ATHLETES’ NEEDS OVER NEW TOYS
1/14/2021 5:23:00 PM | Football
Viloria Doesn’t Employ a ‘Cookie-Cutter’ Strength Program
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
Vic Viloria is certainly not averse to using the "newest toy" or the latest technologies being developed in strength and conditioning training.
During a run at Florida State that included the Seminoles winning the 2013 national championship, Viloria and the Seminoles were the first college football program to utilize advanced GPS tracking to measure energy exertion and regulate rest and physical action.
But, for Baylor Football's new Director of Athletics Performance, it's more about the athletes' needs than just breaking in the new stuff.
"There are a lot of coaches, particularly in my field, that are really in love with the training aspects and the different new things and new toys and new modalities," said the 41-year-old Viloria, who spent the previous two years as Senior Associate Strength and Conditioning Coach at LSU.
"What's unique about our system is the tools or the exercises or the machines, that's not what makes us. It's how we address the application to the athletes. That's the real science behind it is getting to know the athletes first."
That's what second-year Baylor head coach Dave Aranda saw in Viloria in their one year together at LSU, when the Tigers finished 15-0 and won the 2019 national championship.
"Vic is about relationships," Aranda said. "He is about seeing the greatness inside people, and doing the work to pull it out of them. He does a tremendous job of inspiring others and driving people to be the best versions of themselves."
While "everyone puts their wrinkles on things," Viloria is a disciple of the "Hatch System" developed by renowned weightlifting coach Gayle Hatch that develops functional and explosive strength in players through the use of free weights, plyometrics and jumping drills.
Essentially, it's the same system Viloria was taught in 1993 as an eighth-grader at John Curtis Christian School in River Ridge, La. He learned it at the feet of Tommy Moffitt, who's been at LSU for the last 20 years and serves as the Tigers' Assistant AD for Strength and Conditioning.
"From Day 1 at SMU, I knew what I wanted to do," Viloria said of his first head strength coaching job when he was 28 years old. "To be quite honest, I didn't know anything else. Our system has been around a long time. The specificity in training is usually dictated not by the strength coach, it's dictated by the head football coach and the athletes we train.
"All the tools I've gathered and all the techniques and things I've learned and kind of put in my toolbox, it's all dependent on what these athletes need. Different offenses require different training. Different styles of defense require different training. It's never a cookie-cutter program."
An undersized linebacker, Viloria was a two-time first-team All-WAC selection at SMU. He led the Mustangs in tackles each of his last three seasons and finished eighth on the all-time list with 372 career tackles.
"I was small and slow, but I was tough," he said.
Drafted by NFL Europe's Scottish Claymores, Viloria knew that "football had run its course" at the end of a preseason camp in Tampa, Fla., that included two preseason games.
"I had injuries, and it was kind of stacked against me, anyway," he said. "I kind of knew that was my point where my next goal and my next career were starting."
Placing a call to Moffitt, who arrived at LSU after stops at Tennessee and Miami, Viloria took an internship at LSU to figure out which route he wanted to take. He spent a day and a half with a football coaching staff that included Nick Saban, Will Muschamp, JImbo Fisher, Derek Dooley and Kirby Smart, "but I knew strength and conditioning was my passion."
"As a football player, I enjoyed the violence of the game, I enjoyed the physicality, I enjoyed the mental part of it, getting yourself prepped to go. The X's and O's, not so much," he said.
Taking him under his wings, Moffitt taught Viloria how to be part of a staff and "how to do things in a professional way," he said.
"Whether it was maintaining equipment or running errands or cleaning up sweat or whatever the needs might be, that was my job until I was able to get all the qualifications I needed to be a strength coach."
Initially assigned the men's and women's golf teams, Viloria said it was a "great learning experience, figuring out what to do," but he had to go to the coach asking for help.
"I knew how to train all the different components of what they needed," he said. "Yeah, I can get them stronger, I can get them faster and make them more flexible. I just didn't know what they needed. And to her credit, basically she made me walk outside and feel it, the swing. Once I did that, you can really start thinking about the sequence of how the muscles fire and the timing. From there, I came up with a pretty good golf program."
Returning to his alma mater, Viloria was the head strength coach at SMU for three years before joining Fisher's staff at Florida State.
"For me, it was being around unbelievable people," Viloria said of being ready to head a program at a young age. "Coach Moffitt is widely regarded as one of, if not the best, in the business. When a coach is confused on how this young football coach got this job, and they find out he worked for Bill Belichick, no one really asks any more questions. Even though I was relatively new in the game, I had known this system since 1993."
In an amazing run at Florida State (2010-17), the Seminoles posted a record of 85-20 with six bowl wins, earned three ACC titles and won the 2013 BCS National Championship with a 14-0 record. Between 2011-20, Florida State had 51 players drafted that trained under Viloria.
"It was an unbelievable experience," he said. "A lot of hard work, a lot of challenges, it was not easy, it never is, but I had an amazing time, an experience. We won a lot of football games, won a national championship and was blessed to be around a lot of special athletes."
Viloria calls the Baylor job "an amazing fit." Not only for the chance to reunite with Aranda, but also get back to Texas. His wife, former SMU sprinter and track assistant coach Randi Taylor, was born in Sherman, grew up nearby in Mexia and graduated from Lake Travis. The couple has two daughters, Taylor and Mady, and a son, Koi.
"Her family is all over Texas, so that's part of it. This is going to be the hub, the central location," he said. "Things work out the way they work out. This was just a very unique situation, and I am totally excited about this opportunity."
