JonDMiller
Publisher/Founder
http://www.hawkeyenation.com/football/finding-weismans-sweet-spot
(Publisher’s Note: This is the first item from David Schwartz, who will be a regular contributor to the website throughout the 2014 football season. David teaches at the University of Iowa and is an Iowa J-school graduate working on his PhD. He’s spent time at some of the largest newspapers in the country and has also been employed as as sports writer. You can read more of David’s credentials at this link. He’s a great addition to HawkeyeNation.com and is the first of this month’s set of exciting announcements pertaining to this site and its growth into the future. Give David a follow on twitter@daveschwartz – Jon Miller)
Your mind wanders when Mark Weisman is standing right in front of you.
It’s not that he’s uninteresting. He’s the opposite: Iowa’s best-known returning running back, a tank of a human being who’s a north-and-south juggernaut on the football field. The less fancy the play calling, the more fun he is.
No, your mind wanders because of everything that goes with being Mark Weisman. What’s it like to get run over by him, to try to tackle him one-on-one when he’s had a few strides to build momentum? How did so many D-I schools miss on his recruiting?.
Will his body hold up an entire college football season? More importantly, will his body hold up after college football? After 10 years? Fifty? Will he be able to walk, to remember things, given what we know now about football players whose games are predicated on punishing and getting punished?
Last week at Iowa’s football media day, Weisman said his focus was just on this season. That’s what football players are programmed to say. Chris Doyle, Iowa’s strength and conditioning coach, trains players for speed, power and endurance. He said there aren’t necessarily drills or exercises to train the body to get hit, but there are ways to train the body to reduce the amount of contact taken, which has both short- and long-term benefits.
“[Weisman] can improve his speed. He can improve his change of direction,” Doyle said. “He can improve his strength and power. Has he attained a certain level of strength? Certainly yes he has. Gaining anymore absolute strength at this point may not effect his game the way that improving his change of direction may effect his game, and that could work toward improving his recovery week to week and improving his work capacity from week to week so that he can recover during the season.”
Iowa coaches said Weisman broke down last season as his carries piled up. “Mark’s a really good runner and a really good football player,” Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said. “But it’d really be better for us if we could have him fresh in the fourth quarter of every game plus the fourth quarter of the season. We have to be careful of that.”
The numbers bear witness. Through the first five games of the 2013 season, Weisman averaged 23.8 carries and 123 yards a game, putting him among the nation’s rushing leaders. Contrast that against Weisman’s last eight games: 13.5 carries and 45 yards a game.
Part of the decline might be tied to moving from the non-conference to the Big Ten season and part to Weisman’s injuries. But that’s the point, isn’t it? Players such as Weisman, who derive much of their value from their bruising style of play, lose their value when they’re on the sidelines.
“I’ll be the first to admit it. Mark’s a comfort zone for us,” Iowa running backs and special teams coach Chris White said. “We feel that we probably wore him out early in the season and we don’t want to do that. We almost want to put him on a pitch count to keep him healthy.”
Weisman said he just wants to be a “dependable” player. That means being on the field when his team needs him as often as it needs him. He also realizes football is football and “an injury can occur on just one freak hit throughout the whole game. You never know.”
True enough that, in football, injuries happen. The trick for Weisman is to minimize risk. And that might start with the mental aspect of football over the physical.
“I would think they go hand in hand,” Doyle said. “It’s the guys who are mentally tough who can push themselves to improve physically — they gain in their confidence. They gain in their mental approach on the football field. I don’t think you can separate the two. Certainly the stronger you are and the more stable you are, the less chance you have of having an injury occur to you on the field.”
(Publisher’s Note: This is the first item from David Schwartz, who will be a regular contributor to the website throughout the 2014 football season. David teaches at the University of Iowa and is an Iowa J-school graduate working on his PhD. He’s spent time at some of the largest newspapers in the country and has also been employed as as sports writer. You can read more of David’s credentials at this link. He’s a great addition to HawkeyeNation.com and is the first of this month’s set of exciting announcements pertaining to this site and its growth into the future. Give David a follow on twitter@daveschwartz – Jon Miller)
Your mind wanders when Mark Weisman is standing right in front of you.
It’s not that he’s uninteresting. He’s the opposite: Iowa’s best-known returning running back, a tank of a human being who’s a north-and-south juggernaut on the football field. The less fancy the play calling, the more fun he is.
No, your mind wanders because of everything that goes with being Mark Weisman. What’s it like to get run over by him, to try to tackle him one-on-one when he’s had a few strides to build momentum? How did so many D-I schools miss on his recruiting?.
Will his body hold up an entire college football season? More importantly, will his body hold up after college football? After 10 years? Fifty? Will he be able to walk, to remember things, given what we know now about football players whose games are predicated on punishing and getting punished?
Last week at Iowa’s football media day, Weisman said his focus was just on this season. That’s what football players are programmed to say. Chris Doyle, Iowa’s strength and conditioning coach, trains players for speed, power and endurance. He said there aren’t necessarily drills or exercises to train the body to get hit, but there are ways to train the body to reduce the amount of contact taken, which has both short- and long-term benefits.
“[Weisman] can improve his speed. He can improve his change of direction,” Doyle said. “He can improve his strength and power. Has he attained a certain level of strength? Certainly yes he has. Gaining anymore absolute strength at this point may not effect his game the way that improving his change of direction may effect his game, and that could work toward improving his recovery week to week and improving his work capacity from week to week so that he can recover during the season.”
Iowa coaches said Weisman broke down last season as his carries piled up. “Mark’s a really good runner and a really good football player,” Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said. “But it’d really be better for us if we could have him fresh in the fourth quarter of every game plus the fourth quarter of the season. We have to be careful of that.”
The numbers bear witness. Through the first five games of the 2013 season, Weisman averaged 23.8 carries and 123 yards a game, putting him among the nation’s rushing leaders. Contrast that against Weisman’s last eight games: 13.5 carries and 45 yards a game.
Part of the decline might be tied to moving from the non-conference to the Big Ten season and part to Weisman’s injuries. But that’s the point, isn’t it? Players such as Weisman, who derive much of their value from their bruising style of play, lose their value when they’re on the sidelines.
“I’ll be the first to admit it. Mark’s a comfort zone for us,” Iowa running backs and special teams coach Chris White said. “We feel that we probably wore him out early in the season and we don’t want to do that. We almost want to put him on a pitch count to keep him healthy.”
Weisman said he just wants to be a “dependable” player. That means being on the field when his team needs him as often as it needs him. He also realizes football is football and “an injury can occur on just one freak hit throughout the whole game. You never know.”
True enough that, in football, injuries happen. The trick for Weisman is to minimize risk. And that might start with the mental aspect of football over the physical.
“I would think they go hand in hand,” Doyle said. “It’s the guys who are mentally tough who can push themselves to improve physically — they gain in their confidence. They gain in their mental approach on the football field. I don’t think you can separate the two. Certainly the stronger you are and the more stable you are, the less chance you have of having an injury occur to you on the field.”
