Yea and our program’s strength & conditioning is “good” but we’re like 1-30 over the past 3 years.
And if MichSt. program is so good, why they lose to Illinois?
Yea and our program’s strength & conditioning is “good” but we’re like 1-30 over the past 3 years.
And if the MichSt. program is so good, why they lose to Illinois?
I don’t think S&C has as much of an effect as you would think. For example, Buddy Morris was a hero S&C coach at U. of Pitt then went to the Browns where they had a miserable season and he was canned within a year. He went on saying “so how did I go from a genius to an idiot over past years”?
Alot of people here are Joe Kenn nut swingers…why does Ariz. State suck then? Why is Mich so far ahead?
There are many variables and without at least good football specific coaching, there would not be the success. I said as much earlier in the thread. However, knowing what many of us know about the program, the s & c program(if it can be called a program at all) can claim very little of the success of this season by doing some things right that should have been the case all along. Only this year has there been a team wide moratorium on keeping bodyweights in check when the strength coach previously told many of the players to eat huge quantities of pop tarts and pizza-this has been stated by many players current and past. There is no defense of ridiculous practices or advice.
I don’t know of anyone here who believs s & c is solely responsible for the success or failure of a program but most fans knowledgable about this aspect of a program recognize it is very important. Many fans believe that, due to their ignorance of s & c in general, all conditioning programs are the same though they agree that many position and head coaches hold different philosophies from other staffs.
The point about recruiting is that when you recruit great athletes you have much room to do whatever with them. A great athlete will can be trained in just about any fashion and will still be successful yet not prepared optimally. For example this year’s team: there is a big difference between doing things better and doing them optimally. Many aspects are still substandard-combine results and low draft picks despite good high school combine results underline these deficiencies.
Much of this years success(though not quite to the halfway point in the season) can attributed to many fundamental changes in philosophies along with significant staff changes. Many things go into the success but since this site deals with strength and speed development and conditioning that has been the focus in this thread.
The final point is yes, they are doing some things right, but, unfortunately, s & c is not one of them.
I dont agree with the you can do watever you want with athletes if you get good athletes, Michigan is not the only team getting good players. If there were playing all d2 or 1aa teams then yes it might not matter what they do, but other teams have had better recruiting classes than michigan in the past.
Also I dont see where Michigan’s draft picks have been terribly low for their talent, they usually send a decent amount of people to the pros, I’m not saying the most but they arent terrible at getting talent to the next level.
And you cant compare high school combine results to pro combine results. You can have people with a vj ranging by around 6+ inches depending how they measure and large flucuations are also common in the 40 and pro shuttle.
Talented people in bad programs will most likely still bring about good results-certainly not great but good. You can “get away” with a lot of poor methods when you are training talented athletes.
Who said they were the only team getting good athletes? It might surprise you but over the the time period of five years through 2002, taking a consensus of the various large scouting services(4-5 I believe) the only two schools with more highly rated recruits over that period have been USC and Texas. In the last four years they have finished 10th, 5th, 5th, and 7th. In the last ten years they have been in the top 10 all but one or two years yet averaged in the top 10(I think 6th or 7th). Hence my contention that they have done less with more-those teams(Texas and USC) have not been anywhere near 7-5 in recent years. That last class of 2002 would have been seniors or fourth year juniors during last season.
So over the last 5-6 years, OSU has had 35 draft picks and UM is tied with Wisconsin and Iowa over that time frame(two teams that year in year out cannot recruit the same quality and depth that UM has) with 17 or 18. Also during that time frame, both Iowa and Wisconsin(and of course OSU) have more first day picks than UM-without the same talent base. Our first pick this year went in the fourth round not exactly commensurate with top 5-10 classes, not even close. In fact they are substandard in getting top talent optimally developed.
Gabe Watson was at least a 5 star player(possibly the most highly rated dt out of high school) and he was not a top draft pick, not close. Ernest Shazor was a first team USA today safety-ran 4.4 at Nike and then, four years later runs 4.72 while only gaining about 10-15 pounds of bodyweight.
