the skill position players have set personal records in speed, and several are in the 21-22 mph range.
Edge defenders Kamran James and LJ McCray stood out over the summer, as did running back Jadan Baugh, who is regularly referred to as one of the strongest pound-for-pound players in the country. Whitt also touched on mental preparation and some changes to the weight room that have set the players up for even more success.
Here's everything Whitt said.
We always hear bigger, stronger and faster. How do the team’s gains translate to the field?
Okay, so a lot of that can be related to the amount of deconditioning that our players — any player across the country — is going to get in season. They decondition quite a bit. Then when you don’t go to a bowl game, we’re talking six, seven, eight weeks where players aren’t training in a unified system. So when you get these results, they are dramatic, and our guys worked their butts off, but there’s a grain of salt also in that.
Positively speaking, when we first arrived here in January, we didn’t do any one-rep max testing or projected maxes. We spent all of our time teaching movement patterns. So eight weeks into the offseason, we were able to get an estimated one-rep max on our players, a realistic level of what their strength was. After that eight weeks, we locked in that number, and then all of the improvements we have made since are based off improvement from that first cycle that we did. That’s very exciting because we squeezed a lot of juice out of this team early on, and to see that level of improvement just shows the level of athleticism that we have.
From May to July 2026, the average clean went from 276 — we’re talking the power clean or the Olympic clean — from 276 to 298. That’s a 22-pound gain. This is per man, basically, on the average. Our back squat went from 376 to 430. That’s a 46-pound increase. Average bench went from 290 to 311, which is a 21-pound increase. The deadlift, which is often neglected and a lot of teams will shy away from it, went from 435 to 469, which is up 34 pounds. So the deadlift helps the power clean, the deadlift helps the squat and the squat helps the deadlift. As far as overall durability, I really like where we’re at right now.
The total team poundage, when you add up all the improvements made by men for 116 players: 2,417-pound improvement in the clean, 5,951-pound improvement in the squat, which is big for us, 2,200 pounds in the bench press and 3,838 pounds improvement in the deadlift.
How that’s going to help us: durability, longevity and acceleration. When you have an overall improvement in your team’s squat, deadlift and clean, you’re going to see just better accelerators and decelerators. It should lend itself to — we’re not going to prevent injuries. We can mitigate injuries. The bench press is a great indicator of just overall work ethic and upper-body durability, so we had a lot of improvements in that as well.
The thing that we had to really pay attention to is its relation to speed. We got a top-end speed using our Catapult technology with every player in the spring. From May on back to January, we would do at least one or two top-end sprints a week and get an indication of top-end speed.
Eric Singleton, his top speed prior to the summer, talking around March or April, was 22.74, and now he’s at 23.32. VB3 (Vernell Brown III) went from 20.99, so call it 21, to 22.58. Jaylen Lloyd, 20.28 to 22.11. TJ Abrams — these are just highlights, by the way — 20.72 to 22.02. Amir Jackson at 20.42 to 22.09. Our quarterback, Tramell Jones, 19.92 to 21.71, so he’s hovering close to 22 miles an hour, which is elite for a quarterback. Khalil Jackson, 19.11 to 21.39. Lastly on offense, Lacota Dupree, tight end, 18.7 to 20.17.
Those are fantastic improvements for guys. If you’ve got a team full of 22-mile-an-hour guys at your corners and wideouts, you’re going to be in the mix, okay?
Defensively, Cormani (McClain) had an outstanding summer. 21.73 was his spring top-end speed. He went to 22.48. Myles Johnson, 20.7 to 22.32. That’s a huge jump. Ben Hanks, 21.74 to 22.09. Virtually all of our corners are now in the 22 range, and our top eight receivers are, so we’re in that range.
LJ McCray, get this, at 6-foot-7, around 270, ran from 18.5 to 20.31. That is incredible for a guy his size. Lastly, I’ll finish up all these stats and stuff with Kam James. He had a great summer. He was injured last year, and he went from 19.05 to 20.09. So we have 79 guys who improved there, who got a PR in their speed. We’re really excited about all that.
How impressive was Jadan Baugh’s 405-pound clean?
That’s elite. Just to put it in perspective, I think one player in the nation topped it, and he was at NC State, a defensive lineman. As far as people putting stuff on social media, if somebody can hit better than a 405 clean at 245, I haven’t seen it. The guy at NC State was around 275 to 280.
He’s an elite athlete, and that clean at his body weight is just outstanding. It’s an indicator of all the work he’s put into it. I’ve gotten a text from one of the guys at USA Weightlifting, ‘Hey, if it doesn’t work out…’ I was like, ‘Hey, don’t worry. It’s going to work out.’
How has Dallas Wilson progressed physically this offseason?
Dallas Wilson, we have made modifications on him to get him to Week 1. His emotional leadership has been outstanding, and I’ve got some speeds for him, too. He’s in the 21 range right now.
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