No more waiting to hit weights

Jerry Kill hopes the Gophers football team enjoyed its month off. He's put Eric Klein in charge of making sure it's the last one they'll have.

"The best way to keep them busy" in December, Klein said, "is to play a bowl game in January."

That's the plan. To implement it, Minnesota's new strength and conditioning coach has been conducting workouts four days a week, starting before sunup, and the first priority was reclaiming December's lost ground. In the transition to Kill's leadership, Klein said, nobody was prodding the Gophers to get into the weight room.

"I inherited a team that had more than a month off, that laid around, didn't work hard," Klein said. "I don't blame them -- the previous staff was gone and we weren't here yet. That's what happens when you don't have direction."

The Gophers will get plenty of it now. Klein, an Apple Valley native who played defensive end at Carleton College in Northfield, has been in charge of training Jerry Kill's players since 1994, and like everything else about the new head coach's approach, the conditioning program is both extensively tested and exhaustingly precise.

"The main thing I've noticed is just how structured and detailed everything is. Every mechanic, every movement, it has a purpose," junior linebacker Mike Rallis said. "I really leave these workouts feeling like I don't have anything else to cover, as far as getting better. They pay attention to every little thing."

Well, except for the stuff that many football teams focus upon. Klein isn't interested in benchmarks, he said, though Kill doubted him at first.

That's putting it mildly.

"Eric Klein is the reason we've been successful in turning around football programs. The reason," Kill gushed. "He's the best in the country, in my opinion. Without him, we would not be where we're at."

So where are they? Getting more flexible. Becoming more mechanically sound. Learning to handle a never-stop-to-rest pace. And especially, getting quicker.

"Coach's biggest thing is incorporating speed. If you can't run, you can't play for him," senior tailback Duane Bennett said. "These workouts, it's just constant movement. He wants you to train your body so in the fourth quarter, you're still able to move quickly."

Klein tries to instill that with drills that call for six- or seven-second bursts of intense, hard-as-you-can-go energy, followed by 25 seconds of less-intense work -- simulating the rhythm of an up-tempo football game, the style Kill intends to play. There's plenty of work on the legs, and extra attention paid to proper technique.

Klein's workouts start at 6 a.m., which causes grumbling but makes players prove their commitment. Some days are devoted to speed, some to flexibility, some to lateral movement, some to strength, and all are executed in a hurry. Running backs work on explosiveness, linemen on proper footwork. All do tumbling exercises.

None of this is revolutionary, Klein is the first to admit. But the emphasis on speed and conditioning is new to the Gophers.

"It's built to address your deficiencies," said Bennett, who has noticed "major improvements" in his condition. "If you're a great bench-press guy, you're going to do something to make you better at other things. I'm looking forward to spring ball, when we put this to use on football things."

They will, because that's Klein's background. Kill hired him to help coach the defensive line at Saginaw Valley (Mich.) State in 1994, but the school also made him a track coach. That meant he didn't have time to recruit, so Kill put him in charge of conditioning. After following Kill to Emporia State in Kansas, Klein realized he loved helping athletes develop. At Southern Illinois, Kill finally allowed him to do strength coaching full-time.

He occasionally misses football coaching, but believes he's having a bigger impact this way. Plus, he's still on the sidelines.