You can, in fact compare, results if they are performed at large, reputable combines that feature standardized testing protocols- like Nike Also, even if they featured different protocols if they are reputable combines, they are unlikely to be off 3 to 3 1/2 tenths. Not to mention he(Shazor) had all that training time over his three years to at least match or, god forbid, improve upon his time.
From what I’ve heard about MSU, they are running some kind of Hybrid HIT/standard program with Mannie still having much input. I will try to find out more.
As far as ASU not having the success as UM(of course a year ago we’d be posing the opposite question) my best guess would be lower talent(they are not usually a top ten team in recruiting classes) and the staff coaching techniques and philosophy.
How would they be able to pull that off? Wouldn’t Mannie still ban “dangerous” lifts?
It’s nothing I can confirm, as far as the specifics of their program, but he is still listed as a or the strength coach. I’m not sure how they are working the hybrid, if that is indeed the way they are handling the program.
Yeah, I know Mannie is still listed as their strength coach. However, he is a major league (S)HIT Jedi, and I always wondered how he and Hoke were working together and how their overall program is organized.
Over the past 5 years Michigan has also sent the same amount of people to the draft as Texas, well actually one more, so then Texas must be doing a bad job of getting people to the pros as well.
And thats great you limit your search to the most recent years, because you wouldnt want to get the turn of the century in there for USC.
The point is Michigan has had what two bad years starting with the 80’s? Last year and back in 84, I think thats pretty decent.
You can frame these arguement 100 different ways so that either side looks bad, o well Michigan doesnt have as many passing yards as Hawaii or had only 1/3 the people get picked in the draft last year as USC or only had 1/3 of the running yards as that highschool kid did last year.
Overall Michigan is the winningest team, 6th most draft picks all time, I call that a good school. Every team has bad years, too many variables, and I’m not saying HIT is good, I have never used it and dont intend to, but the point is making the arguement that HIT has caused Michigan to suck is hard to do.
I think most S&C programs will work with top athletes, although not necessarily the most optimal. The question is the injury rates in my opinion. The injury rates will have a serious effect on success and CAN be influenced by the S&C program.
Then again, the PA 4A champs a few years back had the same trainers as my team, who did loads and loads of intensive tempo/wind sprint type stuff on the track (ridiculous volumes, like 2-3k+) and did HIT after with very short rests. Both of the teams had pretty high injury rates (I think each team had almost 20 or more season ending injuries), yet one went undefeated and smashed every single team and the other didn’t make the play-offs. Go figure.
As Charlie has pointed out, the Hit schools lead the list of schools with the highest injury rates-in the ncaa. I definitely don’t think this is a coincidence.
I personally don’t feel that Madden at Texas is very good either-probably better than Gittleson but not by a lot. I never felt he got that much out of his guys at UNC with Brown.
I did not at all “limit” my search-info based on article with that time frame specified. Most football fans do acknowledge that USC’s staff now is better than it was at the “turn of the century”-pretty dramatic or a little less than 7 years ago.
Many UM fans and knowledgable college football fans that Michigan has actually more than two bad years in the last twenty-not just 6-6/7-5. Years where the talent level indicated better performances that just were not seen on the field.
You can look the other way when presented with stats indicating a much higher talent level than the reality of many of the game performances but there it is. How do you believe that Wisconsin and Iowa have both had the same number of draft picks over the last five years with more first day picks than UM? Not for one year but for five years. This with , on average for the overall classes, inferior athletic talent coming in yet better draft performances than UM-with many superior combine performances. Is it they are doing things so much better, UM doing a poor job, or a combination of the two. I suggest the latter, especiallly with regards to Iowa.
I give you numerous stats and you point out Texas.
UM is the winningest team of all time and have been playing a lot longer than most programs have. 6th all time number of draft picks when many of todays programs were not even in existence or have prominence until many years later.
