Heading into his final season with the Michigan Wolverines, senior left guard Ben Bredeson is chomping at the bit for the season to arrive.
Bredeson is one of three Wolverines who will represent the Maize and Blue in Chicago this week for the Big Ten Media Days. This is something that Bredeson has been looking forward to and he joined Jon Jansen on the “In The Trenches” podcast to discuss the upcoming season.
“It seems like this is one of those first steps in the season, kind of getting the ball rolling,” Bredeson said on the podcast. “I’m very excited to head down to Chicago with Khaleke [Hudson] and Jordan [Glasgow] and get this 2019 season going.”
For Bredeson, the start of the season is a welcome change from how last season ended.
The Wolverines lost their final two games of the season against Ohio State and Florida, leaving the team with a bitter taste in their mouths. Bredeson said they’ve used those games as motivation.
“Coming out of those games, you’re always in a bit of a lull,” Bredeson said. “You drop the rivalry game to Ohio State and you lose the bowl game to Florida. There’s disappointment and lull in the beginning of January. Then once winter conditioning hit, I felt like we had our focus on winning the day every single day and not overlooking anything or looking too far into the future, not looking at the first game when we’re in January still. Just focusing on getting a little bit better every day. We’ve held that same attitude since the first workout in winter workouts.”
Those winter workouts were under strength and conditioning coach Ben Herbert who is in his second full season with Michigan. Bredeson has noticed the impact he has had on the team.
“I feel like I’m in the greatest shape of my life and I feel like I speak for every offensive lineman when we say that,” Bredeson said. “Just looking around room, it’s the best we’ve ever seen each other look, perform and lift. Everybody is in the best shape we’ve seen each other at.”
During the workouts, Bredeson said the team has been doing a lot more running because of new offensive coordinator Josh Gattis’ up tempo offense. Bredeson likes the changes that Gattis has made to the offense.
“It’s a different look and I’m a big fan of it,” Bredeson said. “There’s a lot more options we can hit. We aren’t limiting ourselves to certain guys touching the ball on every single play. Everybody can touch the ball on every single play depending on how things work out. From an offensive line perspective, we run the play called, you have to do a little bit of adjusting depending on if an option got thrown or if Shea kept the ball or handed it off.”
While the offensive line has had to adjust to Gattis’ scheme, they have experienced continuity with offensive line coach Ed Warinner. Last year, Warinner worked to remake the offensive line, but now this group knows what is expected.
“We’re a few steps ahead [of last year] at least, if not more,” Bredeson said. “We had four guys come back. Andrew Stuber started a few games at the end of the year. Jalen [Mayfield] played a significant amount also. So, we always joke we have four-and-a-half [starters] coming back just because there’s so much experience.”
“Coming out of spring ball with Coach Warinner, we knew what he expected of us and we were able to hand that on our own. We had meetings making sure everything was running smoothly, but really we self-control everything. The benefit of having all that experience coming back is we can do it ourselves and we can hold ourselves accountable and pass that onto the younger guys.”
With an experienced offensive line and a new look offensive approach, Bredeson thinks this team has a high ceiling this fall.
“I think this is going to best, most talented team I’ve been on in my four years,” Bredeson said. “I think we have a lot of guys with high ceilings that can make big plays at any given time. With the experience we have coming back, especially on the offensive side of the ball, I think we can move the ball pretty well and become a real force on that side … I’m really excited for it. It’s probably the most excited I’ve been for a football season in a very, very long time.”
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