Shannon Turley, Wolverine

Shannon Turley (image via StanfordDaily.com)

UPDATE: The below information may have been premature. Despite conformations that Turley was going to come, some outlets are now reporting that he will stay at Stanford.

Stanford strength and conditioning coach Shannon Turley has reportedly been hired by Michigan. He replaces Aaron Wellman, whom Brady Hoke brought with him from San Diego State.

Turley graduated from Virginia Tech and has since spent time at Missouri, San Diego, and Stanford. He worked for Jim Harbaugh at San Diego in 2006 and then at Stanford from 2007-2010; Turley stayed in Palo Alto when Harbaugh moved to the 49ers. Turley was Football Scoop's Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Year in 2011, and he won the National Strength and Conditioning Association's award in 2013. The guy knows his stuff.

One thing I have appreciated about watching Stanford is watching them win physical battles, especially up front. They have not been a team to get pushed around. Whether it's the offensive line coach or the players or the head coach or the S&C guy, those linemen get underneath the opponents' pads and set the line of scrimmage pretty consistently.

I was not impressed with Wellman. There are some guys who seemed to improve physically over the four years he was employed, but not enough. Not enough battles were won up front, and the skill guys just seemed to flat-out lack speed overall. I also thought the number of ACL injuries was abnormally high (Drake Johnson twice, Jake Butt, Jake Ryan, Russell Bellomy, Khalid Hill, etc.), although every team gets ACL injuries at some point or another. It's very tough as an outsider to assign credit or blame to a strength and conditioning guy, but I do not feel Wellman was doing a great job for the Wolverines.

Regardless, Turley seems like a well respected member of his profession, and the results at Stanford over the last eight years suggest he knows what he's doing. Stanford started getting some top-notch recruits a few years ago, but a lot of the guys beating up Pac-10/Pac-12 opponents were little known players coming out of high school. Turley is yet another guy who was a part of that.