Actually it’s a great school, but don’t be confused by the fact that a number of variables do come into play in putting together success on the field. The one constant, strategically, philosophically over the last 28 years has been HIT. It’s pretty easy to see when Clarence Williams comes into the program running 10.5/21.5 in high school and then 4 years later runs high 4.7, something is very wrong.
Not having done HIT, you must be mostly unaware how it can serve to actually de-condition speed strength performance of athletes-athletes are constantly fried, fatigued. Not knowing HIT you probably don’t know just how bad it can be-nor do you want to experience it. It’s not just the HIT, it’s the entire conditioning program of the past that is based upon HIT-sprint training, avoidance of plyos, or most free weight exercises because they are “too dangerous”. You are probably not aware of these shortcomings because you are not a fan of UM for if you were, you would likely be more aware of it’s failure as a system.
Again, you don’t have to believe it has been a problem but as I wrote earlier, when it is the one constant and there is a major disconnect between talent recruited and on field performance and poor combine results for guys who many other top schools recruit(very good athletes) it’s pretty easy to see.
Ok over the sHIT period 1980-present Michigan has had a higher winning percentage than USC, Texas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Penn State, it might be everyone, but I’m not sure so wont go as far to say that. And I believe thats how schools judge success is wins, draft order, preseason draft class ranks are subjective, how talented someone is is subjective, wins are not.
No, not 1980, it’s actually since 1978- you are so intent on avoiding limiting the time frame in order to be accurate. You can bet that it’s not everyone and by listing a small number of teams that you say they had a higher winning percentage than, I have no reason to doubt that, you are “limiting your search”.
As far as judging an overall program, it’s pretty difficult to evaluate a program vs. many schools who did not even have s & c coaches back in late 70’s into the early/mid 80’s.
Just as you and I have pointed out, there are many factors in program success, many factors in the past have compensated for an inadequate s & c program, so now you look back and say it could not have been so bad. When you have good coaching and very good talent, it is possible to have success despite doing other things poorly. Now we are in an era where most s & c programs have evolved, improved and it’s not enough to just have talent, field coaching, the s and c must be improved.
In your evaluation of success, you are allowing the s & c to ride the coattails of the other more successful aspects of the program in acquiring the wins. The success of the program over the years came despite the inadequacies of the strength program. Most fans, without an adequate knowledge of the nuts and bolts of a properly developed strength program assume that things “could not be that bad.” In fact they can be that bad and are. The average fan makes the assumption, based upon their own ignorance of programs in general, that these aspects of a program are unlikely to be all that different from other programs but in fact they are. It’s why only 3-4 of all of college D1 football programs use it.
So few teams use HIT, so what they do, and what they don’t accomplish is hard for some to see and to fathom. Having not been a UM fan, and with your own acknowledged lack of experience with HIT it’s not expected that you would see this. It is unlikely that you have been watching this team for about 30 years as a fan as I have and heard stories related by some of the players on the de-conditioning effects of this. A number of players indicated that their high school programs were clearly better for s & c than what they got at UM.
I’m certainly not disputing their success over the years, as fan I want to talk about that but I’ve also seen enough and heard enough stories to know that the success has been in spite of the poor s & c program.
As far as ranking of high school recruits, there is no doubt that it is far from an exact science at this point. However, when you take a consensus of many of the scouting agencies the picture you get is not exact but is fairly accurate. Having followed recruiting for some time I can say, without hesitation, that there are very few bust these days. There are some but not a tremendous number of them. Over the years, one or two inaccurately rated classes for one school would likely be averaged out by looking at classes over a larger time frame. Many UM feel that their classes must be overrated to the greatest degree when some of these guys don’t produce and there is that gap between talent that enters but does not produce. There have been a number of kids who have actually regressed during their time at UM-produces as freshmen or sophs. and then really leveled off or physically got worse-Steve Breaston immediately comes to mind.
