Great Job - Aaron Wellman and S & C staff

Submitted by jfox on

Team 132 finished off the season in fine form. We haven't heard a lot about or from Wellman and his staff this year. They have done a great job and deserve credit for having the team in shape to be competitive in every single game this season.

The team was prepared mentally and physically to compete to the bitter end, nobody pushed 2011 Michigan around. I know they didn't play Wisconsin (prob. most physical B1G team) but I have full confidence that had they this year, it would have been a hard fought battle.

Thank you Aaron Wellman, Aaron Hillman, Mark Naylor, Jim Plocki, Corey Twine and everyone else on the S&C staff who helped team 132 prepare for Saturdays.

Spartan1995

November 29th, 2011 at 10:55 AM ^

I joined his gym about 2 months ago and it is great.  I would recommend it to anyone looking for a gym.  I talked to him yesterday about RR's new job and asked him point blank if he is looking to move.  He told me that he is not going to go anywhere.  He spent the better part of the last 25 years going around the country and is pretty much ready to settle down.  This may be just the sales guy in him trying to keep his membership, but he has always been straight with me when I talked to him.

M-Wolverine

November 29th, 2011 at 11:55 AM ^

And it's not any diss on Rich Rod.  It's a hard life, bouncing and moving around.  And it's even tougher for your family. And really, while a really good one like Barwis isn't underpaid, there's a lot more money in the private sector if you're really good at what you do (like Barwis is).  He can still consult around the Country, to all level of players, and not be stuck on having his life determined on the whims and success of a football team.  The guy who does the job for the Pistons is in a more stable environment, because no one fires the S&C guy if you don't win in the NBA, but he probably makes more money outside the team. I can see Barwis doing that.  I'm glad he likes it here, and hope he stays. But whatever he does, wish him well. If Hoke didn't already have a guy who had been with him, and was thought of as a young up and comer himself, I don't think anyone would have had a problem keeping Barwis around. He's a genuinely likeable guy.  Our community is better with him around.

NoMoPincherBug

November 29th, 2011 at 12:21 AM ^

Wellman  & Co. (sounds like an 1884 rifle company) did an outstanding job this year.  Team 132 was a 2nd half team all year...got stronger as the game went on and did not wear down as in previous seasons.  Michigan was in better shape all year long, less wear down, less significant injuries overall, just a well-man-conditioned team. 

In addition to the on the field... W&C go about their biz and are not out to seek publicity for things that they have not accomplished yet *(Does Wellman even have his own website?)...which makes them all the more endearing as individuals to root to root for as well.

Shop Smart Sho…

November 29th, 2011 at 12:34 AM ^

Nice attempt at taking a shot at Barwis. 

 

I'd be surprised if you find a large number of people that agree with you that 132 was in better shape than 131.  I would guess that they are about equal.  As far as injuries, I don't believe that there were any significant injuries to either team that could be traced back to the conditioning or prep work the S&C coaches for either regime used.

 

But hey, keep trolling if it makes you feel better.

JohnCorbin

November 29th, 2011 at 2:10 AM ^

Last year we started out 5-0 before finishing the season 2 - 6.  Second half of the season we weren't playing as well as the first half of the season.  Could that be due to the team wearing down over the course of the season due to poor conditioning?



This year after starting 5-0, we finished 5-2.  That to me seems like a better conditioned team to me.



Last year, after game 5 we outscored our opponents by 5 points in the second half of games.  This year, after game 5, we outscored our oppnents by 56 in the second half of games.  The whole year, we outscored opponents in the second half by 121.  Last year, we needed to outscore our opponents because we were behind in a lot of those games, and we ended up +5.  This year, we were winning a lot of those games, and we ended up +56.

No shots intended for Barwis, it seems like this team was better prepared and better conditioned.

If I wanted to take a shot at Barwis, I'd say something like, my friend Ricardo Miller (#80) told me Barwis didn't have them doing any flat bench press, and I think that's stupid.

TheOnlyOne

November 29th, 2011 at 5:28 AM ^

I think the fact that we finished 5-2 has a lot more to do with Denard's maturation and the improvement of the defense than it does with conditioning, especially considering the fact that Barwis was widely considered an elite strength trainer. I'm sure the current training staff is doing a great job, but the change in our ability to finish games happened because we hired Greg Mattison, not because we changed trainers.

Huntington Wolverine

November 29th, 2011 at 9:37 AM ^

How was this not a shot at Barwis:

"In addition to the on the field... W&C go about their biz and are not out to seek publicity for things that they have not accomplished yet *(Does Wellman even have his own website?)...which makes them all the more endearing as individuals to root to root for as well"

Gorgeous Borges

November 29th, 2011 at 12:46 AM ^

There were virtually no significant injuries for the Akron State game at the end of the season. I don't know how much of this was due to conditioning and how much of it was due to luck or other factors, but that's huge. I hope Hoke will continue to build depth and the staff will keep up with the great job that they've done.

JC3

November 29th, 2011 at 2:03 AM ^

You should thank both Barwis and Wellman. Both are top notch guys in the business. You will see Michigan start to get bigger under Wellman in the coming years, but the players loved Barwis as well.

#Barwislove

#wellmanlove

BlueinLansing

November 29th, 2011 at 2:10 AM ^

but State pushed us around some.  Otherwise you are generally correct, this seemed like a Michigan team that was better prepared physically and mentally for the Big 10 grind.

 

I look forward to seeing year two and the progress that comes with it.

IPFW_Wolverines

November 29th, 2011 at 2:10 AM ^

I think it is too early to judge the strength and conditioning staff. The key will be to watch this years freshman and how they develop.

