Notre Dame Hires Loren Landow as Director of Football Performance

[WildMan1]

Not this one snuzzle poof. I will defend Landow until death (or until he retires)


(or until I stop caring because I have other stuff to do).

But seriously, he's awesome.

Yea he is.. intense guy. I’ve met him a few times. Can’t imagine we have another season of injuries like this next year.

11 days to get healthy LFG

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

I'm bumping this because the IrishIllustrated guys had a question come in about whether we'd see a 2nd year jump under Landow, similar to how we see it with coordinators. (great question btw, if it was one of you)

They did mention that last year already looked pretty good with the depth showing up and holding up through a long, injury-riddled season.

I thought they missed an opportunity to examine it a bit more thoroughly. If all strength and conditioning coaches are interchangeable then there is no delta between them so you can swap them out and time in the program is the only variable (which is basically what Pete alluded to and I take umbrage with).

I think the exceptional coaches that understand the growing science/literature comprehensively, can start at first principles with every athlete and address weaknesses/compensation patterns in their movements. This approach can be the difference that gets compounded over time. Good coaches 'do no harm' and help the guys grow at what is considered "industry rate" following standard practices. Great coaches identify weaknesses in movements, gaits, lifts, etc and then set about addressing and fortifying the athlete and this gives the players the proverbial 'coat of armor' before adding more power/force/mass to their movements.

I know it's long-winded. Sorry, I just really thought they'd give more thought to this idea. This isn't me wanting to believe in Landow, it's going off the countless references that swear by his methodologies. He's well-regarded and has a deep knowledge base.

 

[Redbar]

I would think and hope so. There is no doubt that this team, even the very young guys, were ready for the longest most grueling season of college football to date. We were generally the more physical team and that doesn’t happen by accident. I don’t see how you don’t share the wealth with all your coordinators including strength and conditioning. My $0.02.

 

[Jimmy3Putt]

Freeman deserves a lot of credit here. He wanted a change in the conditioning program and I believe the previous guy didn't want to do it.

Not sure if they're the more physical team in the fourth quester vs A&M or UGA without those changes.

 

[SDIrishFan]

I get it’s football, and injuries happen, but the knock on Landow coming in was his teams had a higher rate of injury than others.

This is the second year we’re seeing injuries at an amazing rate, including not having your starting place kicker healthy for most of the season.

Is there something more to this? Knee injuries at a crazy rate. Maybe other teams see this as well, I don’t follow them, but this is concerning.

 

[allenm5333]

I get it’s football, and injuries happen, but the knock on Landow coming in was his teams had a higher rate of injury than others.

This is the second year we’re seeing injuries at an amazing rate, including not having your starting place kicker healthy for most of the season.

Is there something more to this? Knee injuries at a crazy rate. Maybe other teams see this as well, I don’t follow them, but this is concerning.

Do we have data showing this? Or is it the fact we follow this team religiously?

 

[notredomer23]

I get it’s football, and injuries happen, but the knock on Landow coming in was his teams had a higher rate of injury than others.

This is the second year we’re seeing injuries at an amazing rate, including not having your starting place kicker healthy for most of the season.

Is there something more to this? Knee injuries at a crazy rate. Maybe other teams see this as well, I don’t follow them, but this is concerning.

Has there really been that many this year? I feel like overall ND has been abnormally healthy compared to the last few years in terms of season ending injuries at least. Last year it felt like they were getting new season ending injuries every week.

 

[NDRock]

Do we have data showing this? Or is it the fact we follow this team religiously?

Yeah, I’d like to see data and not go on vibes

 

[NDFAN2008]

I get it’s football, and injuries happen, but the knock on Landow coming in was his teams had a higher rate of injury than others.

This is the second year we’re seeing injuries at an amazing rate, including not having your starting place kicker healthy for most of the season.

Is there something more to this? Knee injuries at a crazy rate. Maybe other teams see this as well, I don’t follow them, but this is concerning.

I mean 75% of the injuries last year were freak accidents, look all across college football injuries are up everywhere.

 

[Dale]

As a degenerate gambler I’ll say NDs injury report this season feels about average. Other schools have significantly more. Some sure have less.

 

[allenm5333]

Has there really been that many this year? I feel like overall ND has been abnormally healthy compared to the last few years in terms of season ending injuries at least. Last year it felt like they were getting new season ending injuries every week.

