New Indiana University strength and conditioning coach Aaron Wellman was a part of a teleconference with the Indiana football media on Tuesday afternoon. Here is the transcript from that teleconference:

AARON WELLMAN: Thanks, Coach. One, I just want to start by saying that I'm thrilled to be back at Indiana for a few reasons. One, this is a university and a football program that's always been special to us, and when I say us, my wife and I and our family. Earlier in my career I spent almost five years here as an assistant, and I've received a cup of degrees from IU, so it's a special place.

I'm excited to work for Coach Allen, who's a tremendous coach and leader. I'm also looking forward to locking arms with our staff, an outstanding staff of assistant coaches that we truly believe in.

And then lastly, we've got a group of talented players who have committed to the process of building a championship program and a group that my staff and I are anxious to begin developing as soon as we can.

Q. Aaron, I guess my first question would be obviously you were in the NFL ranks. You talk about how much IU means to you, but why was this the time to come back down to the college ranks rather than staying in the NFL where you were?
AARON WELLMAN: Yeah, it's a good question, and I don't know if I have a specific answer to you. I typically go by what I feel in my gut and what I feel in my heart. Talking to Coach Allen, I got excited about him, I got excited about his staff, I got excited about the direction of this program, the success he's built here, and like I said, this has been a program that's been near and dear to us, a program that we enjoyed our time here, a program that we'd love to come back and build, and I think for all those reasons, it's one of those feelings that just felt right, that I was excited to get back to the college level, to truly develop young men, and that's really what drove the decision.

Q. What are the challenges you're currently under in terms of not being able to have the team assembled at the facilities? Do you have any means to organize any kind of workouts individually with people at home, and if so, what's that process look like?
AARON WELLMAN: Yeah, we're playing by the same rules as everyone else, unfortunately, as our country goes through this. Our charge from Coach Allen is just, hey, let's do this better than every other program in the country, and that's certainly what we're trying to do. It's a lot of virtual meetings. Coach Allen will address that, what they're doing on the football side.

For me it's trying to individualize workouts from a distance, which involves a lot of communication with the athletes. Our athletes know that I'm on call 24 hours a day for them. We've provided the workouts through an app on their iPhones so that they can download their workouts, we can track their progress and they can certainly FaceTime me, call me, text me, communicate via the app on any and every question they have, and we're trying to meet their needs from afar right now.

Q. The question I had timing-wise, from when you were hired to when you got there, did you have a chance to meet with any of the players at all before things shut down?
AARON WELLMAN: Not on an individual basis. We had a team meeting and was fortunate enough to get in front of the team prior to them leaving for spring break, and I've had individual communication with all of our players, and I think that's important going forward at this time. We're just trying to get to know them. I've had several conversations. I've had several communications via text, via messaging over apps, and unfortunately that's kind of what -- that's the situation we're in right now, so I'm trying to get to know our players as much as I can through this situation.

Q. As far as your staff, where are you at as far as putting together your staff? Obviously they had a complete staff turnover in strength and conditioning. Have you got everybody filled or are you still looking for people?
AARON WELLMAN: We're still working through that process. Obviously we've identified some guys I think that would be great for this program and this team and these individuals on the team, but we're still working through that process.

Q. In terms of communication, and you talk about being able to track what athletes through the app, they're probably having to figure some things out on the fly in terms of having the right equipment or facilities or whatever. Is there anything the program has been able to do in terms of maybe helping them kind of adjust if they don't have the right machines for certain things or the right facilities for certain things? Is that something that's almost kind of got to go guy by guy a little bit?
AARON WELLMAN: Yeah, you're exactly right. We're taking this on a case-by-case basis, and we're meeting every individual where they are, and where they are in terms of not only location but what they have available to them equipment-wise. Some players -- a lot of players are at home. A lot of players have two sets of dumbbells, and so we're writing up a workout specific to what they have, and we'll write them up a dumbbell-only workout. The equipment availability throughout our roster is vast and varied, and so the work begins now right where we have to meet these guys where they are, do our absolute best for these players and be on call 24 hours a day to meet their needs.

Q. Aaron, the question I had for you was you've been an Indiana guy from the start, so when you reflect back on your time growing up in the northeast part of the state, obviously going to West Noble High, what are some of the lessons and some of the things you take from your upbringing that have allowed you to be so successful in your field of strength and conditioning over the years?
AARON WELLMAN: Well, I think that, number one, I'm a Hoosier. I'm from the state. I love the state. My family is in the state, so you don't often get a chance to come back home. I would say -- and it depends how you define success in the field, right; we all have different definitions of what success is. Certainly I've been fortunate that a lot of people have taken interest in my career and I've been able to progress through some great programs, and just to come here to another great program is a dream come true for me.

