During the Wildcats’ bye week, Randy Walker didn’t let his team relax on the couch or revel in Northwestern’s sesquicentennial celebration. Rather, Thursday’s practice was another one of Walker’s brutal conditioning sessions that rekindled memories of the team’s exhausting August training camp in Kenosha, Wis.
The Northwestern coach also sent his players to the weight room Sunday, giving them a midseason strength evaluation.
Conditioning has been Walker’s main focus during the No. 23 Wildcats’ (5-2, 3-1 Big Ten) turnaround season, and as usual, Walker preached conditioning all last week.
The results are apparent — NU has become physically stronger than ever.
“I’m pretty proud of what we did,” Walker said. “The bulk of our football team has actually gained strength during the season. So we came in as the strongest football team in the history of Northwestern and we’re stronger today than when we started the season.”
In Kenosha, the Cats measured their maximum weight on the bench. During the season, NU hits the weight room twice a week and takes “rep tests,” which according to defensive end Conrad Emmerich, calculates one’s endurance level.
Offensive lineman Jeff Roehl was one of many who has improved his maximum weight. Roehl, who benched 410 pounds in the summer, said the conditioning reps have raised his maximum about 10 to 15 pounds.
“It’s just a nice feeling,” Roehl said. “You work out in the summer and you try so hard to maintain it. It feels really good to be as strong as I was in the summer (this late in the season).”
Emmerich, who also maxes out at more than 400 pounds, was another of the improved weightlifters from the summer. He said many teams approach the weight room as a “maintenance lift,” which neither adds nor reduces a player’s power.
NU, meanwhile, is constantly working to improve individual strength under Walker’s guidance.
“(Walker) always wants us to look at lifting as, ‘You go in there, you work hard and you’re going to get stronger,'” Emmerich said. “Whereas, if you just go in there and kind of put in the time and don’t really take it to heart, you’re not going to be as strong as you need to be.
“I think we go in there and get stronger because we know come November, we’re going to be stronger than the other team we play. We’re not going to lose strength, we’re not going to maintain — we’re going to get stronger. That’s our thinking right now.”
The Cats also went back to basics last week, several days after Purdue outplayed them on both sides of the ball. NU committed 12 penalties for a total of 106 yards and the kickoff coverage was still allowing gaping running holes.
Walker addressed those problems at practice and ran his players ragged.
“I’d say, it’s comparable to Kenosha — revisiting Kenosha late in the season,” defensive tackle Javiar Collins said. “(The week of practices) was pretty tough. It was real high intensity.”
The players also stressed how the week was spent on tweaking “the little things,” such as running on and off the field rather than jog or walk during possession changes or set shifts. Emmerich said those little things “between the whistles” provide a necessary mental edge.
“We really got down to the basics and the fundamentals — the little things that got us here to 5-2. Just little things,” Emmerich said. “(Walker) realized that we haven’t been doing that real well and we got to get back to doing those little things.”
