How Michigan's detail-oriented preparation has continued under Sherrone Moore
The Michigan Wolverines are preparing for the 2024 season under head coach Sherrone Moore, which in many ways should feel the same as the last few years. In other ways, it is year filled with new faces that have to come in and do their part to uphold the standard set.
Senior Donovan Edwards has only known title contention since arriving at Michigan and knows now that he is going to be one of the prominent leaders on the 2024 squad.
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“It’s going to be hard losing key guys who’ve been here in this program for 4-5 years laying down the foundation and have been through the peaks and the low points,” Edwards told Jon Jansen on the newest In The Trenches podcast. “I’m sad to see them go. The leaders that we had last year uplifting our standard and allowing guys like me and the rest of the other leaders like Max Bredesen, Myles Hinton, Will [Johnson] Mason [Graham], Ernest [Hausmann], Makari [Paige], Rod [Moore]…guys who have played big-time football, who have seen low points like losing to Georgia and TCU. It now gives us the opportunity to be able to lead.
“We look really good for losing key guys. Guys are in positions that they weren’t in last year or haven’t been and overcoming their own adversity as well. And now that their numbers are called, now that some guys are on the ones, some guys are on the twos that have climbed up the depth chart. All it is for us is just keep going continuously and just being able to stay humble and to stay gritty and continue to grind to accomplish our goals. As long as we can have high leadership and as long as we could continue to have open ears and an open mind and an open heart, then we’ll be successful.”
Michigan was able to turn around its fortunes after the 2020 season by embracing a rigorous approach to making sure all of the details were tended to within the program. In the transition from former head coach Jim Harbaugh to Moore, those tenants have remained.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that we will be able to accomplish our goals,” Edwards said. “It’s just that, even though the days are hard, we can continue to lock in. Can we make our M straight in the weight room? Can we do the small things right?
“I’m very confident in this team. So it’s going to be a great chance for us this upcoming year.”
An example of Michigan’s revamped attention to detail includes how it performs in the weight room and how it attacks each workout when it comes to putting weights where they belong and nothing out of place.
“What the people don’t know is [for example], the fourth quarter going to overtime against Alabama [in the Rose Bowl], it’s those small details that allow us to be successful and that all starts in the offseason,” Edwards said. “[Former strength coach Ben Herbert] had laid the foundation of small things like making your shoes perfect, making the M’s [the dumbbells] perfect in the weight room. If you walk into our weight room right now, everything is perfect. Neat and straight, that’s the way that we live by and that’s also going to resemble itself onto the field as well.
“It’s just those things that Coach Herb laid the foundation and [new strength coach Justin Tress] continues to implement it. The leaders continue to embody and spread to the other guys and make this culture continuously strong That makes us successful and you know when times are hard we just revert back to that training.”
Michigan continues to put in its most important work in the weight room, where Tress has taken the baton and helped keep the players physically ready and bought into the culture.
“It all starts in our weight room,” Edwards said. “Being able to be physically strong with not many injuries, that all starts from the weight room. Then those details and locking in, it goes to the meeting rooms and it goes on to the football field. So for us at Michigan, the pinnacle starts in the weight room and that’s all of us being bought in. That’s having a tremendous leader like what Coach Herb was and now J-Tress, who is still a tremendous leader as well and everybody just buying into this.
“But also Coach Harbaugh implemented it, too. Like uniforms being tucked. You’re not going to be out there with your jersey tucked up and the shirt untucked. You’re going to have the jersey on tucked. Coach Moore is doing the exact same thing, so nothing’s changing.”
