The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1396591
AUGUST 2021 THE WOLVERINE 23 terested at others. They followed up an impressive season-opening win at Minnesota with an inexplicable loss to a last-place Michigan State team, another pounding at Wiscon- sin's hands and a setback to a winless Penn State team before the pandemic ended the season once and for all. Michigan redshirt junior linebacker Josh Ross summed up the 2020 cam- paign in one phrase. "That," he said, "was not Michigan football." He and his teammates are setting out to prove it this season. All three of the U-M contingent in Indianapo- lis for Big Ten Media Days held July 22-23 — Ross, junior end/linebacker Aidan Hutchinson and redshirt sophomore running back Hassan Haskins — looked chiseled and in great shape, sported great attitudes and resolve, and appeared ready to atone for last season's disappoint- ment. It was evident to head coach Jim Harbaugh from the first spring prac- tice when he told his team, "It feels different," and all of them agreed. "Coming off last year, for every- body, for the program, how it wasn't what we wanted it to be, how we played, all of that …. being able to have a breath of fresh air, a new op- portunity, a new year and attack it unlike anything," Ross said. "That's why we are coming the way we're coming, because it's new and we're not going to let what happened last year, happen again. "It's so important; it means a lot. It's been exciting just going through the days, getting better, building rela- tionships and then getting to a period of us about to go to [fall] camp. It's really exciting, and I can't wait to show everybody what we've been doing." Harbaugh saw it up close when he returned to Schembechler Hall and saw several of his players and how they'd transformed their bod- ies. Defensive players like redshirt freshman end David Ojabo, redshirt sophomore tackle Julius Welschof and others looked "huge," he noted, while he praised their work ethics. But the transformation needed to go well beyond the physical, a fact the Wolverines' leaders acknowl- edged at Media Days. Something was missing in the locker room, and Hutchinson, for one, is out to make sure that doesn't happen again. "One of the reasons I came back was to change this culture, because I knew I was going to be a big part of it," he said. "I know guys see me as the leader. If you see a guy that's in- vested as much as me — and I'm the leader of the team — good things are only going to come out of that. "That's why I've tried so hard this spring ball and this offseason to be this leader — it's because I'm the leader of this team and I've got to set the example for these guys, build a better foundation of culture just to get these guys fully invested in them- selves and in the team." The son of a five-time Big Ten champion, former Michigan All- American Chris Hutchinson, knows no other way. He doesn't have the Junior defensive end/linebacker Aidan Hutchinson could have gone to the NFL after last year, but noted: "One of the reasons I came back was to change this culture." PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL Redshirt junior linebacker Josh Ross on the 2020 season "That was not Michigan foot- ball. … We're not going to let what happened last year, happen again."