When Michigan football's new staff arrived in Ann Arbor, it had more raw talent than at any point in Utah.
A roster littered with four-stars and a few five star prospects, U-M looked the part.
There was only one problem. When strength and conditioning coach Doug Elisaia put the team through workouts in the winter to get a baseline, the numbers were shockingly low.
"The most glaring thing that stood out to me when we first got there was that when we tested them in the strength room, the overall strength of the team wasn't up to par," Whittingham said in Chicago at Big Ten Media Days. "We've worked hard in the last seven months to correct that.
"It was very apparent, by the numbers, they paled in comparison to the place we came from."
It goes to show
that there's more than meets the eye when it comes to strength. So, for more than half a year, the Wolverines have gotten after it in the strength room.
The philosophy under the previous adminstration, per running back Jordan Marshall, wasn't about "lifting just to lift," which is why the team almost never did one of the most common staple lifts, the bench press.
Marshall said the goal was to avoid shoulder injuries and would instead focus on workouts that "prepare you for a football game." For example, he would train hamstrings essentially every day to avoid soft tissue injuries.
But in the end, it just wasn't going to be enough to hold up in a conference as physical as the Big Ten. That's how Elisaia saw it and Whittingham recalled the conversation when the coach came into his office and broke the news.
“[Elisaia] came up to my office and said, ‘Coach, you’re not going to like this,’” Whittingham said. “We talked for a while and I said, ‘Doug, I have no question in my mind you’ll get it right.’”
Whittingham said that's exactly what has happened. U-M had another round of testing when it recently wrapped up summer conditioning and the head coach said 97% of the team hit new personal bests. It's not just the strength aspect, but Marshall feels the conditioning is way ahead of where it was last season.
There's been buy-in from the roster top to bottom, which Whittingham is not surprised by, given the immediate results − something he feels will only continue now that everybody has seen the difference Elisaia can make.
“As soon as the players realize you can help them be a better player, you’ll get buy in," Whittingham said. "As soon as they know what you’re preaching is going to work, if they follow it, they’re going to get better."
Meaningful games in November
Whittingham said when he arrived that the Michigan standard will always be competing for championships. That just comes with the territory of being at a program with U-M's pedigree.
"I mean, why are you at Michigan if that's not your goal?," he said last month to the Free Press. "You can't say, 'Oh, we want to be competitive, we want to be, you know, in the upper half of the league."
However, speaking in Chicago, he tempered expectations. While he acknowledged "the cupboard was far from left bare,” when he and his staff arrived, he said the depth is something that he still feels needs to be improved.
That wasn't something that was going to happen overnight. With that as the backdrop, not to mention perhaps one of the five toughest schedules in the country, Whittingham's idea of a successful campaign would be going into some of those later games (at Oregon on Nov. 14, at Ohio State Nov. 28) with Big Ten title implications and a potential College Football Playoff berth still ahead of them.
"I can't predict you know how good we can be or where we'll end up, but I can say if we’re playing meaningful games in November, then that's probably for us a successful season and a chance to have something to build on," he said.
Whittingham equated this year of unknowns to a "Christmas present" where you walk under the tree and see a box that's wrapped. You are excited about the possibility, but there's no way to truly know what's in it until it's opened − that opening comes against Western Michigan on Sept. 5 (7:30 p.m., NBC) at Michigan Stadium.
Tony Garcia is the Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football's glaring issue Kyle Whittingham had to fix
