Ben Herbert says nothing’s changed about Michigan football strength program

INDIANAPOLIS — Michigan football’s biggest and secret weapon in the three-year College Football Playoff run was strength and conditioning coach Ben Herbert. Because of Herbert, other teams would eventually tap out, and the Wolverines earned the reputation of being a ‘boa constrictor.’

With Sherrone Moore taking over the program after Jim Harbaugh bolted for the NFL, Michigan fans waited with bated breath to find out whether or not Herbert would remain in Ann Arbor or follow Harbaugh to the professional ranks. It took some time, but ultimately, Herbert joined Harbaugh in Los Angeles, much to the chagrin of the maize and blue faithful.

But perhaps not all was lost.

Moore elevated Herbert’s right-hand man, Justin Tress, to the post of director of strength and conditioning. Tress followed Herbert from his stint at Arkansas and was privy to his methods for the past eight years. So he has a good grasp on what’s worked and how to deploy that which has been successful in Ann Arbor.

And Sherrone Moore said at Big Ten media days on Thursday that, according to Herbert himself, there’s no difference in terms of results.

“Yeah, so Coach Herb actually came to a practice or a walkthrough-ish thing that we can have — per NCAA rules we can do stuff without going against the defense all that. And Herb said nothing changed,” Moore said. “So for him to say that and to watch the guys work out, I think that speaks volumes to what J. Tress and what that crew’s done. They’ve done an outstanding job, along with Abigail O’Connor and their staff, of keeping the intensity, the attention to detail where it needs to be for us to do what we need to do.”

That’s a great vote of confidence from the man who built the team into an elite program behind the scenes. Though Herbert certainly knows what he’s looking at and it may be all good and well in a walkthrough, the real verdict will come when the 2024 season approaches, and it will do so rather quickly with Texas coming to Ann Arbor in Week 2.