Florida strength and conditioning coach Rusty Whitt broke down all of the physical improvements the roster has seen over the offseason, and there are plenty of reasons to be excited.
Speed and strength are two obvious areas of focus for any team, but elite measurements in those categories are necessary for success in the SEC. Whitt rattled off lift numbers in four separate workouts, adding up to more than 14,000 pounds in strength improvement. A good chunk of the skill position players have set personal records in speed, and several are in the 21-22 mph range.
Edge defenders Kamran James and LJ McCray stood out over the summer, as did running back Jadan Baugh, who is regularly referred to as one of the strongest pound-for-pound players in the country.
Whitt also touched on mental preparation and some changes to the weight room that have set the players up for even more success.
Here's everything Whitt said.
We always hear bigger, stronger and faster. How do the team’s gains translate to the field?
Okay, so a lot of that can be related to the amount of deconditioning that our players — any player across the country — is going to get in season. They decondition quite a bit. Then when you don’t go to a bowl game, we’re talking six, seven, eight weeks where players aren’t training in a unified system. So when you get these results, they are dramatic, and our guys worked their butts off, but there’s a grain of salt also in that.
Positively speaking, when we first arrived here in January, we didn’t do any one-rep max testing or projected maxes. We spent all of our time teaching movement patterns. So eight weeks into the offseason, we were able to get an estimated one-rep max on our players, a realistic level of what their strength was. After that eight weeks, we locked in that number, and then all of the improvements we have made since are based off improvement from that first cycle that we did. That’s very exciting because we squeezed a lot of juice out of this team early on, and to see that level of improvement just shows the level of athleticism that we have.
From May to July 2026, the average clean went from 276 — we’re talking the power clean or the Olympic clean — from 276 to 298. That’s a 22-pound gain. This is per man, basically, on the average. Our back squat went from 376 to 430. That’s a 46-pound increase. Average bench went from 290 to 311, which is a 21-pound increase. The deadlift, which is often neglected and a lot of teams will shy away from it, went from 435 to 469, which is up 34 pounds. So the deadlift helps the power clean, the deadlift helps the squat and the squat helps the deadlift. As far as overall durability, I really like where we’re at right now.
The total team poundage, when you add up all the improvements made by men for 116 players: 2,417-pound improvement in the clean, 5,951-pound improvement in the squat, which is big for us, 2,200 pounds in the bench press and 3,838 pounds improvement in the deadlift.
How that’s going to help us: durability, longevity and acceleration. When you have an overall improvement in your team’s squat, deadlift and clean, you’re going to see just better accelerators and decelerators. It should lend itself to — we’re not going to prevent injuries. We can mitigate injuries. The bench press is a great indicator of just overall work ethic and upper-body durability, so we had a lot of improvements in that as well.
The thing that we had to really pay attention to is its relation to speed. We got a top-end speed using our Catapult technology with every player in the spring. From May on back to January, we would do at least one or two top-end sprints a week and get an indication of top-end speed.
Eric Singleton, his top speed prior to the summer, talking around March or April, was 22.74, and now he’s at 23.32. VB3 (Vernell Brown III) went from 20.99, so call it 21, to 22.58. Jaylen Lloyd, 20.28 to 22.11. TJ Abrams — these are just highlights, by the way — 20.72 to 22.02. Amir Jackson at 20.42 to 22.09. Our quarterback, Tramell Jones, 19.92 to 21.71, so he’s hovering close to 22 miles an hour, which is elite for a quarterback. Khalil Jackson, 19.11 to 21.39. Lastly on offense, Lacota Dupree, tight end, 18.7 to 20.17.
Those are fantastic improvements for guys. If you’ve got a team full of 22-mile-an-hour guys at your corners and wideouts, you’re going to be in the mix, okay?
Defensively, Cormani (McClain) had an outstanding summer. 21.73 was his spring top-end speed. He went to 22.48. Myles Johnson, 20.7 to 22.32. That’s a huge jump. Ben Hanks, 21.74 to 22.09. Virtually all of our corners are now in the 22 range, and our top eight receivers are, so we’re in that range.
LJ McCray, get this, at 6-foot-7, around 270, ran from 18.5 to 20.31. That is incredible for a guy his size. Lastly, I’ll finish up all these stats and stuff with Kam James. He had a great summer. He was injured last year, and he went from 19.05 to 20.09. So we have 79 guys who improved there, who got a PR in their speed. We’re really excited about all that.
How impressive was Jadan Baugh’s 405-pound clean?
That’s elite. Just to put it in perspective, I think one player in the nation topped it, and he was at NC State, a defensive lineman. As far as people putting stuff on social media, if somebody can hit better than a 405 clean at 245, I haven’t seen it. The guy at NC State was around 275 to 280.
He’s an elite athlete, and that clean at his body weight is just outstanding. It’s an indicator of all the work he’s put into it. I’ve gotten a text from one of the guys at USA Weightlifting, ‘Hey, if it doesn’t work out…’ I was like, ‘Hey, don’t worry. It’s going to work out.’
