Things Discussed

• Jon Runyan Jr's improvement
• Warinner's history
• How Warinner turned the line around, set a culture

[After THE JUMP: A college football coach gets compared to Barney the Purple Dinosaur]

Obviously Jon Runyan has improved so much this year. What has gone into that? What do you think he’s done to kind of get to that point?

 

“I think just being consistent in how he practices. We’ve put him at left tackle, we’ve left him at left tackle, He’s been being coached in fundamentals every day. He’s practiced well. The better he practices — and he goes against really good players in practice every day on defense, so it’s forced him to use the techniques that he’s being coached him, apply them and just the consistency. And number one, just a high level of confidence. He didn't play left tackle last year. He didn’t play left tackle the year before that. So, putting him at a position which is very challenging, and then asking him to grow into that position, and he’s done it very well. So we’re real pleased with him, and he practices with a lot of confidence. ANd just a changed guy.”

 

Was that something where, when you got here, did he have that yet? Or was it something that you kinda saw grow in him since you’ve been here?

 

“I saw it grow in him.”

 

How do you get that out of a guy? Is it just the competition in practice?

 

“It’s just what we do as coaches. That’s our job, to figure out what he’s good at, what he’s not good at. How to help him figure out how to get where he wants to go, how to help him get to where we need him to go. Be real positive with him. Ask him to do things that he’s capable of doing. Don’t ask him to do things that he can’t do. There’s lots of things he can’t do. There’s lots of things he can do. We ask him to do what he’s really good at and do it really hard. And so that’s made him a very confident player. There’s nothing more defeating as a player than to ask me to do something I know I can’t do. … So everything we’ve done has been to positively build up what he’s really good at, and ask him to do that and give him the tools to practice and preparation. ANd he wants to be really good. He loves football. He loves working hard and he loves his team. And he’s willing to do whatever we ask him to do. So, we’ve just been real consistent with that and just watching him climb. But that formula works for every position, every player, anybody in any sport. You just have to be willing to say, if you want to make somebody something that they aren’t and develop them into something that they can’t be, then you’re asking for disappointment and failure and frustration. If you’re asking for people to grow into something they can do and do well, you usually can get good results.”

 

Early in the season you had said that you were happy with where they were, ubt there was still a lot of room for the offensive line to grow, that you had a higher expectation. Where are they as far as where you were hoping they would be at this point?

 

“I’m really pleased at where they’re at. So we’re headed in the right direction. We keep getting better and better. I think we’ve grown a lot. I still think there’s some room to squeeze a little bit more juice out of it, but we’re gonna try to do that. But the way to do that is not to press them, it’s just consistency. How they come to meetings, how they go through walkthroughs, how they practice. And never letting them change that routine of high-level expectation for all those. And they get used to that, and they get used to the level of practice. Now there’s now pushing people to practice harder. They practice hard. There’s no pushing people to be focused at practice. They focus at practice. And if there’s anybody that isn’t doing that, the other guys sniff it out and address it before I do. Cause they know I’m gonna address it in about five seconds if it happens. So it’s real clear that there’s a certain expectation and anything less than that, get out. We’re not dealing with that. Cause we have a mission, we have a goal, we have things we want to do. And nobody's gonna get in our way. And that just comes from — demanding that, it’s a routine we have. And I like our routine and our kids love it, too. Cause they’re getting better and they’re excited to come to practice when they know they’re gonna get better and they know that they’re gonna be doing things they're good at doing.”

 

You’ve had lines before that have made progress. What’s an intangible that they have to have in order for that to happen?

 

“Yeah, they have to have some level of talent that these guys possess here. ANd then they have to have a level of being coachable. Are they willing to be coached? And then, how do you get them to do that? Well they have to trust me. They have to trust that what I tell them will make them a better player. ‘Well I started last year, I didn’t do that.’ Well I know, but we’re going to ask you to do things — and you have to have a track record of that. So we have a track record of developing guys that have started in the NFL as rookies. Six guys I’ve coached started as rookies in the NFL. So, the track record of., ‘This is what you wanna do if you want to be an All-Conference player, you want to do this, this and this. Follow the plan.’ And those guys are great about it. So they have to be willing to be coached and they have to be talented. And those two things, they have. And then, just take it step by step. Cause the progress isn’t the same as Mike Onwenu, it’s not the same as Cesar (Ruiz), it’s not the same as Juwann (Bushell-Beatty). They all progress at different levels, they all need different things. So we’re pretty consistent about addressing what each guy needs individually within a team, group concept.”

