The Orange look to keep everybody healthy heading in to next season
The Syracuse Orange football team will take a different approach this season in their summer workouts. Under head coaches Doug Marrone and Scott Shafer the Orange had a program that was heavily oriented in running sprints and heavy conditioning. In other words, they have climbed so many stairs you'd think they would need a carabiner.
With new head coach Dino Babers, however, the emphasis will be on keeping the players' bodies healthy and fresh throughout the summer:
"Coach has said that he will never make us run more than we need to," Mahoney said. "He wants to keep the bodies fresh so every day we're not beating ourselves up and when it comes time for camp, people are competing and getting after it and staying healthy."
This strategy should be applauded. Syracuse has had an injury-ridden past couple of seasons, causing depth to be an issue and directly affecting the play on the field. If the players are all healthy, that obviously is a very good thing for this team heading into the fall. While the Orange want to play fast, they will be incapable of doing so if they have no depth. This makes injuries (or lack of) absolutely paramount to the success or failure of this season.
Should Syracuse stay healthy heading in to the season, it will be very interesting to see how fast this (healthy) team is conditioned to play.
