ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Michigan football’s starters haven’t even played much in the fourth quarter — and have often been out in the middle of the third. But that’s because they’ve not just done their jobs efficiently in the early going, but they’ve broken other teams’ wills.
Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt likened the Wolverines to a boa constrictor, noting that they’ll squeeze the life out of a team. It was a notion that Minnesota head coach PJ Fleck echoed on Saturday.
So what is it about this Michigan team that wears out other teams? Do the players notice in-game? Sophomore defensive tackle Mason Graham says they do.
“Yeah, I just see, like, we wear and tear on them,” Graham said. “And as the game goes on, we know they can’t hang with us for four quarters. So you know at some point they’re gonna break.”
While many thought that the Wolverines would look like Jim Harbaugh’s Stanford and San Francisco 49ers teams in a hurry, it took a little longer for the maize and blue to become a reflection of their head coach. But in the last three years, it’s been evident that this is, indeed, a team that squeezes the life out of their opponents.
Graham says that they’re just a reflection of their head coach, his philosophy, and his in-game demeanor. And that’s why we’re seeing teams tapping out early every game.
“I feel like that’s something that Coach Harbaugh preaches,” Graham said. “I feel like that’s the motto of our team, something he always leans on. So just I feel like that’s reflected on us.”
One of the reasons that the maize and blue have been so good on that front is conditioning. Anyone near the program will sing the praises of strength and conditioning coach Ben Herbert unabated. But the Wolverines’ physicality also has to do with how the team prepares each week on the field, as physical practices against some of the best players in the nation help prepare the team to outwork their opponent every week.
“Yeah, I mean, Coach Harbaugh, he says the best way to get better is playing football. So that’s really what we do here,” Graham said. “We do it in practice, we do it all the time. So, reps and reps and we’re gonna get the best of the best so it just gets us ready for all the games.”