Colorado reportedly hires former Stanford strength coach

BOULDER — Another position on Karl Dorrell’s second staff at Colorado has been filled.

Yahoo Sports’ Pete Thamel reported Tuesday night that Colorado will hire Shannon Turley to be the new strength and conditioning coach. The position was open because former strength coach Drew Wilson’s contract was not renewed when it expired after the season.

Sources: Former Stanford strength coach Shannon Turley has agreed to become the new strength coach at Colorado. He was part of three PAC-12 titles, 5 New Years Six bowls and produced 42 draft picks and 9 Pro Bowlers while at Stanford.

— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) January 27, 2021

Turley brings a strong resume with him to Boulder. He followed Jim Harbaugh from San Diego to Stanford in 2007 and stayed with the Cardinal until 2019. In that time, Stanford progressed from one of the worst Power 5 schools in America — it won one game in 2006, the year before the regime change — into a powerhouse in the early 2010s.

In 2013, following Stanford’s first Rose Bowl win since the regime change, Bleacher Report’s Max Rausch outlined Turley’s importance to Stanford’s turnaround. The basis of Turley’s program was the belief that how much Turley’ players can lift doesn’t matter and what matters is the functional strength that the players possess.

Some of the most interesting details include:

• Stanford’s emergence as a force in the trenches
• An 87 percent reduction in time missed due to injury
• Turley’s belief that every player needs personalized workouts
• Freshmen don’t touch the weights for the first three weeks on campus

There’s plenty more to how Turley prepares his team, but the system as a whole is fairly unique. Players learn how to control their own weight through isometric exercises, almost like yoga, which prevents injuries and is more valuable to athletes than big bench press maxes or low 40 times.

The system won Turley multiple national strength coach of the year awards while Stanford was ascending and its appeal to Colorado is obvious. First, Colorado lost some key contributors to injury this season, including defensive back Chris Miller, tight end Brady Russell and linebacker Nate Landman. Second, Stanford’s growth from afterthought to national contender was spurred by significant improvements in the trenches, and Turley figures to have been a key part of that growth.

The end of Turley’s time with the Cardinal is fuzzy. He was fired by the university in 2019 following a complaint from a student-athlete and the details of that complaint have not been released.

The complaint is concerning, obviously, but it’s a good sign that CU signed off on the hiring and it’s unlikely we’ll ever hear the whole story.

Colorado has two positions left open on its coaching staff — defensive coordinator and inside linebackers coach — but it can only hire one more coach due to NCAA limits on staff size. Colorado has a few options, including hiring a linebackers coach and promoting a position coach to coordinator, hiring a coordinator who can also coach the linebackers, and hiring a coordinator who coaches another position and then firing the coach who currently coaches that position.