Roughly three years ago, I read an article in SI about a former European weightlifting Olympic medalist that was the strength and conditioning coach at Auburn during the 80's. Prior to his AU job, he experimented on himself and other athletes for roughly a decade to obtain the most beneficial results from timing/volume of using steroids combined with workout techniques. The article mentioned that he encouraged the AU players to use steroids and that he also sold them (along with his detailed workout regimen) to other Div 1 programs. His biggest customer was Nebraska and it reminded me about those two Sugar Bowls against LSU when they seemed to be so much bigger and physical than us. As I watched part of the Miami Hurricanes 30 for 30 recently, they highlighted a game that Miami upset Nebraska to win the national championship. I found it kind of ironic that everyone was complaining about Miami at the time but it was actually Nebraska that was the dirty program. Also kind of made me wonder if Bo Jackson took any steroids during his career.
Its definitley is possible but I really doubt Bo needed it. Herschel, McFadden...some guys dont need it.
Yeah, I liked Bo as a kid and still think he was one of the most dynamic athletes of my lifetime. It just made me start wondering if steroids plus a highly developed/structured workout regimen plus a good athlete would create a super athlete like Bo. When I was a kid and learning about LSU football (mid 80s), my dad used to say that our teams weren't the biggest or strongest, but always fought till the end. Now the Tigers are usually big/strong/fast, which is likely a combination of recruiting higher quality athletes along with Moffitt's structured programs. In the 80s, maybe certain programs (such as Neb & AU) benefitted from illegal PEDs and caused cleaner teams like LSU to be smaller on average. Hard to know if the illegal PED impact was minor or significant back then.
