Alabama officially has 2 new strength and conditioning coaches to replace Scott Cochran.

The Crimson Tide announced the hiring of David Ballou as the Director of Sports Performance and Dr. Matt Rhea as the Director of Performance Science on Monday.

“Just as with any other area, we feel that it is imperative that we adopt and integrate advancements in the field of strength and conditioning that will provide elite training, while better protecting our players from injuries and helping them develop and perform at a higher level,” Saban said. “Our program has been working toward these type of advancements with the development and construction of our own sports science center, and with the addition of David and Matt, we believe our student-athletes will be better equipped to reach their goals for many years to come.”

Both Ballou and Rhea come to Alabama from Indiana, where the duo had been for 2 years. Ballou was Notre Dame’s co-director of football strength in 2017 after one year as the strength and conditioning coach at the IMG Academy.

“Player development is my passion” Ballou said. “We can’t wait to get to Tuscaloosa and begin working with some of the best athletes and football players in the nation. We will attack all avenues of performance to make sure we are optimizing the physical abilities of every player on the roster.”

Before IU, Dr. Rhea was a full-time professor of kinesiology at A.T. Still University, where he taught courses in sports conditioning and exercise physiology. He’s published many studies on the subject and earned his doctorate at Arizona State.

“For the past 22 years, I have been studying how best to develop athletes, prevent injuries and prime for competition,” Rhea said. “Through research, I have found some innovative ways to target neuromuscular issues that are limiting performance and, by teaming up with one of best strength and conditioning coaches in the world, we can target those limiting factors during training.

“Everyone works hard in football these days, and our system involves a lot of hard work, but not just for the sake of causing pain and suffering. It involves hard work because getting improvements in very elite athletes is very challenging. We are combining hard work with very scientific methods in order to maximize development and preparation.”

Ballou and Rhea will combine to replace Cochran, who recently left to become Georgia’s special teams coordinator.