Injury-plagued San Diego State to take on BYU; Why SDSU Can't Stay Healthy

As Saturday draws closer I can finally take a deep breath, fully recovered from the last heart-stopping game and begin to focus on the task at hand: San Diego State.

One problem that SDSU is having right now is they are fairly snake bitten and can’t recover from injuries. Last I heard, they had something like seven starters out with injuries and a few back-ups waiting their turn to be listed on the injured list.

Losing is frustrating, but losing because your team isn’t health would be even worse.

After the demoralizing New Mexico game where the Aztecs allowed 70 points Coach Long was quoted as saying, “I’m hoping that this is the lowest point of our season, we have a very fragile football team.”

Wow, things don’t sound good in sunny San Diego. Of coarse that’s stating the obvious -1-6 overall and 0-3 in league play with a loss to Cal Poly.

I wanted to talk about all of the Aztec’s injuries. In football there are a variety of injuries. Some you can play through, some are just freak accuracy—please reference Scott Johnson’s injury—and some are due to a lack of physical preparation during the off-season.

There are a lot of resources allocated to building a football team during the summer. You have the whole weight-room staff, facilities and time spent planning the workout schedule by both the lifting coach and head coach.

Yet, all of these resources can be wasted if your football team doesn’t recognize the importance of off-season training.

One of the primary ways a head coach can limit the number of injuries during the season is by insuring that attendance during the summer is near perfect. The summer months have to be utilized by your players in order to build a body that can last a 13-week season filled with bone rattling hits and collisions that rival crash on the nearest interstate.

It’s a very difficult job considering the fact that the football coaches—by rule—can’t have anything to do with the team during the summer. That’s why a teams leadership is so important, but not just a couple of players.

There needs to be leaders at every position that understand the crucial role the summer month’s play.

There are three reasons why SDSU is having injury problems.

1. The Aztecs didn’t put in the time during the summer to make sure they   built strong, able bodies that would last for the entire season
2. Because of some of the early injuries the coaching staff had to play freshmen players who have bodies and minds that are not prepared for the rigors of college football.
3. SDSU lost a lot of leadership with the departure of key players into the NFL and now the team doesn’t have the push those leaders can provide.
4. Well….they have other problems but these are the only ones I can focus on right now.

I understand that some injuries are unavoidable and that it’s a large assumption to say that the SDSU didn’t work hard during the off-season. I hope I am wrong because if I—as a coach—had a young team coming off a horrible season, I would make sure they were ridden like a donkey to every workout, practice and meeting the team offered.

Yet, SDSU’s current record shows me that SDSU hasn’t put in the time during the summer month in order to become physically strong and that’s why their team is struggling with injuries and wins.

During my five years at BYU I saw a few teams suffer with injuries. Normally the players that were getting injured were those that didn’t put in the effort during the summer workouts.

Like SDSU the Cougars hadn’t developed the leadership necessary to insure that our team utilized the summer months to our teams benefit. Instead players enjoyed the sun and fun. Than as summer attendance dropped, so did wins in the fall and players during the season.

Coach Mendenhall has reshaped the lifting culture at BYU. His teams work exceptionally hard in the weight-room to insure that their bodies are at their pinnacle as they start the season.

Let’s just hope SDSU has enough players to field a team on Saturday. Let’s also hope we aren’t going to be part of another epic SDSU vs. BYU shootout. I am confident we would win, but our team needs a solid double digit win going into the last three road games of the year—AF, Utah, bowl game!