Strength and conditioning coaches aren’t fans of excuses. During an offseason with more upheaval than Stanford is used to, Cullen Carroll knew it was a major part of his new responsibility as the Kissick Family Director of Football Sports Performance to make sure the team didn’t throw a pity party.
A roster devastated by injuries managed to win nine games last year, but the Cardinal also underperformed in the eyes of head coach David Shaw. A leadership council was established in January -- the first of its kind under Shaw -- and when winter workouts kicked off the then Kissick Family Director of Sports Performance, Shannon Turley, was expected to be a key figure in the makeover.
But Turley was placed on administrative leave Feb. 4 and suddenly Carroll was the interim director of football sports performance. Turley was let go by the university in April and Carroll was promoted in June.
Carroll climbed from intern to assistant director during five seasons under Turley and the departure of his mentor was an elephant in the weight room.
“It was exactly that,” Carroll told Cardinal Sports Report. “It was like, ‘Guys, this is unfortunate. Everyone is hurting here. You guys are hurting. I’m hurting. At the end of the day we play Northwestern Aug. 31 and no one is going to go back and say, ‘Oh, Stanford had that really rough offseason with some turmoil and change.’ That’s not going to be the storyline. No one is going to make an excuse for you. It’s your season. And it’s my season, too.”
Fast forward to training camp and Carroll has been credited for helping achieve Shaw's goal of fielding a more mature team.
“The guys had a great summer,” Shaw said. “Coach Carroll knows us. He knows me. He knows what we needed from this summer. He had to get it out of the guys and he pushed them hard. The guys like him, respect him and respond to him. I think he also has helped our leadership group. He has worked closely with them as well. By all accounts our guys had a really good summer.”
Fifth-year running back Cameron Scarlett described it as “an interesting time when Turley wasn’t around”, which undoubtedly is an understatement.
“There was a time when people were unsure if Carroll was going to be able to take the reins and keep that momentum going,” he said. “He really has and he stepped it up to another level. He motivated guys and brought a different type of energy."
So how did Carroll, his staff and the players collaborate to make it work?
It started with how well prepared Carroll felt after working with Turley.
He can rattle off a list of lessons learned as if it was a test he had to pass many times: “Account for all the variables. No excuses. Have a great Plan A, B and C. Make sure I’m detailed and thorough. Double check the process and then have a very high standard for myself. If I don’t have a high standard for myself I can’t expect to demand a high standard from other people.
"It’s so ingrained in how I’ve operated since I got here in 2014. I immediately had to recognize the situation that this was the real deal. I wanted to step up to it. I tried to make sure I was on top of those things I could control every single day. Some days I could and some days I couldn’t, and I learned from the days I couldn’t. It prepared me for a situation like this when I did have to account for all the variables and I was the one holding the standard."
Carroll felt confident he didn’t have to change himself to lead. He had already worked at the “ground level” with every player in the team since their arrival at Stanford.
“There was a lot more excitement headed into this training camp than I’ve been a part of,” said junior safety Malik Antoine. “That’s part of who he is. He’s an authoritative guy but is also a very relaxed guy, so he has a vibe that gets the team very excited. He and his staff did a great job during the transition with Coach Turley leaving. I’m very happy with what he’s done.”
Carroll also makes an effort to feel “empathy toward the players about how much of a grind it is in the spring and the summer and how much work goes into it.
“When you get your opportunity you should be excited to come out and train. The training should not necessarily be fun but engaging. Fun wouldn’t be the word, but being successful is fun. Having that enthusiasm in your training, and being successful in your training, makes things fun.”
Carroll also leaned on the players. They were given more autonomy and almost everything became a competition. Every day they would compete to choose four captains and then teams were drafted by those captains.
“You’re going to know between your teammates and between your position groups where you stack up kind of subjectively with your teammates,” Carroll said of the reasoning for the drafts. “Then if you’re able to compete and be successful with that group, you were given a reward in terms of what the conditioning was going to be, what kind of speed work we would do that day and things were either added or subtracted. Players were in charge of what happened that day based on how they acted.”
Everything was objectively accounted for with a point system: Participation, helping with recruiting visits, hosting recruits, personal records in the weight room, meals, nutrition gains, etc.
The idea behind assigning points was that the “scoreboard is objective. The ESPN ticker is objective. Every Saturday and Sunday you’re going to find out who won or lost, so might as well keep doing that every day of the offseason.”
Carroll gave a lot of credit to the leadership council for the team's progress. The council was formed in January by a vote. Each position group has a representative and the goal is to improve communication between the players and coaches.
“They did a phenomenal job of stepping up to hold guys accountable on an individual basis and holding the team accountable when the price was met, or wasn’t met, during some challenges and the adversity we faced this summer with conditioning.”
Carroll made some changes to what he calls the "Xs and Os" of the conditioning program. There was an emphasis on volume -- the relative intensity at which guys were training.
"So, not only asking them to do a very stressful exercise at a high percentage once or twice, but having them do that once or twice for multiple sets. That repeated strength was a big emphasis for us. I think the way we did our dynamic movements -- that sudden total strength -- I think the guys really capitalized on it and it was a different experience for them.
The team also adjusted its development of mental discipline skills from "lecture-based" to "conversation-based".
"Let’s bring up topics and not only go through them in our own heads … but how can I apply them to my position group? How can I apply it to my side of the ball? How can I apply it to my recruiting class? I think that sparked a lot of conversations that were happening in the lifts, in the runs and I think it was outside the building -- in the locker room or during their supplemental Saturdays when they’re training on their own. Guys got to take autonomy for what certain topics meant to them."
Carroll also faced some adversity training the players when the sports performance staff was operating with a skeleton crew. At one point it was only Carroll, one other full-time assistant, a paid part-time intern and volunteer.
Now Carroll is working with a full staff.
Darius Reese is the assistant director and this is his fourth season with the team. James Perez was hired away from Fresno State to be associate sports performance coach. Perez worked at Stanford before spending two seasons in Fresno.
Sam Contorno was promoted from volunteer assistant to full-time assistant. Former Iowa State offensive lineman Thomas Farniok was hired away from Louisiana Tech to be an assistant.
“If I didn’t have such a hard-working, talented and intelligent staff that stepped up to the plate this summer I don’t think it would have gone as great as it did," Carroll said. "It takes a lot of prior experience to know what does work and what doesn’t work. Having that context to be able to design something that you think is going to be successful … and actually going and executing it at a high level, it takes a lot from the staff and players on the roster."
