Ray Braithwaite has taken over as the interim strength and conditioning coach following the departure of Chris Doyle in June. Braithwaite says he will continue on with the same philosophy of the Doyle, Alaric Jackson approaching him about becoming a vegan, and if they are still tracking body weight.

Q: Would you say your approach is similar to what Chris Doyle did?

BRAITHEWAITE: Yes I would. Very similar. We worked together for 15 years and the proof is in the results and the results speak for themselves from a training philosophy. I really believe in what we are doing here and what we have done in the past and plan on carrying that forward.

Q: When Alaric Jackson comes to you and says he wants to be a Vegan, what do you say? He said he came to you for assistance.

BRAITHWAITE: Right. I support him becoming a vegan because it’s healthy for him and from our perspective, we are just trying to help him and support him and make sure it works in the realm of football. It’s a challenge, but it’s doable and I support him being a vegan.

Q: How did you help him?

BRAITHWAITE: Well, he approached me. We just said we had to reorganize some things to get you where you need to be physically so there’s no drop-off in your performance.

Q: How do you feel the players have responded to you in the past few weeks since they have returned?

BRAITHWAITE: I haven’t notice a difference in our interactions. The guys have been awesome as we went through everything. I am really proud of how they represented the program with all the changes.

Q: How difficult was it going through everything in June and also compound that with Covid and trying to train in small groups?

BRAITHWAITE: We joked as a strength staff that the easiest part of our day is coaching the guys. The training and dealing with the protocols has been really good for us as a staff because it forces us to think outside of the box. It’s been challenging, but at the same time I think it’s made us better. There have been some positive takeaways.

Q: How would you describe your style in working with the athletes?

BRAITHWAITE: I have never really thought about my style or anything like that. I think that’s a good question for the players and I would like to get a candid answer for it. (laugh) It is very similar and I have an open door policy that if they want to come in and meet with me they can do that anytime. It’s funny, when we get started I give my cell phone to everybody, including the freshmen. A handful of them would facetime with me. I am not used to that. They would say hey coach what are you doing when they were sitting in the dorms.

Q: One of the issues in June was the body weight stuff. Have you discontinued that? How are you monitoring it?

BRAITHWAITE: We still are going to monitor body weight and that is from a health, safety, and player performance standpoint. That is something we have do to. Body weight is an insight on lifestyle. One of the datapoints is always going to be body weight and we are going to monitor it. We share that with the position coaches and the medical staff.