Mailbag Question: Regarding Barwis

Guys:

I thoroughly enjoy your blog. Thanks for your thoughtful analysis.

Much was made of Coach Barwis strength and conditioning program last off-season. There is a lot less talk about him and his program now, probably owing to the team coming off a 3-9 season.

Nonetheless, strength and conditioning seemed to me to be a real improvement in the 2008 team over previous seasons. The defense in particular spent a long, long time on the field with the offense leading the nation (I think) in “3 and out” series.

Despite getting little help from the offense, I cannot recall even one instance of seeing the defense standing around with their hands on their hips and panting like they were out of gas. Even when they struggled to get off the field, I never got the sense that it was because they were not in top shape. Unfortunately, that was not always the case in the past.

How would you rate the results of Coach Barwis’ conditioning program after one year?

Thanks,

Steve
Fairfax, VA

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Thanks for the question and comments.

In our opinion, Coach Barwis suffered from same problem as Coach Shafer, very high expectations.

Most fans believed that Coach Barwis' strength and conditioning alone would make a huge difference in the program. Problem is, it takes more than one off-season, eight months, to see the real benefits of what Coach Barwis does.

We were definitely encouraged by the lack of guts (in our case beer bellies … lol) on our offensive linemen and the new, harder bodies sported by many of the doughboys of past years.
So, short term, we were definitely encouraged by what Coach Barwis did. We expect his hard work to start showing additional benefits of mental toughness and team-building in the near future.

I know this might sound like a broken record, but last spring we kept trying to tell people that we needed talent -- NOT only on offense, but also on defense -- because the defense was not that good nor as good as it needed to be to help the offense through its growing pains. The lack of depth on defense was scary. Conditioning will help, but talent is what matters.

Written by CoachBt and ErocWolverine