For better or worse, Mike Gundy has never been afraid to tell us what he thinks. Today's episode might land in both categories.
Asked about why athletes seem to get injured more often today than they did in years past*, the Oklahoma State head coach launched into a lengthy answer that must be read to comprehend (via Pistols Firing).
* The entire premise here may not even be correct. I don't have any data showing college football players are injured more often in 2021 than they were in 1981 or 1941, but for the sake of argument let's roll with it.
Gundy may very well be correct in the macro sense. Training year round to swell your quadriceps, your pecs, your hamstrings to sizes thought unfathomable two generations ago doesn't necessarily make your joints, your tendons or your bones more prepared to carry those oversized muscles. And it's entirely possible that training 12 months a year may cross the point of diminishing returns to where it does more harm than good.
But in a micro sense, what choice does the modern athlete have? The players he is competing against -- on his own team for playing time, as well as the guys on the other team -- are bigger and faster than ever. What chance would he have of seeing the field by following Gundy's 1980s training regiment of light jogging, coaching summer baseball and chasing girls?
The answer, of course, is none.
And maybe the modern player is getting injured more often -- if that's even the case -- because players of one and two generations ago spent their off-seasons hanging by the pool and eating home-churned butter.
Of course, this is all just a theory. There are 30 sentences in Gundy's answer, and the only certain one among them was the last one.