In this next segment with head Oregon strength coach Aaron Feld we tackle some other elements of his job.

If you read yesterday's first update, coach Feld talked about building the mental aspect at Oregon for this football team. That's right, the man with the killer stache and bulging biceps takes a huge amount of his time developing strong habits and mental toughness in this Oregon team.

We are back today before finishing tomorrow with our trilogy with coach Feld. It was meant to be one update in total, but he's such an infectious speaker it was tough to break it all down into one update.

In that same conversation with coach Feld earlier this week, he talked about the 6 levels of commitment and developing leaders.

Something you've heard me talk about in the past is how important it is to have good leadership in the locker room. It starts at the top with coaches but behind closed doors and in the locker room you need that peer-to-peer leadership.

Feld said upon his arrival he found Oregon had some leaders already. But one of his first tasks was teaching them how to lead.

"When I came in and met the team I got a good feel for where things were at. I wanted to make my adjustments based off where this team is. We had lots of vocal leaders. We had others who led by example. There's different kinds of leadership. We had some charismatic leaders that didn't exactly know how to lead. So we've been teaching them what leadership is and how to be better leaders for this team."

One of the next major objectives was determining the 6 levels of commitment of this team.

Coach Feld offered to explain them to me but in the interest of time I figured I could look it up after the call. So I did.

At one end you have resistant and at the other you have compelled. In between in a gradual order you have reluctant, existent, compliant and committed. It looks like this below.

compelled

committted

compliant

existent

reluctant

resistent

Coach Feld said one os his first jobs was to come in and determine where this team was at. What he found was a team eager to learn and get closer to the compelled status



"This team has no issue with buy-in. Absolutely none. I would say the vast of our guys are near compelled. We have lots in compliant. Which means we have a lot of guys above the mid-line. You can't grow if you don't know where you are so this was a big step for us to find out where this team is. These guys are really working hard every day."

If you read the update yesterday coach Feld talked about these things being in cycles, not stages. While most of yesterday's article covered the mental aspect, it's now becoming clear how those elements impact the steps above.

"It's just a constant program, a constant upward movement. It's more of a cycle, not steps really. The main goal is to make them comfortable and confident within themselves. One of the first things I had to to do coming in was evaluate this team and where they are."

All of these elements are not "overnight changes." It's a constant evolving mindset, part of the mindset program. Feld also said some of these elements will change over the course of a year, not just weeks or months.

As you can see there are so many elements going into this new strength program. Not just lifting weights and running sprints.

Speaking of running sprints, I asked coach Feld about the inclusion of world-renown speed coach Jim Radcliffe. Last year he was not a very big part of the football team but coach Feld said he is working towards getting him involved.

"I honestly haven't had much time with coach Radcliffe yet. Coach Cristobal and I are trying to get him involved with what we are doing. I was told this team didn't do much speed training. I've been teaching some proper run techniques so far. I'm definitely hungry to get him and the entire track staff involved. We want to build that elite leve speed. That's something we will be working on this Summer, trying to get their input implemented with what we are doing."

In our final update with coach Feld on Friday he will discuss which players have made the biggest impressions thus far.