AUBURN | Ryan Russell is officially Auburn’s Assistant AD for Athletic Performance and Executive Director of Football. That’s quite a mouthful, but there’s logic behind his new title.

Russell, who was hired as AU’s strength and conditioning coach in 2013, was recently given new responsibilities by head coach Gus Malzahn.

“One of the big things that I’m really enjoying is coach has put me in charge of the freshman guys, our early enrollees,” Russell explained. “So any time a freshman comes on campus, I’m kind of in charge of their character development program and getting them started on the right foot.”

The program is an extension of what he tries to teach to his players everyday in the weight room, just more in-depth and focused on players going through an always challenging transition from high school to college football.

“So I’ve been meeting with those guys before all this went down (the global coronavirus pandemic) once a week for about 30 minutes or so, going over certain topics, certain things that are going to help them build this elite edge that we talked about in life and it all comes down to decisions and behaviors,” Russell said.

“This is a good time obviously right now. We didn’t expect this to go down, but this is a good time for those guys to put a lot of stuff that we went over in that program in place. And put it to use.”

Russell explains that the job responsibilities of a strength and conditioning coach have changed and expanded over the years. It’s not just about getting players bigger, stronger and faster.

There’s an important mental side to players fulfilling their full potential on and off the field that Russell wants to instill in his players early.

“That’s what really separates the guys, the athletes that I’ve worked with through the years, is just the mental game, the state of their mind, how they’re able to approach things, how they’re able to deal with setbacks and things like that,” Russell said. “Because everybody is talented that comes through here, or they wouldn't be here. But it's the guys who are able to get their mind right and think right and talk to themselves the right way are normally the guys who go on and do big things for us and play at the next level. It's educating them about all those psychological skills that go into being an elite-level athlete, too.

“That brings up another good point, even now during this time, when you talk about athletic identity for some of these guys, is football who they are or what they do? And there has to be a fine balance. If it's totally who you are, you're really struggling right now, right? It's a good time to think about when this game is all over, what are you going to do? How are they going to handle it? I think this is a good time and I've been talking about that with them when I call to check up on them and just making sure because, hey, this game is going to end for everybody, right? So they have to have a plan in place, some other interests and understand their whole identity is not tied to this game.”

The Auburn University campus is closed and all on-campus athletic activities are suspended through the remainder of spring semester and summer sessions 1 and 2. A decision for summer session 3 will be made by June 1. Auburn is scheduled to open the season Sept. 5 against Alcorn State at Jordan-Hare Stadium.