Most of the injuries also seem out of our trainers control

 

[Crazy Balki]

Has there really been that many this year? I feel like overall ND has been abnormally healthy compared to the last few years in terms of season ending injuries at least. Last year it felt like they were getting new season ending injuries every week.

I think it's less the number of injuries and the significance of said injuries, in both personnel and type.

Jagusah breaks his arm, and it turns out it's keeping him out longer than expected. Arms don't normally take 5 months to heal.

Craig tore his ACL for the second year in a row. Billy Schrauth fucks his ankle up for the second year in a row.

KVA having knee problems for the second year in a row, this one costing him the season.

Greathouse being out for basically the whole regular season with a hammy.

Tae fracturing a bone his fucking hand in practice.

Rubio hurting his foot again.

Donny's been dealing with injuries the past month or so. Burnham just got healthy.

It's not reserve guys. It seems like all of our injuries have been key players. 7+ starters all injured or lost for the year is honestly pretty crazy after last year. Seriously, the worm eventually has to turn and the injury luck should turn good. To say we're due would be a major understatement after last year's debacle.

 

[Dale]

I think it's less the number of injuries and the significance of said injuries, in both personnel and type.

Jagusah breaks his arm, and it turns out it's keeping him out longer than expected. Arms don't normally take 5 months to heal.

Craig tore his ACL for the second year in a row. Billy Schrauth fucks his ankle up for the second year in a row.

KVA having knee problems for the second year in a row, this one costing him the season.

Greathouse being out for basically the whole regular season with a hammy.

Tae fracturing a bone his fucking hand in practice.

Rubio hurting his foot again.

Donny's been dealing with injuries the past month or so. Burnham just got healthy.

It's not reserve guys. It seems like all of our injuries have been key players. 7+ starters all injured or lost for the year is honestly pretty crazy after last year. Seriously, the worm eventually has to turn and the injury luck should turn good. To say we're due would be a major understatement after last year's debacle.

Like half this list is getting held out or PT rationed due to opponent. Rather obvious why starters get hurt more than reserves, they are colliding with other violent human beings more.

 

[notredomer23]

I think it's less the number of injuries and the significance of said injuries, in both personnel and type.

Jagusah breaks his arm, and it turns out it's keeping him out longer than expected. Arms don't normally take 5 months to heal.

Craig tore his ACL for the second year in a row. Billy Schrauth fucks his ankle up for the second year in a row.

KVA having knee problems for the second year in a row, this one costing him the season.

Greathouse being out for basically the whole regular season with a hammy.

Tae fracturing a bone his fucking hand in practice.

Rubio hurting his foot again.

Donny's been dealing with injuries the past month or so. Burnham just got healthy.

It's not reserve guys. It seems like all of our injuries have been key players. 7+ starters all injured or lost for the year is honestly pretty crazy after last year. Seriously, the worm eventually has to turn and the injury luck should turn good. To say we're due would be a major understatement after last year's debacle.

Half of these injuries are total fluke plays due to being a violent game and another third being due to injury history (like KVA going back to high school). This also is barely any injuries compared to what ND dealt with last year, or if you look at half the other teams in the top 25. ND has been very fortunate overall and it just sucks that a couple key players have gotten hurt.

 

[FU BK]

Most of the injuries also seem out of our trainers control

This....all the training in the world cannot prevent someone getting rolled up on in a pile

 

[irishff1014]

I am not doctor or physical therapist but i still believe that these players never really give their bodies a break and and that turf contributes to more injuries then people are willing to admit too.

 

[IRISHbluehen]

Players have gotten bigger, faster and stronger over time. Ligaments do not.

Jags was obviously preventable in the initial injury, but when they stated they decided to perform the surgery at the local hospital they took him too, I was concerned there would be complications. Those places are simply not equipped for those types of injuries involving high level athletes.

 

[SDIrishFan]

I certainly don't have any data (nor the time or desire to compile it myself), but as Balki said, our injuries seem to be severe and to front line guys. We were a complete MASH unit last year.

And to Dale's point, obviously front line guys get hit more often.

Again, I only follow ND, so I don't see what other teams deal with other than when it's that opponent that week and I inevitably hear so and so is out for this week.

