February is the briefest month and, for Hawaii football players, one of the cruelest.

It is not much more gleeful during the other months of the offseason.

“Definitely hate him in July,” running back Miles Reed said of Dwain Bradshaw, the Rainbow Warriors’ director of football athletic performance. “But all the things he made us go through, we definitely see it paying off (in November).”

While many teams are struggling for their second wind, the Warriors have remained physically fit through 11 games and 13 weeks of this season. Injuries and redshirt choices have narrowed the receiver rotation. But left wideout Jared Smart, who has played all but a handful of snaps this season, has been at top speed every play.

“When I came in (at the start of the spring semester), I didn’t know a whole lot about Dwain,” Smart said. “He’s all about working for us. He’s all about making us do things we have never done before.”

In searching for a strength/conditioning coach to replace Bubba Reynolds, who resigned following the 2017 season, department coordinator Tommy Heffernan sought a candidate with a football background. The duties were split among the staff in 2018.

“I felt Dwain would be the best fit,” Heffernan said of Bradshaw, who had worked at Arizona State, Auburn, USC and Texas Tech. “I knew he would do some things that would be different from what we did in the past. He would bring some new ideas.”

In strength training, Bradshaw favors heavy lifting.

“A lot of coaches are scared to go heavy with the players because they might get hurt,” Bradshaw said. “If you can coach it well, there’s no reason they can’t do it. We didn’t do it Day 1 all of a sudden going crazy. We built up the progression.”

In performing back squats, lifters did not just go up and down quickly. With the bar across their shoulders, the players were instructed to slowly descend, taking about six seconds to go from standing into a squat position. Bradshaw said that technique increases flexibility of the Golgi tendon organs. Bradshaw likened the Golgi to a car’s governor chip, which limits a car’s speed. Remove the chip, and the car goes faster. Remove a Golgi’s limitations through slow squatting and more weights can be added. Bradshaw said the Warriors are able to do heavier lifts “because the governor chip is shut off.”

Bradshaw also split agility drills into two groups. Non-linemen did several one-legged exercises, including squats. The reasoning is when a player runs, one foot usually is in the air during a stride. Linemen stuck mostly to drills involving both feet on the ground. “The farther you go away from the ball,” Bradshaw said, “the more single-leg stuff.”

Bradshaw said there is an in-season program to maintain strength and speed. Bradshaw tells his players: “You’re like demolition-derby cars. We’ll fix you up all week, tune you up, and on Saturday — bam! — you get crushed up.”

Bradshaw said: “We reset them again on Monday.”

Bradshaw said the method worked at Auburn, where several players set personal records the week ahead of the annual Iron Bowl.

Head coach Nick Rolovich said he likes Bradshaw’s organizational skills and eagerness.

“He doesn’t just do what he has to do,” Rolovich said, “he does more. He goes the extra mile. I think everyone who’s been around him understands that.”

Proof was in the form of quarterback Cole McDonald’s two touchdown runs against UNLV last Saturday. Each time he appeared to be stopped, only to use his lower-body strength to power his way into the end zone. Bradshaw said McDonald broke two school records for a quarterback, including power-cleaning 315 pounds.

McDonald is “running over guys,” Reed said. “You’ve got a quarterback bucking safeties, that’s showing there.”