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YSU changes format, gets results
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
For most of Eric Wolford’s coaching career, he’s followed the same practice schedule he learned as a player at Kansas State.
Practices were Monday through Thursday, with hard practices on Tuesday and Wednesday. Friday was the walk-through before Saturday’s game.
But when the San Francisco 49ers practiced at Stambaugh Stadium two years ago, Wolford started to rethink things.
“There’s more of a movement toward doing more on Fridays, the day prior to the game, and using Thursday more as a walk-through,” he said. “The research is out there, in all other sports, whether it’s basketball or baseball or track, if you want to perform at your peak — which is obviously on Saturday — you need to probably be more active on Friday than being dormant.”
Wolford was pushed to make the change by Kentucky coach Mark Stoops, who uses GPS technology and monitoring systems on his players to test his players’ performance.
“I don’t have all those resources, so I just trusted in him,” Wolford said. “And I had heard it from a lot of other people.
“I hear Baylor’s doing it, Texas A&M, Chip Kelly [with Oregon and the Philadelphia Eagles]. Even the [Cleveland] Browns are doing it. So I had an intuition I had to make a change and keep our team fresh.”
Tuesdays and Wednesdays are still hard practices for YSU, while Thursday is more of a walk-through, targeting the mental/assignment side.
Wolford then ramps the energy back up on Friday. Last week, for instance, YSU practiced at Stambaugh Stadium before the 2 p.m. flight to Springfield, Mo.
“[We] try to get back to that peak on Saturday,” he said.
Junior quarterback Dante Nania said he’s noticed a difference.
“Our new practice schedule seems to be working,” he said. “I thought we were flying around, moving around fast at an up-tempo pace Tuesday and Wednesday last week. I think we just got to stay on schedule what we doing. What we did last week seemed to work.”
Wolford agreed, saying his defense still looked fresh in the second half of the 14-7 win over Missouri State.
“The research is there; you’ve just got to trust it,” he said. “I like the early indications of the practice change so far. Hopefully it will bode well for the future.”
Hydration accentuation
Wolford also has started testing his players for dehydration after reading research that linked dehydration with concussions and other injuries.
“That’s a big part of what’s going on right now in football,” he said. “Why are we having so many concussions? Well, a lot of that’s related to dehydration.
“Why are we having pulls and tweaks and stuff like that. That’s where the research is. So, I started dehydration testing last week to give guys a better idea of where they need to be.
“I think they’ve been receptive to it and hopefully they’ve been taking care of their body.”
Valley heights
The Missouri Valley Football Conference has seven ranked teams for the third straight week, with YSU ranked 10th in the FCS coaches poll and 16th in The Sports Network poll.
That’s one fewer ranked team than last week — Missouri State dropped out of the TSN poll after losing to YSU — and the league showed off its depth on Saturday when Western Illinois led three-time defending national champion North Dakota State entering the fourth quarter and Illinois State drubbed perennial playoff contender South Dakota State 45-10.
“It’s anybody’s league, anybody’s game,” Wolford said. “That’s why we’ve got to stay dialed into the present and who we’re playing.”