Alabama’s strength-and-conditioning duo seems to be splitting up. In accordance with a report from 247Sports’ Josh Pate, Alabama director of sports activities science, Matt Rhea, is shifting to the NFL the place he’ll be a part of the New Orleans Saints.
Alabama director of sports activities efficiency, David Ballou, is anticipated to stay with the Crimson Tide. Alabama employed Ballou and Rhea from Indiana to spearhead its new sports-science method to conditioning in March of 2020.
Earlier than spending the previous two seasons collectively at Alabama, Ballou and Rhea labored collectively at Indiana in the course of the 2018-19 seasons. The 2 additionally spent a yr collectively at IMG Academy in 2016.
Rhea has labored as a soccer power and conditioning coach for greater than a decade, together with 5 years with NFL Mix coaching. He launched a consulting firm in 2001 and helped NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL groups, Worldwide Olympic packages and faculty athletic departments, offering path to his purchasers in areas equivalent to pace coaching, damage prevention and efficiency optimization.
Rhea superior to a full professor of kinesiology at A.T. Nonetheless College the place he taught programs in sports activities conditioning and train physiology. He has revealed practically 100 research in sports activities efficiency enhancement, in addition to lecturing in seven totally different international locations.
Rhea carried out a scientific method to Alabama’s coaching, working to assist gamers keep away from soft-muscle accidents. His strategies coincided with the Crimson Tide’s new Sports activities Science Heart that opened three months after his arrival.
Nick Saban and Alabama gamers have been extraordinarily complimentary of Rhea and Ballou praising them for his or her work a number of instances all through the previous two years.
“Once they got here in and we interviewed them, there was no query that from a sports activities science standpoint and from a conditioning standpoint they have been like light-years prematurely of what lots of people have achieved of their packages for an extended, very long time,” Saban stated in 2020.