Michigan’s director of strength and conditioning describes performing ‘the same things, the same manner’

Justin Tress spoke on this week’s episode of “In the Trenches” to discuss his experience as Michigan’s new weight room leader.

Ben Herbert’s departure for the Los Angeles Chargers surprised the Michigan football community, especially because he had attended Sherrone Moore’s introductory press conference just a few days prior. Moore, on the other hand, acted quickly and elevated assistant strength coach Justin Tress to take over.

Tress and Herbert moved to Michigan from Arkansas in 2018, together. He has worked his way up the ranks as Herbert’s trusty right-hand man, and now he has the opportunity to continue the culture that has been developed over the last few years.

However, Tress remains a mystery to those outside the program. Tress appeared on this week’s “In The Trenches” podcast with Jon Jansen to try to answer some of those questions and talk about his new role with the squad.

“That’s a life-changing experience,” Tress remarked of his recent promotion. “It was a dream, and for it to come from my mentor, Ben Herbert, to succeed him, that’s something you can only dream about. Nothing I had hoped for happened, and it did not go as planned, but I am extremely happy and honored to be able to succeed him.”

It’s perfectly understandable if you expected or assumed Tress would strive to be a carbon duplicate of Herbert, given how effectively it worked for so long. And, while Tress does not want to make many changes, it appears that the only thing that will change is who runs the show.

“The key is, not a whole bunch has to change in terms of what we do and how we do it.” Tress spoke. “To put my imprint on it simply means that I am myself. Be myself the entire time, as I have been since I arrived; it has gotten me here. And continuing to create relationships with the players is the most important thing.”

Many people, understandably, were disappointed when Herbert joined Jim Harbaugh’s staff. When asked how he opted to discuss such a significant departure, Tress did not portray images of emotional goodbyes or sorrowful sights in the weight room.

“The first day, how I chose to address that was, we trained,” he added. “I didn’t give them a lecture at the start; we just trained. And then I brought them up at the end and said, ‘Well, that was so different, wasn’t it? And they looked about, like, ‘Is this a trick?’ And I was like, “Yes, no.” No.’

“My message to them was that the reason things weren’t different was because of the standard they had established. They chose to come in and attack each day in their own way. We assist them meet their standards, but at the end of the day, they make the decision every day. So they looked at me like, ‘I guess you’re correct.’ And as the days passed, we continued to perform the same things in the same way and with the same level of detail. So, how can we make it better? How can we tighten up those details? Yeah, they’ve really bought in; they’ve been rocking and rolling as they always have, and it’s been great.”

When questioned about Michigan’s current squad after departures via the NFL Draft and transfer portal, Tress noted some of the players’ eagerness and accountability.

“Just guys that are excited to be the next man to take that role,” he remarked. “And there isn’t a big ‘Let’s get on somebody and make this big’ scene. It is simply, ‘Hey, we don’t do that,’ or ‘Hey, fix that.’

“And you see it from innumerable men. It’s difficult to select out just one man. But, collectively, the most important thing is that they’ve decided to come in and tackle the day the same way they’ve always done. So, I don’t know who all of those leaders will be yet — though I have a good idea — and we’ll let time tell.”

With the offseason slowdown coming to an end ahead of spring training, there is plenty of time for additional training and conditioning. Tress talked about what the last several weeks have been like coming up to the start of spring practice.

“First off, it felt good because we don’t have to try to squeeze things into a condensed window,” Tress told me. “We’ve got time. We have a saying that goes, ‘We have time, but we don’t waste it.’ So, we only have one; how can we make the most of it? Two, how can I keep it from becoming monotonous? So, different tasks and tournaments.