How 'change' and a new collaborative effort have Oklahoma Sooners confident they've begun solving medical woes of last season
Last season, the Oklahoma Sooners were completely decimated by injuries across the board. The Sooners lost all five starting wide receivers to injury, several offensive linemen battled injuries, forcing Oklahoma to trot out nearly a dozen different combinations, running back Jovantae Barnes played through a nagging ankle injury, Cheetah Kendel Dolby was out for the […]
Last season, the Oklahoma Sooners were completely decimated by injuries across the board.
The Sooners lost all five starting wide receivers to injury, several offensive linemen battled injuries, forcing Oklahoma to trot out nearly a dozen different combinations, running back Jovantae Barnes played through a nagging ankle injury, Cheetah Kendel Dolby was out for the season after an injury in Week 4, and other depth players like PJ Adebawore and Zion Kearney dealt with injuries of their own.
It was a complete disaster, with some concerning rumors emerging regarding the rehab process and the overall staff associated with Oklahoma's medical training team.
Entering a crucial must-win season, Brent Venables and the Sooners' administration knew something had to change. SoonerScoop.com reported that an independent third party conducted a full assessment of OU’s football training staff, and concluded the school needed to make new staff additions.
Thus, they hired longtime NFL trainer Jonathan Gress, who was the New Orleans Saints director of rehabilitation, to serve as their new head trainer. Additionally, Oklahoma will also be hiring a "return-to-play" specific trainer, though that role hasn't officially been filled as of the time of this writing.
At SEC Media Days, Venables spoke about how he and the team are hopeful their new changes have helped solve some of the concerns on their injury bug.
"I think it’ll be great. And I think all change — some people don’t like change, but I think change is always good. You know, through the challenges and again, the headwinds of dealing with everything that encompasses to run a football program. As you all know, the medical is out of — I don’t decide who to hire and I’m not their boss. They don’t report to me, or anywhere in college football for the reasons that are pretty obvious. That’s a great staff that’s there. The people that are in the building already and the group of people that we’ve hired.
Jonathan Gress is fantastic. I was part of the interview process and he’ll bring a great lens, kind of an outsider perspective from all the experiences that he’s had. But he works — great effective communicator, good strong leadership, knows that he wants to do and a great collaboration and willingness to collaborate. There’s a sports performance team that when it’s working well, everybody’s working together. It takes that, as we all know. Everybody’s working together. So that’s nutrition, that’s strength and conditioning, that’s sports science, it’s elite recovery components, medical. It’s the PROS, our PROS team as well. So they meet a lot. It’s been a great collaboration thus far.”
Gress, as well as the other hires, will work to overhaul Oklahoma's training regime and rehab for injuries. Last season, the Nic Anderson and Andrel Anthony sagas played out in rather confusing fashion with mixed messaging on their rehabilitation, and it led to both of them missing virtually the entire season after reinjuring themselves.
So far, it seems the new staff have already started to get to work and are paying dividends. After suffering a nasty ankle injury in the spring that knocked him out for months, wide receiver Javonnie Gibson is already out of a boot and is ahead of recovery schedule.
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