We are currently going 9 deep on the OL. The Out for Season injury report gets longer and longer. Seriously, 2 kickers, 2 years in a row, can't stay healthy? We see seem to have a front line injury mid-week almost every week (Greathouse, Hinish, Johnson, Rubio).

Again no data for ND, but there was data from the NFL or Broncos or independent journalists that said Landow's teams were more injury prone.

 

[Bane]

I certainly don't have any data (nor the time or desire to compile it myself), but as Balki said, our injuries seem to be severe and to front line guys. We were a complete MASH unit last year.

And to Dale's point, obviously front line guys get hit more often.

Again, I only follow ND, so I don't see what other teams deal with other than when it's that opponent that week and I inevitably hear so and so is out for this week.

We are currently going 9 deep on the OL. The Out for Season injury report gets longer and longer. Seriously, 2 kickers, 2 years in a row, can't stay healthy? We see seem to have a front line injury mid-week almost every week (Greathouse, Hinish, Johnson, Rubio).

Again no data for ND, but there was data from the NFL or Broncos or independent journalists that said Landow's teams were more injury prone.

Also, some our injuries last year occurred in the playoffs. Those are extra games that aren't necessarily part of the routine schedule.

 

[Old Man Mike]

We don't have good data. Statistics say that teams will suffer injuries in a statistical spread (Bell-shaped curve) with some luckier and some not. Then overlay that with some sets of athletes facing superior physical specimens both in games and practices (that shifts the curve to the worse for elite teams). Then overlay that with some teams spending more time just training under controlled conditions, while some team might not, due to having to spend time studying, rather than doing nothing but conditioning "body armor". Plus a helluva lot of subtler things which can shift the curve.

Athletes are really smashing into one another. LOTS of damages are going to happen. (I believe that football will very soon turn into a long depth grind challenge, which will alter football expectations entirely. It's VERY close to that in the pros now.) Trying to blame one guy is frankly crazy; especially when that guy is at a program which emphasizes medical science everywhere it reasonably can.

And ... I'm going to go far out on a limb, and imagine that what body connectors (Joints et al) types you recruit even at the high school level is going to be more important for the body smasher scale than the intelligence scale. (Those scales don't come mutually exclusively, but Notre Dame has had to pay a lot of attention to the latter one, and if the former one becomes even more important for year-long personnel survival in the bloodzone, then that's just one more thing we have to somehow get past.)

Football at some "hidden" level is REALLY changing. .... I don't like the "direction" of this.

 

[NDohio]

I certainly don't have any data (nor the time or desire to compile it myself), but as Balki said, our injuries seem to be severe and to front line guys. We were a complete MASH unit last year.

And to Dale's point, obviously front line guys get hit more often.

Again, I only follow ND, so I don't see what other teams deal with other than when it's that opponent that week and I inevitably hear so and so is out for this week.

We are currently going 9 deep on the OL. The Out for Season injury report gets longer and longer. Seriously, 2 kickers, 2 years in a row, can't stay healthy? We see seem to have a front line injury mid-week almost every week (Greathouse, Hinish, Johnson, Rubio).

Again no data for ND, but there was data from the NFL or Broncos or independent journalists that said Landow's teams were more injury prone.

Not going to go back and find it, but there were also counter articles written, and shared in this thread, stating that Landow’s Broncos team were not more Iinury prone.

 

[IrishLax]

I think it's less the number of injuries and the significance of said injuries, in both personnel and type.

Jagusah breaks his arm, and it turns out it's keeping him out longer than expected. Arms don't normally take 5 months to heal.

Craig tore his ACL for the second year in a row. Billy Schrauth fucks his ankle up for the second year in a row.

KVA having knee problems for the second year in a row, this one costing him the season.

Greathouse being out for basically the whole regular season with a hammy.

Tae fracturing a bone his fucking hand in practice.

Rubio hurting his foot again.

Donny's been dealing with injuries the past month or so. Burnham just got healthy.

It's not reserve guys. It seems like all of our injuries have been key players. 7+ starters all injured or lost for the year is honestly pretty crazy after last year. Seriously, the worm eventually has to turn and the injury luck should turn good. To say we're due would be a major understatement after last year's debacle.

The Jagusah thing is a bit crazy, and frankly it implies the surgeon fucked up. They expected his "return to play" window to optimistically be October, pessimistically be November. We are at the end of November and he is nowhere close. Which means the strength gain, etc. after he is healed will be even more prolonged too.