Another example poor development of the recruits that come to UM is comparing the draft results vs. OSU. UM generally brings in higher ranked classes than OSU on average but it’s not a tremendous difference. How, over that same 5 year stretch, does OSU have double the number of draft picks that UM has? Could it be that the football coaching is the difference? It might be but that would only be part of the story-it would not explain that large a gap. S and c differences have to play a significant part in that gap, not the only difference but a big part of it. OSU has pretty solid s and c(even with their recent changes at the position) and UM does not.
Remember that no coaches of a football program spends as much time with the athletes during the entire school year as the strength coaches do-it fact it’s not even close. Therefore, what they do or don’t do can have a major impact upon what kind of athlete/players an individual can or will become.
Sure there are a great number of variables but when one aspect that has great deal to do with the overall success is failing thel program it’s pretty for some to see. Horrible combine results are pretty hard to dispute-these results coming for kids who were recruited by most of the major powers. Some of these had legitmate h.s. combine results and moreover legit track results. Those major college football teams that were recruiting these kids saw, like UM did, impressive athleticism that does not show up late in their college football career at UM nor, clearly, in the combines.
Stating 26 of 28 yrs which by the way all the teams still have a worse % after the extra 2 than Michigan is different than stating 5 years of 28 to make a comparision which seems to be all you do.
And I just looked up colleges that you mentioned rather than going by the 5 years where Texas and USC were unstoppable and Michigan had its worst year in over 20 years. If you want you can go back and find a school that did have a better record over the time period, there might be one or two I just didnt bother to look up over 100 colleges, just the ones that were in our discussion.
Also I have never stated anywhere what the causes are that made Michigan good, I just say there is a lot and it is hard to make the case that HIT is sHit here, I didnt say it isnt I just said this is a hard case to prove it.
Also using combine results and draft choices, which Michigan had a pretty decent amount of over the sHIT period really doesnt cut it either. Whats the purpose of a program to win games or to have a good vertical jump? Sure schools wouldnt mind seeing good combine results, but thats not what they train for they train to win and thats what Michigan does.
If a sprinter went from running 10.2 to 10.0 but his squat dropped from 400 to 350 do you think he would mind? I am not saying that is how it is that there is a tradeoff I am just saying that you have to keep in mind the main goal of the peole using the program.
If you are a football player and lifting to not get stronger, faster, or more powerful, what are you trying to do?
Chris Korfest and Dan Fichter, whom I believe opine on this forum from time to time, have stated on a number of occasions how many of the Big ten football players come back to train with these guys in the summer and have lost a lot of speed and strength during the school year. They never stated which teams but Michigan is probably just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to poor S & C. Our local High School uses HIT and last season, the injuries were so high, they had to end the JV season in order to make up for all of the injuries on the Varsity and JV.
YOU ARE TRYING TO GET FASTER, STRONGER, MORE POWERFUL and I’m not saying Michigan does the best at that.
There is also throwing power and accuracy, making the right reads, catching, proper sports moves, route running, proper coverage, play calling, recruiting, clock management, reaction time, etc.
Does a receiver running routes of 10-20yds while making moves to distance himself from the defender correlate to the 40yd dash 100%?
Does a o-line man fighting off a swim move correlate 100% to bench press?
Does a running doing a spin move or stiff arm to break a tackle necessarily correlate to any combine measure? And then having to line up and do it again the next play?
There is a lot, there is a lot the combines dont measure. I am not saying Michigan does good or even average in the strength and conditioning program, but maybe they arent all the concerned about it. Maybe they care about going 9-3 instead of having a 4.2 40. yes that would help and maybe they wud go 10-2 or 11-1 then, but they arent going to change if they are one of the best programs using this system.
They win thats what program is suppose to do, maybe they could win more maybe they could go undefeated every where so you guys are happy, but the strength and conditioning coach is going to change if they go 8 or 9 and 3 every year.
It’s very easy to criticize others’ training. Very easy. Too bad criticism doesn’t get anything done. If you don’t like something, get involved and change it. If you can’t then get involved with the competition and change them in order to flip the script.