How has Dallas Wilson progressed physically this offseason?
Dallas Wilson, we have made modifications on him to get him to Week 1. His emotional leadership has been outstanding, and I’ve got some speeds for him, too. He’s in the 21 range right now.
Knock on wood, but his issue that we had was his foot. We’ve suppressed that a lot, and he’s not catching power cleans. He’s doing a modified program. But he’s also lost, Jake, what, 12, 15 pounds? Yeah.
When you’ve got a guy who has to run at his volume and decelerate and make cuts, I think a big help for him is reducing that body weight because he was 212, 215. He’s 210 to 212, which is really, for his size, an ideal place for him to be.
How much weight have Florida’s linemen lost this offseason?
(Bryce) Lovett has had an incredible — January to now, he’s lost 16 pounds of fat. That’s just this summer. He’s up 22 lean and down 43 fat. He lost 43 pounds of fat from January. That’s pretty impressive.
LJ is up 21 pounds of mass, 21 pounds of muscle he put on since January. That’s a different guy, right? Isn’t it wild how a guy can gain that much lean mass and get faster? That’s just the way it works.
Do you feel good about what you are handing over to the coaching staff for fall camp?
I’m extremely excited. If you can’t tell right now, I’m stoked at our improvements. But we have to keep the wheels on in August. The coaches and I have a great relationship and a great communication structure to do that.
We’ve got to keep our strength. We’ve got to keep our hydration and keep our speed up. There’s going to be a lot of volume thrown at these guys. But as far as overall improvements, we have 54 players power cleaning over 300 pounds, 56 players running over 20 miles an hour. There are a lot of teams in our league who can say comparable numbers, but we’re in. We have a fighting chance. We’re in the mix.
We just have to keep pushing our guys to live right, do right. The first four days of camp are very critical because you put a helmet on them, and we haven’t done that in the last couple of months. They’re going to have hydration issues, going to have fatigue, some dead legs. So for the first four days of camp, we don’t lift weights. We do hydration. We do mobility activation circuits, things like that.
But after the first week, we’re going back in the weight room for a 50-minute lift, five-zero-minute lift, and we’re going to maintain, at least maintain. Some guys can get stronger during the football season because the time frame is so large from September to January, early February. You can’t just say, ‘We’re going to maintain.’ You’ve got to keep pushing.
When you’re 21 years old, you can get stronger. I don’t like to maintain. I like to improve. Even a guy like Jadan can keep progressing because he’s such a young guy.
Can you explain the turf squats and how the players embraced them this offseason?
They found a lot of commonality in that movement to what they do on the football field. Front-loading this position in a deep squat is much like taking on a block, offensive line, even linebackers. Anytime you’re going to get lower, you’re required to get lower than your opponent and bring your hips through with your hands in this position.
It kind of caught like wildfire with our guys. We showed it to them in the summer, and it’s like, ‘Hey, on Wednesdays we do specialty strength days. We’re going to show you some things that might help you.’ Then they took that and ran with it.
Our guys are very competitive. When they saw a dude do four plates, well, four plates took off. They saw a guy do 500, and then 500 took off. Then they were getting videos from every high school in Florida with kids doing it.
I didn’t invent the lift, okay? I haven’t seen it widespread in football, but it makes sense to me. We’re not afraid to throw different things at our guys, and they really absorbed it.
How impressive was Jayden Woods’ turf squat?
He could do more, but we’ve got to be smart. I was like, ‘Slap another plate on.’
He’s the kind of guy that Coach Sumrall will often say you’d rather have guys you’ve got to go, ‘Whoa, whoa,’ than ‘Giddy up.’ He’s one of those, ‘Whoa, whoa. Hey.’
Because the plan on his power-clean day was, ‘I want him to hit 400 pounds.’ He’s like, ‘Can I put four plates on?’ I’m like, ‘Your career warning light’s flashing.’ I was like, ‘Go for it,’ because I trusted him, and he smashed it.
I had a couple of players buzzing in my ear, ‘Hey, let him go up 15.’ I’m like, ‘No. You’re done. You’re done.’
How unusual is the philosophy of lifting during the season?
At our level, you have to. I think we are a little more on the aggressive side, which I think Coach and I really agree on.
Our practice schedule, the way we balance our lifts with our practice schedule, it works out really well to get two good, heavy lifts in. When I say heavy, it’s low volume, high intensity. It’s low reps, like twos and threes, but you’re moving substantial weight.
We lift Monday, Tuesday, and we lift Thursdays. We have a lot of players come in to extra work on top of that. The goal is to make your runs during the offseason and your runs during the summer as hard, if not harder, than practice. So they’re coming in anyway after that and lifting weights.
We tell them that the first couple hours of practice is like the first half, first three quarters. When you come lift, it’s the fourth quarter. You guys know how many games are won and lost in the SEC in the fourth quarter.
