June 22, 2007
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Healthy Jennings Looks to Bounce Back Strong
Feature Column By Will Matthews
NASHVILLE – As Jeff Jennings went through his daily strength and conditioning routines during a sweltering afternoon this week, even the most casual observer would have been able to discern that Head Football Coach Bobby Johnson’s assessment that Jennings is stronger and in better shape than ever before is not just mere hyperbole.
Vanderbilt’s fourth-year running back exploded through 100-yard sprints and engaged in exercises that required sharp, lateral movements with relative ease.
“I actually feel like I am in some of the best shape that I have been in since I have been here,” Jennings said. “I am 100 percent and I can’t tell you how good that feels. It has been a long time since I have been able to say that.”
For Jennings it is a far cry from where he was just one year ago.
Last year at this time, Jennings – eight months removed from blowing out his knee during a November 2005 game against Kentucky – was being forced to face the reality that his physical recovery was not yet fully complete and that he would have to take a medical redshirt and sit out the entire 2006 campaign.
For a player just beginning to come into his own – Jennings was Vanderbilt’s second-leading rusher as a sophomore with a career-best 448 yards and seven touchdowns – the realization was nothing short of devastating.
“I was feeling like I was really beginning to get better as a player prior to the injury,” Jennings said. “I was gaining an understanding of the offense and the types of things I needed to do to be able to be successful in the offense. So it was real frustrating for me to endure that injury. One second everything was all good, and the next second I was looking at being out a whole year or more. It was a sudden change, a total 180-degree turnaround.”
Jennings, though, didn’t spend much time feeling sorry for himself. He immediately committed himself to engaging a daily rehabilitation routine aimed at rebuilding the strength in his knee that he had lost with the injury.
During summer practices while his teammates were busy on the field, Jennings spent at least three days a week in the weight room with Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach Gabe Teeple. The other two days of the week were spent with Teeple running. During Vanderbilt’s August two-a-day practices, Jennings would do both running and strength work in the weight room.
“Jeff was very busy,” Teeple said. “Even though he wasn’t on the field, he worked. During the team’s two hour practices, Jeff worked. It wasn’t fun work; it was a lot of grueling activity. But I can’t say enough about his work ethic and his will. He did an outstanding job. Whatever I asked him to do, he did.”
Jennings credits his teammates, family and the Vanderbilt coaching staff with keeping his spirits up and keeping him motivated to do what he needed to do to get himself back to a point where he could contribute on the field. But he also doesn’t understate how difficult the last year has been for him.
“It has been a real tough year, but I am just glad to be back out here. It is the little things now that are particularly rewarding – being able to come out here and run in the summer with your teammates, being able to go through spring practice and all that. You just really appreciate things like that after you haven’t been out there for a while.”
After more than 15 months of arduous rehabilitation, Jennings says his participation in this past spring’s practices was an important mental step in confirming for himself that he was indeed physically ready again to make the kinds of contributions to the Vanderbilt team that he spent all of last year on the sidelines wishing he could make.
“Not having been out there for a while, there were definitely certain things that, while I don’t want to say I worried about, I certainly had to get the feel of again,” Jennings said. “But I was cool after that first week and that first real contact. After that, my confidence came back to me. Now I just want to go in there and help the team out however I can, give 100 percent whenever I am in there.”
Despite Jennings’ absence last year and an early-season injury to Jennings’ backfield mate Cassen Jackson-Garrison that left him at less than full strength, Vanderbilt still managed to finish the 2006 season ranked fourth in the Southeastern Conference in rushing.
First-year starting quarterback Chris Nickson was one of the conference’s leading rushers and freshmen Jared Hawkins and Gaston Miller emerged as capable runners out of the backfield. Re-introducing Jennings – who has a proven ability in short yardage situations and in blocking – to the mix will likely give the Commodores one of the deepest backfields in the conference.
“We missed a good player and a proven player,” Johnson said of Jennings’ absence last season. “Having him again will obviously give us a complete back playing back there and it gives us an opportunity to use all of our backs in a more efficient manner.”
Will Matthews spent three years as an investigative reporter with the Los Angeles Newspaper Group in Southern California. He earned his Master of Divinity degree in 2007 from Vanderbilt Divinity School. To email Will your feedback, Click Here
