From Ohio State to Michigan football, Tony Alford embraces 'culture of toughness'

Tony Alford has already imagined what lies ahead for him 7½ months from now, on the final day of November, when Michigan football visits Ohio State and he returns to the campus where he spent the past nine years of his life.

“I won’t tell you what that vision was,” U-M’s 55-year-old run game coordinator said Wednesday with a slight chuckle. “But, yeah, yeah, it will be interesting.”

That same adjective could be used to describe Alford’s unusual offseason move from Columbus to Ann Arbor, which created all sorts of commotion when the transaction materialized out of the blue last month as the Wolverines geared up for the start of spring practice.

Ohio State fans seethed with outrage while Michigan supporters gloated with satisfaction, responding to the news much in the same they did to the results of the last three games between these two bitter adversaries. Each of those confrontations went the Wolverines’ way after they bludgeoned the Buckeyes at the line of scrimmage, mashing them into oblivion with their rugged brand of football nurtured by Jim Harbaugh.

“There’s just a culture of toughness,” noted Alford, who replaced Mike Hart. “They want to learn and play hard.”

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That has been his biggest takeaway during the four-week period that has transpired since he switched allegiances and joined forces with his former enemy.

Even though it wasn't his intention, and he insisted that he "utmost respect" Ohio State, Alford’s "toughness" comment could have easily been construed as a thinly veiled attempt to throw shade at his previous employer. After all, it did nothing to dispel the growing narrative that the Wolverines’ blue-collar identity and emphasis on physicality helped them overtake a rival that consistently amassed more talent but had gradually lost the will to fight it out in the trenches.

Ryan Day, Alford’s previous boss, grew particularly annoyed that this opinion had come to be accepted within the football establishment. After he heard former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz parrot it on a national show, he snapped back following a last-second win over the Fighting Irish last September.

“What he said about our team, I cannot believe,” he huffed. “This is a tough team right here.”

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Day’s cries weren’t terribly convincing to the skeptics, however.

As he savored a competitive 30-24 victory over Ohio State last fall, former U-M wideout Roman Wilson said, “(They) want to act hard. But when we’re out there, they’re not hard.”

Wilson made that damning remark after the Wolverines pounded away at Ohio State, outrushing the Buckeyes by 49 yards and running 11 more times than they did.

The stat box from that game highlighted a larger trend that revealed Ohio State no longer demonstrated the same level of commitment to its ground attack as it did when it steamrolled Michigan during an eight-game winning streak that unfolded between 2012 and 2019. This past season, the Buckeyes executed 33.2 rush attempts per game, which ranked 93rd in the Football Bowl Subdivision. In former OSU coach Urban Meyer’s last full season, 2017, it ran the ball nearly nine more times on average and finished inside the top 20 in rushing output. Whether the gradual shift in offensive approach factored into Alford’s exit is uncertain.

He acknowledged that in “some regards” he reached his ceiling with the Buckeyes, where he served as a respected running backs coach under Meyer and his successor, Day.

“I just thought it was time,” Alford said in one breath.

“You make moves professionally that you feel are in your best interest,” he asserted in another.

At Michigan, Alford will be a key cog in new coach Sherrone Moore’s operation, which will function much like Jim Harbaugh’s no-frills program. Following the departures of star quarterback J.J. McCarthy and their two most prolific receivers, the Wolverines are expected to be propelled by their running backs and a rebuilt blocking front that aims to embody Moore’s “Smash” mindset. Alford will be charged with extracting as much as he can from Donovan Edwards, Kalel Mullings and a group of ball carriers that will need to supply plenty of extra horsepower for an offense that may be limited from a passing standpoint.

“There haven’t had to be large-scale changes or a shift in mentality,” offensive line coach Grant Newsome said. “The mentality has been what it has been for the last however many years. We’re going to be a physical, downhill operation.”

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That sounds appealing to Alford, who understands that the rivalry with Ohio State is decided at the line of scrimmage.

He noted the winner of The Game, as it has come to be known, tends to be the team that finishes with the most rushing yards. That has been the case in each of the past 22 contests between the Wolverines and Buckeyes, dating back to 2001.

“The physicality part...is huge,” Alford said. “It starts in the trenches.”

Deep down there, behind his former enemy’s lines, that’s where Alford plans to take aim at his old side. As he has come to discover, he’ll have plenty of guys in his bunker, ready to finish the fight. It’s made him excited about the future.

But then again, he said, “This has reaffirmed what I already thought.”

Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him @RainerSabin.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ex-Ohio State coach Tony Alford found 'toughness' at Michigan football