Larry Lilja remembers a time in college football that few can imagine today.

He came to Northwestern in the early 1970s as a 190-pound tight end, smaller than most of the wide receivers on today’s offense.

He started lifting weights in the basement of Patten Gym during his freshman year. By the time he graduated in 1975, Lilja was a 260-pound center on his way to the NFL – still 30 pounds lighter than today’s Wildcats’ linemen.

“That was a pretty good size back then,” said Lilja, now the Cats’ strength and conditioning coach.

After a stint in the pros with the Atlanta Falcons and the New York Giants, Lilja returned to NU in 1980 with current Vikings coach Dennis Green and had some words of wisdom for the Cats’ program.

“I said, ‘We will never be able to compete against these teams if we don’t improve our size, our strength and our speed,'” Lilja said.

Now Lilja’s work with the football team is more important than ever to the Cats’ success. The beneficiaries of a grueling offseason training regimen, the team went 8-3 in the regular season and made a bowl game just one year removed from a catastrophic three-win campaign.

But two decades ago, NU was the last school in the Big Ten to hire a strength coach. Lilja had work to do.

“There were guys on the team who couldn’t bench-press their own weight,” Lilja said. Thirteen players suffered neck and shoulder injuries in his first season, all from lack of lifting.

Lilja has watched the size and speed of college football players increase year after year for nearly three decades. Compared with the soul-shaking conditioning tests the Cats face during the summer, bench pressing one’s weight is as easy as lifting a bag from Burger King.

Though Patten worked well for Lilja and his teammates, the Cats needed their own facilities. Lilja said that when he started, the site of the current weight room north of Ryan Field was part of an old ice skating rink. Two renovations since its construction – the most recent about 18 months ago – made the facilities what they are today.

The weight room shifted the focus of NU’s program, along with every other team in college football.

“They’ll spend more hours in here than they probably will practicing football,” Lilja said.

Guard Jeff Roehl said the Cats go through one of the hardest conditioning tests in the country:

First, the team runs 100 yards in 15 seconds. Then, a 15-second break. Then, again. And again. And again. Ten times in all.

“We prepare all summer to pass it,” Roehl said.

Next, the team runs eight 80-yard sprints, each in 13 seconds, with 13 second breaks. Then six 60-yard sprints, and four 40-yard sprints.

“It’s training your recovery period, how quickly can you get ready to go again,” Lilja said. “With our offense, you have to be in tremendous shape.”

And while Lilja said he has helped develop players over the years, today most of the work is done before the freshmen get their hands around a barbell in NU’s facilities.

“I’ve been here 20 years, and the guys coming out of high school now are bigger and stronger than ever before,” Lilja said.

Lilja said another way the focus of training has evolved is an added emphasis on speed development.

“Everybody is big, now it’s whether you can move,” Lilja said. “If he can’t run, if he can’t change direction, then he can’t play.

“You have to have speed, finesse and quickness.”

And the Cats have been working on all three. Their no-huddle offense forces tackles to be in the same physical shape as receivers. Lilja was skeptical at the time, saying he was incredulous upon hearing the team’s game plan.

“When we first went to that offense, I said, ‘I can’t imagine a 300-pound lineman being able to run that,'” Lilja said.

Still, Lilja said the Cats have successfully adapted to the new game.

“The game is so much quicker now,” Lilja said. “And we’ve taken it to another level.”

Conditioning largely takes place during the summer, the season Lilja considers most critical to a football team.

Beginning with former NU coach Gary Barnett, Lilja said there has been a stress put on players to stay in Evanston for the summer and work out.

Center Austin King said the camaraderie and work ethic that develops over the summer is important to a team’s performance in the fall.

“I don’t know if you can get that kind of workout if you’re at home by yourself,” King said.

Roehl added: “(Any player who) was there all summer, you know you can count on him.”