Arizona players do the encouraging now, barking enthusiastically every time the fourth quarter starts or the Wildcats inch achingly close, again, to pulling off an upset.
"Come on! They aren't working as hard as we are. They don't do what we do."
The UA strength coaches secretly smile every time they hear it.
Chris Allen, Parker Whiteman, Frank Davis, Vince Amey and Ovid Goulbourne spend more than 12 hours a day inside McKale Center, building the team's new identity.
Nobody on campus, except for maybe first-year coach Rich Rodriguez, is as vital to the Wildcats' reconstruction.
Arizona (3-3, 0-3 Pac-12) runs a spread-option offense and a defense predicated on speed. The team ran 103 plays in last weekend's 54-48 overtime loss to Stanford, numbers that are both a program and conference record.
The Wildcats have one more strength coach than in the Mike Stoops era and each is also responsible for training other UA teams.
Allen, the man in charge, describes the strength staff as "a cast of characters."
"They say too many chefs spoil the stew, but a lot of what we are go into our preparation," Allen said. "I let the guys be themselves. I have confidence in them."
The reason?
"Each kid may identify with a different one of us," Allen said. "It's good to have a bunch of different personalities."
And it's a unique group.
Allen and Goulbourne were both born in Jamaica and raised on the East Coast, while Davis was born in New York but raised in Panama. Whiteman hails from tiny Keyser, W.Va., and Amey was a Rose Bowl starter for - spoiler alert - Arizona State.
Three of the five played major college football, and Davis and Amey have NFL experience.
Allen was a collegiate track star, and Whiteman played one year of football at Shepherd University in W.Va.; both arrived at Arizona with master's degrees.
The strength staff's "stew" approach fits perfectly with the staff's philosophical approach to training. Similar to the "Barwis Method" that Rodriguez's last strength coach, Mike Barwis, instituted at West Virginia and Michigan, Arizona's coaches try to teach explosiveness and endurance through both repetition and variety.
The five coaches have been cross-trained in plyometrics, Olympic-style weight lifting, stretching, balance and what they call "injury prevention."
The Wildcats' travel squad is permitted two 75-minute workouts a week during the season; the rest of the team gets three. Each training session includes elements of all five disciplines.
Every workout is different.
"It keeps the body guessing," wide receiver Austin Hill said. "A couple years ago, you'd squat - and then then next day you'd squat again. I'm glad they mix it up."
Some Wildcats return on their own time for extra lifting sessions. The strength coaches pretend not to notice the man that comes in at 7 a.m. and cranks the StairMaster up to "20."
Rodriguez is somewhat of a weight room legend.
"He'll do an hour, then he'll do some lifting," Allen said. "He's not one of those guys that just preaches it to the kids to live a certain way. He does it himself."
Rodriguez wants his players to bench-press certain amounts of weight - 300 pounds for skill-position players, 400 pounds for linemen - by the midpoint of their college careers. Coaches hold a conditioning test on the first day of training camp designed to identify the slackers.
Rodriguez otherwise leaves the strength staff alone, content that their system works.
The men behind the system:
Chris Allen
• Title: Associate athletic director, strength and conditioning
• Age: 36
• Hometown: Kingston, Jamaica
• Playing experience: Was a sprinter on West Virginia's track team from 1996 to 2000.
• Before Arizona: Spent the 2008-10 seasons as Michigan's associate director of strength and conditioning; before that, Allen spent five years (2003-07) on West Virginia's strength staff.
• Also trains: Arizona's women's basketball team.
• On his training philosophy: "It's about hitting on all areas of athletics, whether it's flexibility, plyometrics, strength, explosiveness, developing a core. It's not about making bodybuilders or guys who can just run well. You have to balance everything. … Who doesn't want to be bigger, faster, stronger, more explosive, more flexible, more dynamic in training? If you have a good program, there's not much difference between the athletes - except for size."
Frank Davis
• Title: Assistant strength and conditioning coach
• Age: 31
• Hometown: Panama City
• Playing experience: Lettered for four years (2002-05) at South Florida, earning second-team All-Big East Conference honors as a senior. He started 11 games for the Detroit Lions between 2006 and 2008, and won a pair of titles in the upstart UFL.
• Before Arizona: Spent 2011 in Panama, running youth football clinics and providing private training for high school athletes.
• Also trains: Women's and men's tennis teams
• On how his NFL experience helps: "I connect with kids anyway, but I think it helps especially when I'm showing kids how to take that next step and get to that next level. At the end of the day, I'm trying to help them get that right kind of thinking. … You've got a certain percentage that's going to make it (to the NFL); those that do are the ones who maintain that same high level of play over a long time."
Vince Amey
• Title: Assistant strength and conditioning coach
• Age: 37
• Hometown: Union City, Calif.
• Playing experience: Lettered for four years (1994-97) at Arizona State, and started at defensive tackle on the Sun Devils' 1997 Rose Bowl team. The NFL's Oakland Raiders drafted Amey with their seventh-round pick in 1998. Amey played in NFL Europe and in the Arena League, spending most of his career with the Arizona Rattlers.
• Before Arizona: Served as the defensive line coach at Scottsdale's Chaparral High School and was on staff when the team won a state title in 2011.
• Also trains: Women's basketball, men's golf
• On the difference between coaching at the high school and college levels: "It's a whole other level, Division I football. You have to remind yourself, even though they're transitioning, they're still kids."
Parker Whiteman
• Title: Director of skill development
• Age: 30
• Hometown: Keyser, W.Va.
• Playing experience: Played football at Shepherd University in W.Va., in 2006.
• Before Arizona: Spent three years (2008-10) as assistant strength coach at Michigan after spending one season (2007) in a similar role at West Virginia.
• Also trains: Soccer team
• On how Arizona's players have adjusted: "They're learning that it's a daily battle. It's a blue-collar program. There's never going to be an off-day."
Ovid Goulbourne
• Title: Assistant strength and conditioning coach
• Age: 25
• Hometown: Lluidas Vale, Jamaica
• Playing experience: Was a four-year letterman (2005-08) at West Virginia under current UA assistant Jeff Casteel.
• Before Arizona: Graduated from West Virginia in 2009. This is his first job in college football.
• Also trains: Women's and men's golf teams
• On learning the strength system as a player, and now teaching it: "They made it easy for me (as a player) to come in the weight room and work out on a consistent basis. … I was able to understand what they were telling me, applying it and using it. Going through a program of that high intensity, I can relate to the kids more on their level. That's made for an easy transition."
Up next
• Who: Washington at Arizona
• When: 7 p.m. Saturday
• TV: Pac-12 Arizona
• Radio: 1290-AM, 107.5-FM, 990-AM (Spanish)
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