 

[Crazy Balki]

The Jagusah thing is a bit crazy, and frankly it implies the surgeon fucked up. They expected his "return to play" window to optimistically be October, pessimistically be November. We are at the end of November and he is nowhere close. Which means the strength gain, etc. after he is healed will be even more prolonged too.

IIRC, there was concerns about the type of break and a potential infection. I don't know if that means the surgeon done fucked up. All surgery comes with the risk of infection and it sounds like them having to go back in and clean up the area prolonged the recovery. Basically sounds more like there was a setback in his recovery that pushed his timeline back.

 

[IRISHbluehen]

IIRC, there was concerns about the type of break and a potential infection. I don't know if that means the surgeon done fucked up. All surgery comes with the risk of infection and it sounds like them having to go back in and clean up the area prolonged the recovery. Basically sounds more like there was a setback in his recovery that pushed his timeline back.

I know they had to "clean it up", possibly an infection that they had to open up the arm, or they had to rebreak the bone because it wasn't healing correctly (the surgeon fucked up)

 

[ulukinatme]

I get it’s football, and injuries happen, but the knock on Landow coming in was his teams had a higher rate of injury than others.

This is the second year we’re seeing injuries at an amazing rate, including not having your starting place kicker healthy for most of the season.

Is there something more to this? Knee injuries at a crazy rate. Maybe other teams see this as well, I don’t follow them, but this is concerning.

Yeah, I haven't seen the data, but the last two years it feels like we've been snake bitten with the injuries. I thought that was the whole point of Freeman kicking out the old guard and going in a more technological route, it was supposed to protect the players and improve performance? I'm not so sure.

 

[Ocjae]

I know they had to "clean it up", possibly an infection that they had to open up the arm, or they had to rebreak the bone because it wasn't healing correctly (the surgeon fucked up)

I wish it were that simple but this is an organic system and there are too many variables to predict recovery outcomes reliably in trauma especially if the rumors of an open fracture are true (don’t recall). I agree I was nervous when he was cared for at a “local” hospital and not with the substantial resources ND can utilize. That said, this likely was not something that could have waited given humerus fractures carry a risk of vascular injury depending on location even if it was not open. Having to “rebreak” the location means little about the surgical technique typically. Not saying the surgeon didn’t fuckup but I suspect that isn’t the case.

 

[Irish#1]

I wish it were that simple but this is an organic system and there are too many variables to predict recovery outcomes reliably in trauma especially if the rumors of an open fracture are true (don’t recall). I agree I was nervous when he was cared for at a “local” hospital and not with the substantial resources ND can utilize. That said, this likely was not something that could have waited given humerus fractures carry a risk of vascular injury depending on location even if it was not open. Having to “rebreak” the location means little about the surgical technique typically. Not saying the surgeon didn’t fuckup but I suspect that isn’t the case.

This........ About 13 years ago, while working on a house we were rehabbing I sliced open my hand pretty good. There was some ligament damage. It was in a more rural area about 70 miles from Indy. Went to the local hospital. After the doctor looked at it, he said he was going to find a doctor at another hospital, because he felt this would require someone with more experience in these type of injuries.

I suspect that the doctor was competent enough to know whether he should perform the surgery or have someone else do it.

Also, a lot depends on the patient. Are they keeping the arm completely immobilized and following the doctors orders?

 

[Kingbish01]

This........ About 13 years ago, while working on a house we were rehabbing I sliced open my hand pretty good. There was some ligament damage. It was in a more rural area about 70 miles from Indy. Went to the local hospital. After the doctor looked at it, he said he was going to find a doctor at another hospital, because he felt this would require someone with more experience in these type of injuries.

I suspect that the doctor was competent enough to know whether he should perform the surgery or have someone else do it.

Also, a lot depends on the patient. Are they keeping the arm completely immobilized and following the doctors orders?

Same thing happened to me with a cut on my forehead after a car accident. ER Doc, said if I came in after a bar fight he'd have taken care of me....But since I came in at 8 am dressed up heading to work he called a plastic surgeon in. 10+ years later you can barely see the scar, glad he looked out for me.

 

[Dale]

 

[Dale]

This is what people think our injury report looks like