This is an S 'n C kind of month on the college football calendar, so the chances are that instead of ripping their way through drills your amateur sporting heroes are at this very moment trapped under twice their bodyweight in iron, and will be for some time. If you need them, they'll probably get out from under that squat rack sometime in mid-July.
The history of college lifting programs is one of our pet fascinations, so a quick review wouldn't hurt you. In short: Nebraska is widely considered to be the first program to institute a program-wide lifting protocol, everyone lifts now, and everyone continues to do so albeit in a wide variety of ways whose effectiveness no one really agrees on outside of "make big fast run lift go." LSU's lifting philosophy under longtime coach Tommy Moffitt, for instance, is brutally simple, while Florida's Mickey Marotti has been known to throw a kitchen's sink worth of training methods at his players. (This may actually include things involving kitchen sinks.)
Whatever the program, all teams use one basic lift: the squat. It is a universal, though how to spot on a squat is also a matter of deep division between strength coaches. For instance, some believe you should simply dump the weight and allow it to hit the floor, while others believe in twin spotters on either side with someone securing the lifter from behind is a good policy. Some spotters just stand back there, but at the University of South Alabama they believe in getting up there. Waayyyyyyyyyy up there.
That's a lot of weight, for sure, so it is probably safer that the spotter activated the player's nitrous system with nipple-buttons for extra boost. (Via USA's football site via PreSnapRead.)
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