 

Was this group ready to be coached?

 

“Yes, absolutely. From the day that I had the reins of the offensive line. Cause that’s why they came here. They came here to be in the situation we’re in. They came here to be playing at this level of football. They came here for those reasons. That’s why you come to Michigan, cause you want to play at the highest level. These games in November have serious significance. And they all wanted that. And so it hasn’t been — it’s been hard, but it's’ been fun hard, because when you work hard, you have to work hard at anything you do in this business. Then you have to work hard to get a bunch of guys to become what they are. But it’s been fun because they’ve been very receptive and they work hard and they see themselves getting better. It just makes it a great environment.”

 

When you first got here, how certain were you that you would get those reins to the linne?

 

“Oh, I came here with no expectations of anything. I wanted to be a part of this program. ANd I knew that I would contribute in whatever role I had. And it came to being probably a few weeks after I got here. ANd so there was no promises or anything like that going into it. So I just came here to be a guy to help, any way shape or form. Then when the opportunity presented itself, coach Harbaugh said, ‘You’ve got the line,’ of course I was ecstatic about that.”

 

Given your track eecord and the success you’ve had, I’m sure you had opportunities. Why was it that you wanted to be here enough to take that analyst job?

 

“I just had some good meetings with coach Harbaugh. I have always admired the University of Michigan, the great university, the football program. I grew up in an era where this was a place. And my history in coaching, as I started coaching, my first full-time job was at West Point. Well the head coach at West Point was the defensive coordinator here. … The defensive coordinator at West Point, who I worked for for nine years, Bob Sutton, coached here. Bill Sheridan coached here. ANdy Moeller played here. ANd you just go on and on. Doug Mallory, I worked with here. So all these guys I coached with at Army, where I became a coach and learned how to coach and learned how to do what I’m doing now, were all Michigan guys. ANd when you’re around those guys, first of all you find out what kind of people they are. Great guys, great football coaches, love this place, loved living here, loved working here. So why wouldn’t you when you get a chance to do that? You know what I mean? And it doesn't hurt  that my wife’s from 30 miles away. So, when you take your wife all over the country for 30 years as a coach, and then you get to bring here home and be close to the people that you love, that’s a good deal.”

 

Safe to say this has lived up to what you thought?

 

“Yeah. Michigan’s what I thought it would be. The university, the athletic department, what Warde (Manuel’s) got going here, what Jim’s got going here. But for me, it’s been better, but I didn’t have — it was all gonna be about how much could I impact the group I had? Could I get them where they could help this team play at a championship level? So that’s been very fulfilling. But my expectation was, this place is as good as it gets and it is as good as it gets. I’ve been at some good ones and so we’re not comparing them, bubt this is as good as it gets in college football.”

 

How much selling of yourself did you have to do to players when you first got here?

 

“They knew. They can read. They know. That wasn’t the job. You just have to get a relationship with people. So it’s all about building a relationship with people. No matter what I’ve done, if we don’t have a relationship, it will be hard for you to accept what I ask you to do. Just gotta get a relationship with them. They gotta know, what makes me tick? What do I believe in? What am I all about?

 

Same with the coaching staff?

 

“Yeah, in this business you gotta prove yourself every day. You gotta prove yourself — they don’t care if I have a ring. They don’t care if I have titles. They don’t care if I have coach of the year awards. All they care about is, what did you do to help me do my job better and what did you do to help us today be better here? All that stuff is somewhere else. So you prove yourself every day in coaching. If you come off the field and you didn’t give your players your best that day, they know it. If you come out of a game and you didn't have your team ready to go, everybody in the building knows that those players weren’t read, that you coached for that game. They know that. So I live to make sure that doesn't happen. I never want to walk off the field, my players saying, ‘He cheated us today in practice. He didn't go as hard as he did last week or the week before.’ Or in a game, we didn't have the same arsenal going after people that we had. So, that’s never gonna happen. So we’re gonna be fully locked and loaded for every game we play. Every practice. I learned that at West Point from the Michigan guys.”

