Spring Practice: Cowboys Scrimmage, They've Stayed Healthy Thanks to Full Offseason

That piece was one of the most thought-provoking articles, making me think back to last season and the some of the driving reasons of the injury and performance trends and answering some of the questions that I'm sure many of us had- Why did Hubbard's performance fall off from 2019? Why did the O-line have such an injury trend over the season, especially the beginning? Why did Sanders get injured so early in the season, and why did he seem like he progressed fairly rapidly once he got back on the field? I think it points strongly to the lost spring & summer conditioning and reps - and I know that is kind of a "duh" statement, but when the season got underway I wonder how many of us forgot all that and the same expectations as if no disruption had ever taken place then ended the season with the same kind of disappointment and sense of what-if without looking back to the events of spring. On the flip side, I am enthused with how the coming season may play out with the off-season conditioning and good work that this spring has enabled. I'm soooo interested to see how this spring finishes up, and the tidbits from the player-led summer workouts, and truly looking forward to getting the fall camp started. Go Pokes!

I found what Gundy said to be interesting, but not much more than that... there is a flip side to everything.

IMO, Glass is the best, so therefore, our team was more prepared and conditioned that most of our opponents... which contributed significantly to our win total? We did have winter workouts and conditioning, we just didn't have summer or Fall (neither of which we've had now), so Gundy is in essence comparing this spring to last Fall?

The freshman (and redshirts), and JUCOs and other transfers didn't have any time to develop before Fall practice started... freshman like Illingworth really come to mind with no work, no spring, no summer, contracted COVID, then started Fall drills essentially recovering physically from Covid and no experience, at all. He still came in and was absolutely fantastic. I can't wait to see what he does in September. Even this article says Sanders threw a TD to a star receiver who had to make a diving catch, and Illingworth hit the RB (3rd string) for a TD. I hope the whole practice didn't go like that, one kid struggling to hit WRs and the other hitting the look-down player in stride. I guess we'll need the spring game to judge for ourselves.

I'm really, really glad that everything is going well, with health, and reps and all, and I can only imagine that most teams are experiencing the same (B12 opponents anyway).

We need some starts to start stepping forward.