In Part 1 of our visit to Jacksonville, head coach Tim Krause sits down with The Board Drill to explain how the Crusaders rebuilt their offseason around a simple idea: be more targeted, and approach the work in a more scientific way. A couple of years ago that meant a real investment in technology, from iPads the players use every day in the weight room to a GPS system that now shapes how the staff trains and recovers its athletes.
Krause walks through the new weight room the school committed to, a facility he believes is one of the best in the state and puts Bishop Kenny on par with a number of FCS-level programs. But the heart of the conversation is the problem that technology is there to solve. Bishop Kenny plays a lot of kids both ways, and those kids play a ton of snaps. Using Titan GPS through Hudl, the staff tracks the load those athletes carry in games, compares it against the stress of practice, and works to find the sweet spot where a player can get to max speed enough times to be ready without being run into the ground. The goal, as Krause puts it, is simple: fresh, fast, and ready on game day.
What comes through is that the tools are in service of something older than any dashboard. Krause talks about a program marked by kids who play exceptionally hard, a run to the region final in each of the last two seasons, and a standard the seniors are setting for what Bishop Kenny football is supposed to look like. The expectation is that you work extremely hard, you put the team first, and you fight for each other. The technology just helps them do it with more precision.
This is Part 1 of two. Part 2 goes inside the weight room with strength coach Greg Case.
