re: 2023-24 Attrition Thread - Who’s gone? Portal/NFL/Graduation / Coaches Included

Both OL guys can kick fkn rocks

How you have a group with 2 coaches be the worst unit on the team

He’s not the one blocking poorly

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He’s not the one blocking poorly

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No, but our players are lacking strength and endurance to dominate the LOS because of his weak s&C program.

I mean, yes I'll be happy if/when Napier cuts the OL "coaches" but really this is all window dressing if he keeps Hocke.

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We’ll agree to disagree on that.

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Fair enough.

I hope you're right. I just am not convinced that Hocke is doing enough to get the players into shape to play in the SEC.

Maybe some of the strength and endurance issues we saw last season was due to playing so many freshmen and sophomores?

I'll also admit, after a 3rd straight (arguably 4th straight considering 2020 ended really disappointing given the talent we had) season, I'm having a bit of a "message board geniuses" moment and just want to #FireEverybody!

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We had several players gain 5-15 pounds of muscle over last offseason, many slimed down ect. Blaming the S&C Coach for bad technique/fundamentals is a reach imo

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Big Dez says hello

lol..The NFL doesn't care if Mertz can complete 80% of his passes around the line of scrimmage.

Ben Herbert explains how Michigan football handled adversity this season?

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Jim Harbaugh has called Ben Herbert the “X factor” in Michigan football’s recent success, and the Director of Strength and Conditioning explained this week how he prepares the Wolverines to face any obstacle.

Speaking on “In the Trenches,” Herbert explained how he keeps Michigan players uncomfortable in order to help them grow.

“In training, I believe that there has to be a level of consistency, right? We want the guys — we want them physically and mentally to be able to adapt to what they're doing,” he said. “But I never want this sense of comfort — especially mental comfort. They never know what they're doing when they come into the room. I shouldn’t say ‘never’; rarely do they know. People in general, they want to know what is in store in their life, just in general, what's to come, what's going to happen, so I can plan for it. In this game, that’s not a luxury that we have.”

DT Kris Jenkins offered an example: Herbert will select a random player and instruct them to beat their personal record at a certain drill. If he cannot, everyone on the team has to run conditioning. That teaches how “you never know when your name is going to be called,” and your response to that challenge will matter.

Case in point: When Herbert and the Wolverines landed at Penn State before a top-10 showdown, they learned the Big Ten had suspended Jim Harbaugh. But the Wolverines didn’t flinch — even in the moments after they first heard the news.

“There's circumstances that we’ll create in the offseason to simulate. And you always want the simulation to carry over to real life,” Herbert said. “Now, there's times when, like I tell our guys, we may not be blessed with this adversity.

“Remember I say, ‘We may not be blessed.’ It's a blessing. This adversity is a blessing to us all. And I want them to see it like that.

“But I'll never forget: You find out on the plane at Penn State, and I'm coming down the stairs and there's some people standing at the bottom. And I was talking to a few people and then see some guys coming down the stairs. And I'm just looking. I just look right in their eyes. Look at them and they just give me this smirk — like this little smile. And I'm just smiling back, just a subtle smile. And we just know.

“I'm sitting with some guys at dinner that night and we just got this grin on our face because we've been blessed with this opportunity — what people call adversity. This uncomfortable, potentially detrimental circumstance that now we get to overcome. And it's an incredible opportunity. And then to go and do what we've done, there’s no better lesson learned that will pay dividends for us with the young men in this program into the future. It's incredible.”

‘Coach Harbaugh is the toughest man in the building’
According to Ben Herbert, the culture of toughness starts at the very top.

“Our head football coach, Coach Harbaugh, is the toughest man in the building,” he said. “There's no disputing that. He's proved it. How he still trains with pain or without pain, the type of player he was, the type of collegiate player he was, the type of pro that he was. That toughness and that mentality starts at the top. And then everybody else, it's the rest of our jobs to keep up and to represent ourselves in a way that's reflective of our head football coach.”

Herbert has worked with Michigan since 2018. He added the role of Associate Head Coach prior to the 2023 season.

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