As you know Nick Saban always seems to upgrade members of his staff and after reading more about David Ballou and Matt Rhea, that seems to be the case once again. When you look at the resume of David Ballou, the results speak for themselves. He recently arrives at Indiana and the football team has the best season since 1993 winning eight games in 2019.
The year before he arrived at Notre Dame, the Irish were 4-8, the next season in 2017 Notre Dame went 10-3 and beat LSU in the Citrus Bowl. Coincidence? During his tenure at the IMG Academy from 2015 to 2016 where he was the head football strength and conditioning coach, IMG did not lose a game and in 2016, they were rated as the No. 1 high school football team in the country by USA Today.
Another key item that jumps screams off Ballou's very decorated resume is his focus on speed and injury prevention.
Enter Dr. Matt Rhea. This hire looks to be a package deal with both Ballou and Rhea heading to Tuscaloosa to join Alabama's football staff. Rhea has held the title of athletic performance coach at Indiana since 2018 and before that, he was the Head of sports science at IMG Academy in 2016 and 2017. Rhea started a consulting company in 2001 where he worked with various athletes from the NFL to International Olympic Programs and has also published over 100 studies on performance enhancement.
I found this article on Rhea published by Stack.com in 2019 and this quote was a mic drop IMO.
"Team speed is what wins football games," says Rhea. "Those kind of improvements are a combination of the intense work ethic of our players and the fact Dave Ballou and I are willing to invest a ton of time into individualizing this as best we can for our players."
Read more here from Stack.com
https://www.stack.com/a/how-a-unique-speed-training-program-changed-indiana-football
