☕️ S&C Daily — Personalities Leave, Systems Stay

October 26, 2026

A new study in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport put 60 adolescent pitchers into one of three groups for six weeks: lower-body plyometrics, balance training or a control group.

Only the plyo group reduced the stress on the elbow during pitching, by about 23%. Both training groups threw harder, about 2.6 mph faster with plyos and 1.6 mph with balance work. The plyo group was also the only one that jumped higher.

The authors say lower-body plyometrics “may represent an effective strategy” for throwing harder while easing stress on the elbow, possibly through better lower-body force production and postural control.

Tennessee went into its game at South Carolina after four straight SEC games, including Alabama the week before, and reported no new injuries and no players listed as questionable. LSU’s Lane Kiffin has been arguing that the nine-game conference schedule is wearing teams down.

VolQuest’s Brent Hubbs noted the only Vols out had long-term structural injuries, and he pointed at director of football sports performance Derek Owings. “Tennessee is the only team in the conference who doesn’t have anybody listed on their report who is unknown going into this game,” Hubbs said on 104.5 The Zone. “So I think it’s a credit to (UT strength coach) Derek Owings.”

Writing on his Substack after watching the new Nick Saban documentary, Nick DiMarco makes the case that Saban’s real edge was a system that survived constant turnover. Saban lost coordinators almost every year, lost a strength coach of 13 years and turned over his roster every three to four years. The standard never moved.

The weight room is one of his examples. When Scott Cochran left for Georgia after the 2019 season, Saban did not try to clone him. He hired David Ballou as director of sports performance and Dr. Matt Rhea as director of performance science, both from Indiana, for a more data-driven model built around the program’s new sports science center. The first season under the new performance staff ended 13-0 with a national title.

“Most coaches change when they lose. Saban changed while he was winning,” DiMarco writes.

Ball State cut the ribbon last week on the Eric Foss Championship Performance Center, an 11,000-square-foot space inside Worthen Arena with strength and conditioning areas, sport-specific training zones, recovery areas and a nutrition bar. Softball senior Maia Pietrzak, who interns with the football conditioning staff, pointed to Keiser machines that track strength and power outputs and laser-based velocity-based training units.

Baseball coach Rich Maloney used to avoid showing some recruits the old weight room, The Star Press reports. “Our strength training people have done a marvelous job over the years,” Maloney said.

West Virginia alum Pat McAfee named strength coach Mike Barwis among the people who “changed me forever,” and credited Rich Rodriguez with breaking him down and building him back up as an 18-year-old.

Missouri basketball now practices under a KINEXON local positioning system tracking more than 200 live metrics, run by director of player performance Sean Conaty.

NC State fired head coach Dave Doeren after 14 seasons and a 3-4 start, the second Power Four opening this cycle after Maryland.

Texas launched Bevo Lab with the McCombs School of Business, Dell, Google Cloud and SHI. The first piece is a data warehouse pulling game film and wearable data into one platform, starting with football before expanding to all 21 varsity sports. Per the release, early AI workflows already save coaches more than 15 hours a week in game prep.

The St. James

Rhode Island FC

Valparaiso University

ETS Performance

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