'They just give me this smirk': The way Ben Herbert sees it, Michigan has been 'blessed with adversity'

Michigan Wolverines football head coach Jim Harbaugh found out on a plane to State College, by someone showing him a social media post, that he was suspended for the remainder of the season due to an unprecedented move by rookie Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti.

Word traveled quickly from there as Michigan landed with 74 of its best man along with coaches and staff members ahead of a top-10 clash with Penn State. The next morning, Harbaugh was nearby the stadium waiting for a temporary restraining order movement to come through, but the judge never ruled.

“Sudden change” is how Bo Schembechler referred to times like those. Typically, he was referring to a defense responding after an offense turned the ball over, but the concept can be applied here as well.

“Mastering sudden change is the real test of a great team — the ability to transform a sudden setback into your finest hour,” Schembechler wrote in his book, ‘Bo’s Lasting Lessons.’

Michigan strength and conditioning coach and assistant head coach Ben Herbert, who spends more time with the Wolverines’ players than anybody on staff, has worked to prepare his team to handle adversity — or the unexpected, or the uncomfortable — at a high level.

“You know what’s funny is there are circumstances that we’ll create in the offseason to simulate, and you always want the simulation to carry over to real life,” Herbert said on the ‘Inside Michigan Football’ radio show. “Now, there are times when, like I tell our guys, we may not be blessed with this adversity. And remember, I say we may not be ‘blessed.’ It’s a blessing, this adversity is a blessing to us all — and I want them to see it like that.

“But I’ll never forget, you find out on the plane at Penn State and I’m coming down the stairs. There are some people standing at the bottom. I was talking to a few people, and then I see some guys coming down the stairs. I’m just looking, I look right in their eyes, and they just give me this smirk, this little smile. And I’m just smiling back, just a subtle smile. And we just know.

“I’m sitting with some guys at dinner that night, and we just got this grin on our face because we’ve been blessed with this opportunity, what people call adversity — this uncomfortable, potentially detrimental, circumstance that now we get to overcome. And it’s an incredible opportunity, and then to go and do what we’ve done, there’s no better lesson learned that will pay dividends for us with the young men in this program in the future. It’s just incredible.”

With acting head coach Sherrone Moore finding out at the 11th hour that he’d lead Michigan into battle against the Nittany Lions, the Wolverines had one of their finest 60 minutes. He led the charge the next week at Maryland, for the program’s 1,000th win, and in an epic 30-24 victory over Ohio State, too.

Including Harbaugh and Moore, five different individuals have served as Michigan’s head coach in 12 games this season due to a pair of suspensions to the head man. Two have called offensive plays. Several players have been interviewed by the NCAA during game weeks, interrupting the flow of preparation for the next opponent. Rival fans, hostile media members and uninformed outsiders have called into question Michigan’s accomplishments and called them all sorts of names.

Despite all of that, the Wolverines have stuck together and won all of their games. Herbert credits some of it to their preparation throughout the year.

“The thing that I love is there’s a level of consistency to what we do, and in training I believe that there has to be a level of consistency,” the Michigan strength coach said. “We want the guys physically and mentally to be able to adapt to what they’re doing. But I never want this sense of comfort — especially mental comfort.

“They never know what they’re doing when they come into the room. I shouldn’t say never. Rarely, do they know. And it’s something as simple as, our guys and people in general, they want to know what is in store in their life — just in general, what’s to come, what’s going to happen so I can plan for it. In this game, that’s not a luxury that we have, because what’s going to take place, even though you may think you have a good feeling or understanding of what our opponent is going to do, things change, circumstances change. We know this now better than ever.

“It’s just that mental task of regardless of what I put in front of you, we’re going to conduct our business, you’re going to attack this work a certain way. And I’m here to make sure that takes place.”

It’s taken place, and Michigan is headed back to Indianapolis for the Big Ten championship game.