When Cal found itself in need of a new strength coach, Justin Wilcox looked for a fit. The Bears have been using data from GPS devices since he's been in Berkeley, along with tailoring their strength and conditioning programs toward individual needs. Wilcox, through interviewing, found Brian Johnson, formerly at Arizona, and brought him in the fold to continue and expand upon what the Bears were doing in their strength and conditioning department.

"It goes back to the fit and what our team needs," Wilcox said. "We had extensive zoom interviews because we didn't know these guys as well. Coach Yates had a relationship with Brian Johnson, I knew some other coaches who worked with Brian on the college and professional that I reached out to. Brian is a very knowledgeable guy, he has a background not only in strength and conditioning, but in sport science and some of these other programming things that were very impressive."

For Johnson, he'd been within a couple degrees of separation from Cal, close enough to see what they were doing to the point where the job was a fit for him.

"When you spend enough time in this conference, you identify the places that are doing things a certain way," Johnson said. "Because I knew Torre (Becton), knowing coach Yates and even hearing a lot about coach Ragle at my last position, playing Cal our first year (2018), you can identify teams doing things the right way and this was one of those places. When I got a call from coach Wilcox, looking how they had recruited, looking at how guys competed, being known for good defense over the last few years, it was a very attractive job, knowing that you're coming with a head coach who has a good reputation. He's done a really good job of bringing good athletes in, which is a really huge part of the battle. I can call myself as good of a coach as I want to, but it's really about athletes, bringing the bodies in who can compete and withstand the rigors of football and going up against some of the best in the country. That's what they have here."

Cal has been using the Catapult GPS system for a while now, as the players have GPS trackers on either during workouts or during practices. These track the players positioning, top speeds, acceleration and deceleration in order to give a readout of what maximum effort looks like.

"The biggest thing is our GPS monitoring system. That gives us so many different data points, but we really keep it basic so we don't get lost in data," Johnson noted, "It's a strategic way to figure out what metrics of volume you want, time, yardage, and overall load. Then we look at our intensity metric, which tells you what type of volume metric you've got, max velocity, how much yardage they got at those velocities, and all that is based on a percentage of what that person does. If it's a linear speed day, we're looking at getting a certain amount of high velocity distance. I put them in tennis shoes because it's hard to run at a high velocity, if you can run 20 miles per hour in tennis shoes, I'm doing my job. You regulate those velocities and over time you build them, when you put them in cleats, you're getting more high intensity yardage. Then, it's all about educating, these are smart kids, they're at Cal, and they want to know 'what is this, why is this,' the data helps us do this."

With a team that had about a month of a layoff from their final game to the first day of winter workouts, Johnson has stressed a need to get back to the basics of moving in order to handle spring practice.

"It's all about understanding where you're trying to get them to and working back from there. When you don't have those long layovers," Johnson said, "you're not working back as much. For me, it's understanding training, progression and regression. I regress movement back to its simplest form, teaching the basic principles of movement and reintroducing them to the volumes and intensities that are going to be placed on them, when you look at possibly getting into two-hour practices and three hour games where every play is maximum output."

The example of putting players in tennis shoes came up multiple times during the call with Johnson. This acts as a limiter on force for players, as you can't put some of the same torque on your body that you would with cleats. This forces players to focus on some of the basics in how they change direction and takes pressure off joints as they look to build back into football shape.

"I'll put them in tennis shoes, we'll do sprint days and change of direction," Johnson noted, "that regulates how much force and intensity they can put into a movement at once, that allows us to evaluate and that we don't get them closer to soft tissue injuries or strains, leading up to when it gets out of our control and in to practice. (We want them to know) they've had a base of conditioning in lower intensities, medium intensities, into high intensities, same thing with the volumes."

There are two main focuses for Johnson, the first is learning his roster that he's working with, along with the key metrics he'll use to get players back in football shape.

"We'll look at a game," Johnson said, "we'll take a look at yardage, high output effort, acceleration, deceleration, change of direction, we're always looking at the context we get until we understand what we want, and that's to withstand a practice or game."

The second piece is actually doing it, as the Bears are about three weeks into their winter/spring workout schedule. Without a concrete date for spring practice set, it's about making sure players are doing what needs to be done in their downtime.

"Right now, just getting them back into the regimen, training every day, making sure guys are eating everyday," Johnson said, "putting fuel in the body, making sure they're hydrated. I'm not seeing any drastic concerns, it's a team that needs to get back into football shape, and reiterating the things that help us get to that. I only have them in a window of two hours a day, there's 22 more hours in a day, so educating and reiterating the things they need to do outside of the building."