 

When you inherited this group, were they wounded by — it was constant pointing the finger for them at being the weak link

 

“Lack of confidence would be the best word.”

 

Did you build them up?

 

“Yeah. They had a confidence issue. I think. “

 

How did you detect that?

 

“You’re just around people. You just sense that they’re not  sure if they can live up to or do what you want. So first thing was, figure out what they can do and let’s make sure we’re giving them a  chance to do that. I just think it was just a lack of confidence in their ability to produce the results that you need. And so that’s just a process. And you can tell, now they’re much different than that. They walk down the tunnel with a little swagger.”

 

In those initial meetings early in the year, did you see that was the missing piece for this offense? It seems like getting the running game going has made everything else go pretty efficiently. Could you tell that coming in?

 

“I was doing a lot of analytics of the program offensively and how to make it better and how could I contribute off the field as an analyst of, these are things I see that we could help improve our team. And then you just took it to the minutiae of the offensive line and applied to to those guys. So, it’s just a process. Having a lot of experience, coaching at different places, coaching different programs. But when an offensive line comes down to a few basic things, those things, you gotta emphasize those and just stick with them. Just build on it.”

 

Jim has said that he enjoys sitting in on your meetings, You teach like Barney the Purple Dinosaur

 

“I’ve never watched Barney. Nah I just — I did when I had kids.”

 

I was just wondering, it’s probably at the same time, do you ever sit in on Don (Brown’s) meetings?

 

“No. I don’t, but we’re both cut from similar cloth. We do everything by hand. It’s not a computer game, it’s a people game. He draws cards, I draw cards. I do handwritten tip sheets, he does handwritten tip sheets. We like to do things — cause when you do it by hand, you learn it. When you push a button and something prints out, then some computer figures it out for you. So we do, I’m a hands-on, do everything by hand. I draw every play on the board, then I draw it on paper, then I give it to the players. Somebody can type it up and make it look real neat, but I’m gonna go through it all and that’s how I find out, ‘This is a problem. This isn’t gonna work. This isn’t good.’ That’s how you find your problems. Computers don’t tell you, ‘Hey, you’re gonna have a problem on this play. This blitz, you won't be able to pick it up.’ You have to figure that out — so we go through, I haven’t sat in his meetings. He talks to the team occasionally and I love his message. But it’s good.”

 

We won’t talk to you before you go down to Columbus. I’m sure you’ve got some fond memories from your years there. What will that trip be like?

 

“It’ll be emotional.”

 

In what way?

 

“Because it’s a big game. It’s a big game for the University of Michigan. It’s a bug game for me. It won’t be about me, it’ll be about our football team being ready to play when we go there. But right now, we’re just focused on Indiana. We have to go play a good game, we have to take care of business. And then we’ll go to work on Ohio State after we play Indiana. We’ll cross all those bridges. But the most important thing is to not change our routine. Keep our routine the same as it’s been. To go down there and put together a game plan that gives our kids a chance to compete. And then let them do what they’re doing, which is playing really hard with a lot of confidence. And all that other stuff is good media drama. Gonna be about two football teams at 12:05 kickoff, and go. But that’s — there’s a lot of days before we get to that. So the most important day is, do we have a good Wednesday? Practice situational football today, we work on third downs, work on goal-line, short yardage, red zone. So we gotta have a great day today, cause last I checked, Indiana-Michigan, overtime, 10-point win, overtime. So we’re gonna be locked and loaded for their best shot. Cause they’re well-coached, they’ll give us their best shot. And they’re a good group of players. I know kids on their team, I know coaches on their team. And so, Mike DeBord used to work in this building, I think. Really good football coach and my intern at Ohio State is his analyst on offense. And so there’s other guys there that I know, too, very well. And just the way that they play when they play the University of Michigan, we’ll get their best shot,. So we better be locked and loaded, ready to go.”