From Seth Emerson:
Injuries: Or lack of them. The only player to suffer a season-ending injury before December was punter Marshall Long, and that was nine games in. As late as the Florida game, on Oct. 29, the Bulldogs had every single starter and every key reserve as well.
How much credit does the new S&C staff deserve for that remarkable turn of events and how much should we attribute to sheer, random luck?
Get The Picture 
Easy answer. A lot of both.
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It’s the lack of an IPF that made our boys stronger.
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Playing UT at home and no pool day.
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Sheer luck.
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Yep
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Agree.
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I dont know. I would tend to think that no injuries is pretty rare. I am guessing we dont continue this trend next season.
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No cow pasture games
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Pure. Dumb. Luck. the catastrophic ones, to my memory, aren’t ones that would be avoided by any changes to an S&C program. shoulder injuries, back injuries, and the like are the ones that would seem to come from S&C issues.
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Catching kickoffs on the 3 yard line out of bounds helps reduce injuries.
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The important question to answer in the off-season is why did we not take better advantage of having our full roster available?
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Agree, and throw in a soft schedule. It all comes down to coaching.
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Unfortunately, in this area, I’m guessing our old friend “regression to the mean” isn’t likely to be kind to us next year.
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Oh, I don’t know. Given all the injuries we seem to suffer year after year, THIS may have been regressing to the mean…
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Mostly luck, can’t believe that 1 year we had with all the knee injuries….not too much a S&C program can do to prevent that….shit happens. ‘”rather be lucky than good”.
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Most of it can be attributed to not playing at Kneeland Stadium this year.
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Repeating an oldie: If you’re confused about the difference between correlation and causation, remember that beating the drums during an eclipse will always bring back the sun.
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Two years running, have we beaten anyone who finished ranked in the top 25? Other than UF this year, did we play anyone who finished ranked in the top 25? Shows 2 things..we are mediocre and so are our schedules. I am assuming AU drops out of the final rankings…but who knows.
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Amazingly, I think UT ended up ranked. At least this year we did manage to beat a few D1 teams who finished the season with winning records. If not for the stirring overtime win against Georgia Southern last season, we wouldn’t have had a win against a D1 team with a winning record.
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We beat the Big Ten team last year that beat Ohio State this year, for what it is worth.
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Auburn ended 14th I believe
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Depends on the perspective of the person answering the question. If the person answering the question is looking to be critical of the coaching staff, she or he says it is a S & C issue. If the person answering the question is looking to defendant the coaching staff she or he says it is luck. If the person answering the question is fostering no agenda she or he says it depends on the injury.
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A little bit of everything, I’d think (some S&C, but also no TN and the drought leading to better field conditions at home)
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I’d think hamstrings and other pulled muscles could be attributed to S&C. Ligaments, cartilage and bone injuries are pretty much luck, in my opinion.
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Ligamentous injuries are very much influenced by S&C. The musculature around a joint provides a significant percentage of total joint strength. Less muscle means the ligaments receive more force for any given motion. Our horrible year of ACL tears was an indictment of both UT’s crap field and our S&C
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Would be interested to see if the current S&C group has a significantly different workout routine…then there may be some correlation, however I still lean toward luck and the many more 1 yard rugby scrums our play calling has produced this year.
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My brother in law, an orthopedic surgeon says you are full of bunk with this statement. Consider the number of ACL’s in the NFL and the fact that Chubb is inhuman in S & C and I have to agree with an orthopedic surgeon over you.
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Oh man that is just like someone announcing so and so has not missed a foul shot all season. Thanks for the jinx Seth.
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S&C plays a massive role here. Most people don’t realize that the muscles around any joint are a major stabilizing factor. Poor S&C is a very well known risk factor for knee injuries, especially ligamentous ones. Of course chance will always play a risk in any injury, but ask anyone in the Ortho or PT world and they will tell you that your risk for injury via any mechanism decreases with increasing muscle strength.
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Most people who??
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many of the commenters on this post… Not talking crap about anybody, outside of the medical world it’s not well known
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Who would have thought that Nick Chubb wasn’t trained well enough last year, resulting in weak musculature around his knee?
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B+ trolling job, but I’ll bite. Oh yeah if S&C mattered so much how come bullets can hurt Nick Chubb? haha checkmate. That’s you, I was being you right there. Nothing could have saved nick from that horrific mechanism of injury, but his awesome strength made him less likely to have one there than my 160lb ass would have been if the same thing happened to me.
Also, Nick Chubb wasn’t even my main point. Isnt it funny that when Tereshinski Jr. was S&C coach we had non-contact ACL tears every season, especially the 4+ from the horrible 2013 year. Probably just a coincidence that he doesn’t even have a degree in exercise physiology. Also just a coincidence that when Sinclair (who has a bachelor’s in sports medicine, and master’s in physical education) took over we had no non-contact ACL tears.
But you’re right dummy, if any player has any injury whatsoever it completely debunks the fact that better S&C reduces the likelihood of ligamentous injury.
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S&C did a fine job. No question about it. I’m truly impressed.
Can we promote them to offense or ST coaches?
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I chalk it up to luck more than anything
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From a purely statistical perspective, I’d guess it’s unlikely to be due to luck and luck alone. I could quantify how unlikely it is if I had the data on the number of season-ending injuries from previous years, but from my recollection, it’s been consistently much more than 1 such injury per year and much, much more than 4 games missed due to season-ending injury.
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