That’s our goal. ‘Hey, I don’t care how tired you are. You might smell like ammonia. You’ve lost seven pounds. Drink water, eat a protein bar, drink a shake. We’re going to lift. You’ve got 15 minutes to recover.’
It’s about how urgent is your program. Once you get your really good players buying into that philosophy, it really spreads like wildfire.
Are you a smelling-salts guy?
Whatever it takes. Yeah, I like smelling salts. We have the bottles of ammonia, the inhalants. Everything is legal that we can do. We do occasional slaps, whatever they want to do.
How exciting is it to have players who enjoy going into the weight room?
This is the best job in the world. They thrive on the competitiveness of it all. When they see a guy they know improve, it’s a really cool environment. It shows you the kind of players that we have. They get excited to see somebody else do well.
I’ve been doing this for a long time, and this is an exciting environment. When you see Kam James hit a PR, LJ, Lovett, Woods, all these guys hitting personal records and just igniting the entire room. If we can get that excited to lift weights, how excited can you get to play Game 1, or Campbell, or go to Auburn?
That’s the kind of environment we’re trying to really establish here.
Was there a player who emerged after being more of a wallflower early in the offseason?
Kam James. I think a lot of that was he lacked a little bit of confidence because he had the surgery. What month? November last year, probably.
I think he was a late bloomer because we were very cautious to get that guy going. But once he took off around June, it was like he never missed a beat.
What was the summer like for Heze Kent?
Thirty pounds of fat. Thirty pounds of fat net loss.
It was a tough day for Heston because he had to do the team run, team lift, strap on a 20-pound weighted vest and walk between 30 and 45 minutes a day. Then in July, he was doing that twice a day. So he put in a lot of work.
It wasn’t me. It wasn’t Jake. At some point, that young man said, ‘Hey, I really want to play tight end here.’
Thirty pounds total. He went from 315 to 280-something, in the high 280s. His ideal weight in our mind right now is around 275, so that’s what we’re going to get him to.
Just imagine taking a 40-pound weight vest off, how much faster you’re going to be. He ran two weeks ago 19 miles an hour at 288. So now he’s a tight end.
How has the team’s mental resiliency improved in addition to its physical gains?
That is a great question. Mental resiliency. We threw a lot of curveballs at our guys early on. We do game simulations. We put the offensive line versus defensive line in what we call the trench war. It’s one hour of competition.
Early on in January, doing the gauntlet, it was really easy to pick out the overachievers. Now it’s really easy to pick out the guys who aren’t meeting the standard.
There were some fisticuffs. There were some emotions. There were some altercations. It was really a lot closer. I really feel like our guys want to meet all the challenges that we put in front of them, and this season is going to be extremely challenging.
You can’t duplicate it, but you can try to replicate some of the stress. We put stress on our guys daily. We always do a daily finisher in the weight room. You have to hold a plank for five minutes, and nobody, not one single person, can dip below parallel.
We just induced a lot of stress on them, and they grew from it, and they grew together.
Then when you start seeing VB3, ‘Hey, Coach, give me a stopwatch. I’m going to run it,’ or Myles Graham says, ‘Hey, I’m going to take the watch, Coach. I’ve got this,’ I’m like, ‘All right, we’ve come somewhere now.’
Very excited about all of that.
How much did putting the offensive and defensive lines together help toughen them up?
It really exposed the guys who weren’t ready to lift heavy. You’ve got to lift heavy at our level. In the O-line, D-line, you have to move a lot of weight.
I always revert back to players I’ve coached in the past, NFL-level lifters. The SEC is going to beat you up enough, and if you aspire to play beyond here, you’ve got to have a very, very durable body.
Then when you have Rod Kearney and (Brendan) Bett going at it back and forth, it just catches. Then you start seeing we have some of the younger guys on the perimeter, ‘Hey, are you going to get in on this?’ They start feeding off that emotion.
It was dynamic. It was exciting. A lot of guys changed their attitudes pretty quick, because they got exposed. You just can’t hide anymore.
Human beings are programmed to cut a corner for comfort, to kind of hide here. Something that we do is we just turn the light on everybody, and we expose everybody.
‘Hey, he’s got a limitation because he had a wrist injury. He can still do X, Y, Z. He can still compete doing this.’
We just attacked all the comfort zones.
How has the renovated weight room contributed to the team’s improvement?
It makes us able to transition from exercise to exercise faster. I think I said this way back in January: It gives you about 10 to 15 more minutes to get stuff done, get more work in, just the way you can transition from movement to movement in that new room.
And safety, like we talked about. We have guys moving a lot of weight because they’re confident that there’s something to catch them underneath, and we didn’t have that in the past.
Follow us @GatorsWire on X, formerly known as Twitter, as well as Bluesky, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions.
This article originally appeared on Gators Wire: Florida strength and conditioning coach talks offseason progress
