Lance Leipold has said multiple times how much trust he puts in Matt Gildersleeve, the new Football Director of Sports Performance.

Gildersleeve spent the last two years in the same position at Buffalo helping Leipold continue the success of the program.

He is counting down the next two weeks when the players are set to arrive back on campus.

“I can tell you after just talking with all the different departments and getting a chance to really do those things, I couldn't be more excited,” Gildersleeve said. “I think we're going to tap out every potential resource we have here, and we've done a lot more with a lot less before. And so, for me to sit there and see all the things we have access to now and what we can do, I couldn't be more excited and more fired up.”

There has been a lot of talk about how Leipold changed the culture at Wisconsin-Whitewater and Buffalo. When I asked Gildersleeve what his number one priority is, he quickly said changing the culture.

“Number one is cultural,” he said. “It is what makes us. It's going to make this program different. So, we've got an install our culture. And there's going to be three pieces of it. Number one we're going to define it. Everyone's going to be on the same page from the day they walk into this program. We're going to define our culture, and we're going to define the expectations.”

The second part of Gildersleeve’s plan will be teaching it over time.

“Throughout the summer, we're going to teach it,” he said. “That's the second phase. We're going to teach these guys how we want them to do it. And then number three is kind of ongoing, it's demanding it. But our concepts and our philosophy from Coach Leipold on down is we want to create a platform for our athletes to lead on.”

While Gildersleeve will teach and demand it, he also said responsibility will come down to the players.

“It will be truly a player led football team,” Gildersleeve said. “We'll have a leadership council, and we will lead the team through that council. So, we'll define it, we'll teach it, and then we'll demand. At the end of the day, you get what you demand. Your culture's daily. It's action and we're going to teach these guys that, and we're going to be successful because of it.”

The timing for Gildersleeve and the coaching staff to take over a program is not normal. Usually, coaching changes happen in the off-season before the winter break. Or they happen after signing day long before spring football arrives.

There will be a challenge to move right into strength and conditioning at the beginning of June, but Gildersleeve is looking forward to it.

“If you emphasize everything, you'll emphasize nothing,” he said. “We've got to sit down and really pick and choose what are the things that we have absolutely got to drill home now. And understand that we can't squeeze six months of work into eight weeks.

“We've got to be deliberate. We've got to be very intelligent about what we do and how we do it. We've got to be very intentional and purposeful on what we do moving forward.”