Good morning. Utah's new director of football sports performance shares his philosophy, Elon's performance director breaks down how he builds custom S&C tools with AI, and Paul Skenes' water backpack warm-up has a real reason behind it. Let's get into it.
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🏈 Utah's New S&C Director: Data Informed, Culture Driven
Steve Saunders, Utah's newly promoted director of football sports performance, sat down with UteZone to break down the vision he's building under head coach Morgan Scalley. The core philosophy: "Everything we do is going to be data informed, but it's going to be culture driven." That means GPS tracking, velocity-based training, and individualized programs by position group - offensive linemen doing different work than defensive linemen because the position demands are different.
Saunders is direct about injury management too. "It's football. It is a controlled car wreck on every single play." And on technology's role: "Technology doesn't replace hard work. It's really just going to help us maximize it." Read More
🤖 How One Performance Director Built Custom S&C Tools with Claude AI
Nick DiMarco, Elon University's director for peak performance published a detailed breakdown of how he used Claude AI to build custom performance tools for his program - a full athlete monitoring dashboard with profiles, position group leaderboards, percentile rankings, and radar charts, plus an off-season championship tracker that imports TeamBuildr data automatically. No coding knowledge required.
The workflow: describe what you want, Claude writes the code, iterate until it's right. DiMarco has rolled it out across multiple teams this year. Read More
⚾️ Why Paul Skenes Trains with a Water Backpack
Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes has been drawing attention online for his warm-up routine, which involves a hydro vest with a water-filled cylindrical backpack resting on his shoulders.
According to Science for Sport, the setup boosts core engagement to stabilize the shifting weight while mimicking the mechanics of a throw - without actually pitching a ball. The goal is an effective warm-up that reduces arm overuse risk, one of the most common injuries in baseball. Read More
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