I think what's helped me in my upbringing is not necessarily my geographical location but my parents and the way that they raised me, the way that my father raised me. High character and work ethic were things he valued, and I think those are two essential qualities for success in any field.

Q. What is your mission statement as soon as everything gets back to normal? What is your mission statement for the Indiana football strength and conditioning program?
AARON WELLMAN: Well, Coach Allen has a mission statement for the program, and certainly the number one goal for our staff, myself and our staff, is to uphold the standards, the high standards we have at this program. So that's number one. And we want to do that every day as a staff and make sure our players uphold those standards.

For us a typical question is similar to what you've asked, your philosophy, and for me, I think that's hard to answer. I think you've got to spend time in the program. I think you've got to watch us train.

But if I had to be succinct with a definition, we want to maximize the speed, strength and power and the movement efficiency of our athletes and we want to minimize inappropriate orthopedic stress, which means inappropriate orthopedic stress comes from too high a volume, too high a frequency, too high an intensity or poor technique. A north star for us in our program is movement efficiency, right, and we can build strength and power and speed and work capacity on top of efficient movement, but that's got to be the foundation. We want our players moving well. We don't want to allow poor movement in our program. We want to coach hard every day, and that's through hiring a staff of great coaches who subjectively can see those things and can communicate and motivate the athletes and make corrections on the fly.

Q. Obviously a lot has been talked about Dave Ballou and Matt Rhea in terms of how much they've increased their profile value of the strength and conditioning program. How much did you take note of them when you were over in the NFL with the Giants, and did they talk a lot about lots and miles per hour things like that? Are there any other -- I guess how data-driven would you say your approach is, also?
AARON WELLMAN: Yeah, well, I've kept track of Dave because he played for me here, and so I've known Dave for 20 years. And firstly for that reason, but I know he and Dr. Rhea did a great job here. I think the whole field -- the people that are forward thinking in this field have used data more so in the last five, ten years than we ever did before, and I think it's a mistake not to. I think it's a mistake not to use data in decision making. Will that drive every decision? Not necessarily, but it certainly plays a part in the decision-making process.

Q. Aaron, there's been a lot of talk with strength and conditioning coaching around the country about how long it takes for organized activities in terms of getting ready for a football season. Based on your experience, is this a six- to eight-week process, or how concerned should we be as this process lingers in terms of getting players ready for a college football season?
AARON WELLMAN: That's a really good question. I think part of your statement answered the question that as this lingers, obviously naturally people grow more concerned. I don't think we're there yet. I think our guys are committed to the process and doing a great job at home.

But how long it takes to get ready for the season is based upon the training status our players come back in, right, and we trust our players to do what's right at home, we trust our players to do it better than anyone in the country, and so there's no concerns yet, but certainly we want ample time with them when they come back to get them ready for the rigors of the season.

Q. Aaron, just wondering in terms of having been around the NFL and players in the NFL, what you've kind of noticed that you feel maybe at the collegiate level could be done maybe a little bit better not only preparing players to play on Saturday but as they make that transition into the NFL?
AARON WELLMAN: Yeah, well, without having an educated opinion on what every college strength and conditioning program is doing, I see the players when they came to us in the NFL, I can tell you -- what I can tell you is what we want to bring to the table here, and that is optimal programming on an individual basis, which for the last four years in the NFL I had a chance to do, and I think with the sheer numbers in college, sometimes strength and conditioning coaches get overwhelmed by individual programming with this large of a number, but what we do is we start with the physical demands of the position first, so we start with the positional demands, and obviously every position has different demands, and things should be programmed differently by position, but within that, we progress to individual needs based largely on where the window of greatest adaptation is for the individual. In other words, does he have a significant window of adaptation with regard to strength or with regards to speed, and what we do is we just influence his program more so towards those barriers to performance. We identify his strengths, make sure we are still training his strengths but really we shift program to focus on what are those barriers to preventing this individual from achieving top performance, and that's where our program tends to shift towards for each individual.

Q. Coach, I was a manager when you were a GA and assistant strength coach, so I remember what the facilities were like back then. I don't know how much you've been back to Indiana, but talk about the new weight room they put in and the equipment and technology that's been implemented the last couple years and how beneficial that is for you and your staff.
AARON WELLMAN: Well, I think you're speaking from experience like I am that the commitment to football at Indiana is at an all-time high. I think this university and this athletic program, I know Coach Allen, the commitment level here is as great or greater than any school in the country, and our facilities are second to none from a football standpoint and really from an athletic department standpoint.

The technology we have in the room is -- it's great to walk into because we've been using this technology for seven to eight years ourselves, so we're familiar with the technology. We can hit the ground running with it, and like I mentioned before, the facilities are second to none.

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Transcript From IU Strength and Conditioning Coach Aaron Wellman's Teleconference

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