Matt Balis Resigns as Notre Dame Director of Football Performance

ShamrockOnHelmet

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I don’t know about any of this really, but experience matters. For any position, we should be plucking from a talent pool of experienced professionals from the top, say 20% of college and NFL programs. Notre Dame should absolutely be pulling from that well. That’s why I’m not crazy about this. It doesn’t pass the sniff test.
 

irishff1014

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Seems like a terrible hire. S&C in the NFL is completely different than college, and he does not have great track record. Really feel like Freeman is twisting in the wind on this one.

This is one thing am I don’t know much about. The do’s and the don’ts. But you are tied in to the inside world so
I will take your word.
 

stlnd01

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I’m sure he’s very very good at individual training and injury prevention for world-class elite athletes. But that’s only part of the job here, and frankly not the most important one.

Maybe he’ll be great, but it’s a really important job and it just seems odd we’d hire someone with zero experience in college S&C.
 

IrishLax

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I'm open minded. I'd be interested in hearing testimonials from college athletes that have done S&C with him and other college coaches he's worked with. You guys got any links to those?
 

Huntr

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So one dude on a podcast citing unnamed players from a year ago and referencing private business success / individual training. That's what we're calling "experts"?


A chiropractor who is the son of a chiropractor who worked on Broncos players through the years, and the players he spoke with.
 

IrishLax

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A chiropractor who is the son of a chiropractor who worked on Broncos players through the years, and the players he spoke with.
Right, so literally no one with even 1% knowledge of what it would take to successfully run a college S&C program… from a year ago, also not on the topic of college football S&C.
 

Huntr

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Right, so literally no one with even 1% knowledge of what it would take to successfully run a college S&C program… from a year ago, also not on the topic of college football S&C.

Exactly.
 

Terry Jillery

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This article is very encouraging......
“In 2018, the Broncos were in the top 10 for most unique injuries that caused a player to miss a game. Then in 2019, they were top seven and have been in the top five every year since 2020. So the Broncos were a relatively healthy team, as in not dealing with many unique injuries, to becoming one of the worst.

While ligament tears and others can be freak injuries, the number of soft tissue ailments also increased for the Broncos after the switch was made to Landow in 2018. Compared to the number of soft tissue injuries from 2014-17, they rose by nearly 30% in the 2018-2021 seasons.”

Ouch!
 

FDNYIrish1

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This article is very encouraging......
Do you have any idea how little time a strength coach gets to spend with athletes on a pro team? I’ll guess you know shit. This guy is a well respected strength coach with a focus on speed development. We will see but this guy is one of the best private sector coaches there is. I’m very curious to see how he develops these guys when he can be more hands on. This has potential to be a great hire.
 

rikkitikki08

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PigtownIrish

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“In 2018, the Broncos were in the top 10 for most unique injuries that caused a player to miss a game. Then in 2019, they were top seven and have been in the top five every year since 2020. So the Broncos were a relatively healthy team, as in not dealing with many unique injuries, to becoming one of the worst.

While ligament tears and others can be freak injuries, the number of soft tissue ailments also increased for the Broncos after the switch was made to Landow in 2018. Compared to the number of soft tissue injuries from 2014-17, they rose by nearly 30% in the 2018-2021 seasons.”

Ouch!
Yeah, I'm not sure how you can call his time with the Broncos "wildly successful." The numbers seem to show the opposite. This looks like a high risk hire.
 

IrishBoognish

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Last week, I had a chance to briefly talk with a S+C coach for the Ducks. I jokingly brought up that there was a position open at ND and he should apply. He knew all about it and had worked with Balis before.

He thought Balis was the absolute pinnacle of college S+C and said nearly everyone thought the same. Then we talked about Freeman's vision of wanting a more science based approach.

He said this was a pretty common trend for college coaches recently but he warned against it. He said it can work great in the pros because guys devote their every waking hour to it whereas in college, you only get so much time.

He said the Ducks have stayed true to the old school methods because it's kind of the only thing that will work in college. He warned that if Freeman went to far to the professional science based system, he would guarantee we will see a marked increase in injuries almost right away.

(This talk happened last week before this new guy's name was mentioned)

Seems this is everything dude was warning about. We'll see if he was right
 

Bluto

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