Kentucky Football's Strength Coach on who's standing out in the weight room

The Kentucky Football team is in the middle of summer workouts, and today, we got to hear which Wildcats are making gains from the man in charge of the weight room, Head Strength & Conditioning Coach Mark Hill. Hill called into KSR to talk to guest host Peter Burns about his role and how the Cats are utilizing the “offseason.” Over his eight seasons on Mark Stoops’ staff, Hill has helped countless Wildcats develop into SEC football players, but one current player has really put in the work to transform his body: senior offensive lineman Eli Cox, who will move back to right guard after playing center last season.

“Eli Cox is the one that, when you look at development, I’m putting Eli Cox aside beside the picture of the word ‘development’ [in the dictionary],” Hill said. “Just knowing where he came from, very under-recruited, and he needed — you know, he’ll tell you the stories of all the work he needed. And look at him now. And they’re like, ‘Wow, this guy is strong, and he’s mobile. He’s this and he’s that.’ It took work to get to that point.”

When it comes to pure athleticism, Hill singled out a player on the other side of the ball: junior defensive back Andru Phillips.

“In terms of just freaks of nature, man, you’ve just got a bunch of guys that can run and jump and do — you’ve got some unbelievable athletes like, Dru Phillips right now, I think Dru Phillips could go be like a triple jumper or a long jumper. He’s just got that type of explosiveness man. An insane level of explosiveness. The team has a bunch of guys like that, that are really gifted in certain areas.”

Hill’s not lying. Remember when Phillips jumped over a car?

on who I don’t got no bounce… pic.twitter.com/lLM9GneYHw

— dru (@AndruPhillips) February 27, 2019

Don’t be fooled by Devin Leary’s appearance

Not everyone is a freak of nature. At 6’1″, 217 lbs., Kentucky’s new quarterback Devin Leary may not be as imposing as his predecessor, Will Levis (6’4″, 230 lbs.), but Hill said looks can be deceiving.

“The interesting guys, the guys that you wouldn’t believe — like Devin Leary, is one of the most down-to-Earth — if you saw Devin Leary walk in the store right now, if you saw him walking into Walmart, you wouldn’t know he played football because he’s so low-key. He’s not 6-4, he doesn’t have bulging muscles. He just blends in. But when he steps on the field, everything speaks loudly.”

You can see Leary, Cox, and Phillips all putting in work in these videos and pictures from Kentucky Football’s social media team:

Mark Stoops, Brad White’s workout regiment

Burns couldn’t let Hill go without asking about the coaches’ workout habits, starting with Mark Stoops. Hill said Stoops spends most of his time in the weight room once recruiting season (and all those dinners at Jeff Ruby’s for official visits) wraps up.

“Coach Stoops, he has his moments where he comes in and he gets his training in and he’ll want one of his strength guys to take him through some stuff. So, he’ll get his moments, usually after that long recruiting season when he’s been doing all the recruiting dinners and home visits and stuff like that.”

Contrast that with Brad White and the defensive coaching staff, who often participate in the players’ workouts, or safeties coach Frank Buffano, who tailors his workouts to his golf game.

“Coach White and the defensive staff will jump in with the work and so and actually jump in and do it. I love it. The guys love it. Because you know when you jump in, you got to be coachable because I’m coming at you. So, they will jump in and actually get some stuff in.”

Good stuff. To hear the complete interview with Hill, who is about to turn 46 years old and can still dunk a basketball, check out hour two of today’s podcast. He comes on about midway through.