M-Wolverine

November 29th, 2011 at 11:59 AM ^

With Barwis, and weren't OMG BARWIS from day one. Yeah, right.

They were both very good at what they do.  They both help win games. They're both way down the list of things that you win or lose over, because the difference from great program to great program isn't that big.

If anything, the thread is pointing out that other guys can do competent jobs, and you don't have to have pet wolves to do a good job.  It's perspective.

IPFW_Wolverines

November 29th, 2011 at 2:07 PM ^

Hey look, M-Wolverine being an ass. I'm shocked.

Comically you bent over backwards to bash RR in a thread the other day that did nothing more than thank him for recruiting. Now here you are calling me out for not even bashing anyone? You should get over your insecurity.

M-Wolverine

November 29th, 2011 at 2:58 PM ^

Hooked on phonics might help. Though it may take a long time....

No where in that thread did I object to the thread, or say anything negative about Rich. I had no problem with it. I just objected to people like you who are rooting for the program to fail so you can be "right" about Rich, or get "justice", or whatever reason in your sorry existence you root for the program you profess to love to fail, because you'd rather see a former coach look good. But keep deflecting from the truth.

markusr2007

November 29th, 2011 at 2:47 AM ^

Michigan overall stayed pretty healthy.  Great job by Wellman and staff.

I'm still shocked by the RB performance this year - Toussaint hitting 1K was amazing, and was hurt much of the start of the season.

Borges really didn't unveil many tailback and jailbreak screens, which he had used incessantly at Oregon and UCLA with very good effect.  Maybe next year?

The injury- and x-position hating-gods must be totally satiated after the last 5 years of Michigan football.

Magnus

November 29th, 2011 at 8:54 AM ^

There were at least a few teams that didn't rush hard at Denard because they wanted to keep him in the pocket.  If you're not going after Denard with blitzes, then screens become less effective.  That might be one reason why we didn't see many screens, although Denard/Devin threw one or two per game (the throwback screen to Smith, the tunnel screen to Gallon).

Jasper

November 29th, 2011 at 6:04 AM ^

I have no reason to believe that Wellman and his staff aren't doing great jobs ... but, how do we *really* know? It's not like the experiment has any controls. You'd have to give half the team to Barwis and half to Wellman (by position, etc.) and go through the season.

Also, -1 to anyone who took veiled shots at Barwis here.

jmblue

November 29th, 2011 at 11:37 AM ^

When you think about how many personal trainers are out there, and then consider that there are only 120 FBS head S&C jobs, it's pretty safe to conclude that all 120, or just about all, are tops in their field.  The difference from one to another is most likely negligible.

M-Wolverine

November 29th, 2011 at 12:03 PM ^

Because he was cool?  But I'm betting you didn't post "how do we know Barwis is doing a good job?"

They were both doing good jobs. Neither was the reason we won, or lost.  But it seems more like you're worried that someone else doing a good job means Barwis wasn't. But Barwis doing a good job didn't stop people from saying we weren't doing a good job before, or that he would be irreplacable. 

UMgradMSUdad

November 29th, 2011 at 7:54 AM ^

At least on defense, Michigan seems to rotate a lot more players in than last year.  I'm sure that has a lot to do with injuries and how often last year's defense seemed unable to stop anything in the fourth quarter.

lexus larry

November 29th, 2011 at 11:02 AM ^

Decimated Defense may have had something to do with that for last year, but this was a sizeable concern during the waning years of the LC era.  Games so tight, the starters were in for a vast majority of the snaps, instead of being spelled for 15-25 plays throughout the game.  In a couple years, when we have a full complement of schollie players, more rotations, better utilization of unclassmen talent instead of all jammed in simultaneously, will lead to (hopefully) a late 1980's/early 1990's style era of Michigan dominance of the B1G and relevance to the national college football landscape.

lexus larry

November 29th, 2011 at 8:12 AM ^

What was very apparent to me was that there seemed to be no demand from Wellman & Co. for any new equipment or any real changes to the regimen.  I read comments from some players reciting differences between Barwis and Wellman, but it didn't seem like a wholesale change from the previous requirements to the current ones, unlike 4 years ago.  (And no, not a shot at Gittleson, either, just a note...as a result of a snarky comment previously about RR maybe not spending quite so much on S&C upgrades and buying a better DC.)

Regardless, kudos to the entire staff, the Michigan Men in their final season showing tremendous leadership and character, while the "adults" in their midst during the past 4-5 years acted more petulant and childish than believed possible.

CRex

November 29th, 2011 at 9:38 AM ^

Tell me we're not reverting to last offseason's RR vs Hoke stuff again?  Someone posts a thank you to an assistant coach and we end up with "OMG you're taking veiled shots at Barwis" and things like that.  We haven't even played the bowl game or finished off recruiting and we're already at that stage.

I was at least hoping we'd make it past signing day before deciding to reopen old wounds out of sheer boredom.

ImSoBlue

November 29th, 2011 at 9:39 AM ^

that the core of the team matured this year from underclassmen.  We did not see a single game of men vs boys which was the story of 2010 last November and the bowl.

BayWolves

November 29th, 2011 at 12:28 PM ^

and we should all thank Wellman and Hoke for setting huge goals over the summer: certain players had to and did bulk up (Roh), certain players had to and did shred pounds and get leaner (BWC), and everyone got stronger and tough enough that no one was carried down field for 4 yards after contact with a runnung back or wide receiver.  If you heard what the players said in interviews, Wellman is THE MAN indeed as they have testified!

Massive Kudos for getting not only buy in, but results.  This staff is ON it!