Ben Krasner's Website

It’s Tuesday, March 16th 2010!  And spring practice has commenced for Michigan Football… with a hell of a lot of work to cover and a lot of questions to answer in a very short period of time.

Push Forward Michigan Men!

What is there to say, really, other than – thank god another terrible season is officially behind us.  Technically, “last season” is over when the bowl games are over with or at least when signing day arrives in February and all of the last of the season’s efforts are finalized.  This year, though, has been different as there have been off-field distractions surfacing on what feels like a weekly basis.  With the looming NCAA investigation, a lame duck athletic director being replaced by a new incoming leader and all the factions and infighting that have developed, the past 365 days feel like they’ve been worth 900 in the books.  But for now all of that is press history and what matters is making our way forward on the practice fields, in film study and in the classroom.

‘Shirts and shorts’ kicks off spring practice so we’re talking about making hay on fundamentals and understanding the playbooks and breakdown drills to get things rolling.  These practices are crucial for acclimating the true freshman who have graduated ahead of schedule and have enrolled early for the winter semester and in seeing how quickly playbooks can be absorbed and how much has been gained (or lost) by the entire team in the off-season weight training and conditioning programs.  These are also great for reinstituting practice routines and tempo – something Coach Rodriguez loves to focus on.

We’ll see how things go.  Expectations are high and there are as close to concrete expectations as a coach is often going to get in front of Rodriguez and company and a brand new updated Big House full of fans will be waiting come the fall to see how things shake out.  It all starts now with spring practice.