Baylor Bear Insider
Vic Viloria is certainly not averse to using the "newest toy" or the latest technologies being developed in strength and conditioning training.
During a run at Florida State that included the Seminoles winning the 2013 national championship, Viloria and the Seminoles were the first college football program to utilize advanced GPS tracking to measure energy exertion and regulate rest and physical action.
But, for Baylor Football's new Director of Athletics Performance, it's more about the athletes' needs than just breaking in the new stuff.
"There are a lot of coaches, particularly in my field, that are really in love with the training aspects and the different new things and new toys and new modalities," said the 41-year-old Viloria, who spent the previous two years as Senior Associate Strength and Conditioning Coach at LSU.
"What's unique about our system is the tools or the exercises or the machines, that's not what makes us. It's how we address the application to the athletes. That's the real science behind it is getting to know the athletes first."
That's what second-year Baylor head coach Dave Aranda saw in Viloria in their one year together at LSU, when the Tigers finished 15-0 and won the 2019 national championship.
"Vic is about relationships," Aranda said. "He is about seeing the greatness inside people, and doing the work to pull it out of them. He does a tremendous job of inspiring others and driving people to be the best versions of themselves."
While "everyone puts their wrinkles on things," Viloria is a disciple of the "Hatch System" developed by renowned weightlifting coach Gayle Hatch that develops functional and explosive strength in players through the use of free weights, plyometrics and jumping drills.
Essentially, it's the same system Viloria was taught in 1993 as an eighth-grader at John Curtis Christian School in River Ridge, La. He learned it at the feet of Tommy Moffitt, who's been at LSU for the last 20 years and serves as the Tigers' Assistant AD for Strength and Conditioning.
"From Day 1 at SMU, I knew what I wanted to do," Viloria said of his first head strength coaching job when he was 28 years old. "To be quite honest, I didn't know anything else. Our system has been around a long time. The specificity in training is usually dictated not by the strength coach, it's dictated by the head football coach and the athletes we train.
"All the tools I've gathered and all the techniques and things I've learned and kind of put in my toolbox, it's all dependent on what these athletes need. Different offenses require different training. Different styles of defense require different training. It's never a cookie-cutter program."
An undersized linebacker, Viloria was a two-time first-team All-WAC selection at SMU. He led the Mustangs in tackles each of his last three seasons and finished eighth on the all-time list with 372 career tackles.
"I was small and slow, but I was tough," he said.
Drafted by NFL Europe's Scottish Claymores, Viloria knew that "football had run its course" at the end of a preseason camp in Tampa, Fla., that included two preseason games.
"I had injuries, and it was kind of stacked against me, anyway," he said. "I kind of knew that was my point where my next goal and my next career were starting."
Placing a call to Moffitt, who arrived at LSU after stops at Tennessee and Miami, Viloria took an internship at LSU to figure out which route he wanted to take. He spent a day and a half with a football coaching staff that included Nick Saban, Will Muschamp, JImbo Fisher, Derek Dooley and Kirby Smart, "but I knew strength and conditioning was my passion."
"As a football player, I enjoyed the violence of the game, I enjoyed the physicality, I enjoyed the mental part of it, getting yourself prepped to go. The X's and O's, not so much," he said.
Taking him under his wings, Moffitt taught Viloria how to be part of a staff and "how to do things in a professional way," he said.
"Whether it was maintaining equipment or running errands or cleaning up sweat or whatever the needs might be, that was my job until I was able to get all the qualifications I needed to be a strength coach."
Initially assigned the men's and women's golf teams, Viloria said it was a "great learning experience, figuring out what to do," but he had to go to the coach asking for help.
"I knew how to train all the different components of what they needed," he said. "Yeah, I can get them stronger, I can get them faster and make them more flexible. I just didn't know what they needed. And to her credit, basically she made me walk outside and feel it, the swing. Once I did that, you can really start thinking about the sequence of how the muscles fire and the timing. From there, I came up with a pretty good golf program."
Returning to his alma mater, Viloria was the head strength coach at SMU for three years before joining Fisher's staff at Florida State.
"For me, it was being around unbelievable people," Viloria said of being ready to head a program at a young age. "Coach Moffitt is widely regarded as one of, if not the best, in the business. When a coach is confused on how this young football coach got this job, and they find out he worked for Bill Belichick, no one really asks any more questions. Even though I was relatively new in the game, I had known this system since 1993."
In an amazing run at Florida State (2010-17), the Seminoles posted a record of 85-20 with six bowl wins, earned three ACC titles and won the 2013 BCS National Championship with a 14-0 record. Between 2011-20, Florida State had 51 players drafted that trained under Viloria.
"It was an unbelievable experience," he said. "A lot of hard work, a lot of challenges, it was not easy, it never is, but I had an amazing time, an experience. We won a lot of football games, won a national championship and was blessed to be around a lot of special athletes."
Viloria calls the Baylor job "an amazing fit." Not only for the chance to reunite with Aranda, but also get back to Texas. His wife, former SMU sprinter and track assistant coach Randi Taylor, was born in Sherman, grew up nearby in Mexia and graduated from Lake Travis. The couple has two daughters, Taylor and Mady, and a son, Koi.
"Her family is all over Texas, so that's part of it. This is going to be the hub, the central location," he said. "Things work out the way they work out. This was just a very unique situation, and I am totally excited about this opportunity."
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