Alabama has dealt with a slew of ailments. Georgia has remained mostly injury-free

Alabama has not had it easy as a number of players have gone down to injuries. In the Sugar Bowl win over Clemson, offensive lineman Lester Cotton and linebacker Anfernee Jennings were hurt and won’t be available for Monday’s national championship against Georgia.

The linebacker position in particular has dealt with a rash of injuries throughout the season. Safety Minkah Fitzpatrick is planning to play in the championship game despite suffering a kidney injury against the Tigers.

Given the amount of injuries Alabama has endured, it could be chalked up to bad luck. But Alabama strength and conditioning coordinator Scott Cochran believes there is more to it.

“I think you put it on the strength staff,” Cochran said. “I know I do. Any time there’s an injury I try to figure it out so it never happens again.”

Cochran said he has never been through a season quite like this one on the injury front. But what a strength staff can do, Cochran said, is employ techniques that can reduce the risk of injury. Cochran said that Alabama had its share of turf toe injuries at one point and figured out a way to negate those.

When head coach Nick Saban and his staff first arrived to Alabama, the strength staff had to combat some sports hernia injuries.

“It’s trying to figure out to continue to get bigger, faster, stronger, but fix those injuries before they happen,” Cochran said. “You’ve got your rehab. We’re trying to do ‘pre-hab’ also.”

Conversely, through head coach Kirby Smart’s first two seasons, Georgia has suffered only one season-ending injury – punter Marshall Long’s dislocated kneecap toward the end of the 2016 campaign. Entering Monday’s national championship, tight end Charlie Woerner is the only player who isn’t expected to play due to a leg injury suffered last week in the Rose Bowl.

Cochran said Georgia’s strength staff, headed by Scott Sinclair, must be doing something right to have those kind of results.

“Hats off to their staff, for sure,” Cochran said. “Trainers, strength coaches, practice plan, all of that plays a role. I believe that. Your competition is going to make you practice so hard that guys are overachieving constantly. They’re pushing themselves. There’s an injury zone, so to speak.”

When Smart was hired, he tried to recruit Cochran to join the Bulldogs. In the end, Cochran said he couldn’t leave Alabama, and was also rewarded with a contract that pays him over $500,000 per season.

Since Cochran wasn’t available, Smart hired Sinclair, who was previously at Marshall, instead. In two years, Sinclair has done more than enough to impress Smart. Smart credited Sinclair with why Georgia hasn't seen that many injuries.

“He's been kind of the unknown secret to the fact that we've been very fortunate,” Smart said. “When you look at injuries and how well you've been able to survive injuries and not have injuries, we've been really, really, really fortunate that we haven't had many injuries, and I think that's a credit to your strength and conditioning staff, and Scott Sinclair is by far and away the best in the country to me at that.”

This story was originally published January 7, 2018 at 2:49 PM with the headline "Alabama has dealt with a slew of ailments. Georgia has remained mostly injury-free."