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badgerphil wrote:

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No way that Michigan football should ever need to be "overhauled". The way they recruit, even bringing in a new coach with a new system (talk about a dumbass move by the a.d.) should NOT result in the type of performances that they've seen from the Wolverines during the past two seasons.

What you do with a program like Michigan's, is just hand the keys over to a new coach and keep the bus moving in the right direction. Doing that doesn't mean, however, that you want a different looking team playing at the Big House. Remember when UW handed the keys off to a new coach who brought a totally different system to Camp Randall? Dick Rod has brought a once mighty program to it's knees in a "rebuilding effort". The program needed some tweaking, not a freekin' major overhaul.

Big Ten fans aren't like SEC fans, demanding coaches be thrown to the wolves once things go badly.....but in this case the situation warrants it. I almost feel badly for the jerks in Ann Arbor.....almost.

Phil, Michigan Football most definitely did need an overhaul. Michigan's got all the tradition in the world, but that tradition had also been a dead weight on things. Things had been unbroken from Bo to Moeller to Carr - everything was the same, including some woefully antiquated strength and conditioning programs. That's great, but that alone won't win you games.

Alvarez handing over to Bielema is a great example of a good transition, but you'll note that Bielema brought in an awful lot of his own energy and direction to the program. That's exactly the kind of change that wasn't happening under Carr, and that's exactly why Michigan needed some big changes. And, like any other transition (look at Barry taking over initially), there was going to be some attrition. Which is funny, since the same kind of attrition when Bo took over for Bump Elliott is celebrated in Ann Arbor - "those who stay will be champions."

It's simply impossible for anyone to look at this Michigan squad and not see both significant improvement over last year and a huge amount of potential for the future.

For S&C:

http://mgoblog.blogspot.c...btraction-christmas.html

Gittleson: gone, and with him goes the antiquated HIT system that only Michigan and Penn State still use. I've never known how much credence to give the S&C wailers, but I think we can all agree that when it's just you and Penn State doing something you're on the wrong end of the innovation bell curve unless the something in question is the Charleston. And every time Brent Musberger brought up Michigan's totally sophisticated system for beefing up Pat Massey -- literally "eat a lot of pizza, son" -- I wanted to throw a shoe at the TV, and then I wanted that shoe to magically transform into a defensive lineman who could stay within five yards of the line of scrimmage. So Git gone == good.

Michigan had been using a high-intensity training system, focused on getting the 'perfect rep.' Not many teams use that anymore. Beyond just that, however, the culture at Michigan regarding conditioning had gotten stale. There were rumors that during Carr's last offseason, attendance at 'voluntary' workouts was low. Clearly, Rodriguez saw the need to change that culture. No doubt, it rubbed a lot of veterans the wrong way.

With the practice time kerfuffle at the beginning of the season, I think most of that was from former Carr-era players that were a little salty about the change. I have no doubt that Rodriguez and his staff were within the letter of the law, but clearly there was a big change in what the expectations of players were in order to improve and earn playing time.

The single biggest note about the change comes from Ryan Mundy, who transferred from Michigan to West Virginia, thus experienced the switch in S&C first hand:

Ryan Mundy transferred over the course of the offseason and had this to say in August:

As far as the strength and conditioning program is concerned, Mundy says West Virginia's program is much more intense than Michigan's. Other players that have transferred to West Virginia have said similar things in the past, explaining that at some other places the players coming into the program are physically bigger and more explosive. West Virginia develops it.

"Down here we do a lot of Olympic lifts - squats, power clings, hang clings and things like that - and I hadn't done that type of stuff since high school," Mundy said. "I had to get my body back used to doing those types of movements. As far as the practice down here we run after practice and we never ran after practice at Michigan."

No doubt this is part of how West Virginia got excellent results out of mostly average recruiting classes, and part of why Michigan disappointed in recent years. The two stalest parts of the Michigan program were its offensive philosophy and the S&C; both of those things have been swept away and replaced by cutting-edge innovation.

So, from looking at Michigan so far this year, they're greatly improved on offense. They definitely look more talented and faster (both in speed of play and thought). The main criticisms of the offense have been turnovers and other mental mistakes you'd expect from an extremely young team.

Defense is another matter, but the cupboard was so bare there, I'm not sure what to make of that yet.

I don't know a damn thing about strength and conditioning philosophies, but I do know that under Carr, Michigan would take talented players and they'd seem to get slower.

Maybe it's real change, maybe it's just attitude, I dunno. I think there's at least some philosophical difference given Mike Barwis' focus on speed and agility, as well as a full program of nutrition, etc. - compared to the 'eat a bunch of pizza' approach. And judging by the comments of Ryan Mundy, who had significant time in both systems, the change is more than just one of philosophy.