The Man In Charge Of Michigan's No. 1 Defense Breaks It All Down
Michigan's defense currently ranks No. 1 in scoring defense, rush defense, total defense and in first downs given up. To put it bluntly — the Wolverines are dominating.
It's not necessarily surprising given the talent on the roster or the fact that Jim Harbaugh has been at the helm for eight seasons now, but it is surprising that the unit has not skipped a single beat, and may actually be better in 2022 than it was in 2021, during the transition from Mike Macdonald to Jesse Minter. Normally there are some bumps in the road and a learning curve for the defensive players, but that has not been the case for Minter and U-M in 2022.
Several defensive players have mentioned that they're in the same system for the "second year in a row," despite having a new DC calling the shots. Minter deserves a ton, if not all, of the credit for the seamless transition and sees it as a credit to the entire team.
"We were able to keep a lot of things consistent," he said. "And so the advantage that I feel I’ve had is guys in a second year have a lot of similar terminology, a lot of the same concepts. We've certainly done some things different — to pinpoint, our blitz rates might be different or the way we pressure at times might be different, but overall, it’s a lot of the stuff that we had in our playbook over the years. I'm just super pleased with the guys’ mindset, the mentality to let somebody new come in, sort of buy in to us, to gain trust in each other, and now to play the way we want to play. So hopefully we finish the thing off the right way."
And Harbaugh deserves a ton of credit too. He has now made incredible hire after incredible hire, most notably at the defensive coordinator position. Bringing Macdonald in last year, followed by Minter this year has allowed the Wolverines to first set the bar on defense, and now to raise it. Minter had an idea that it would go pretty well, but it's doubtful that anyone saw it going this well.
"All the way back to the beginning, it’s one of the reasons I was brought here, was to keep continuity with what we were doing," Minter explained. "So I was confident in myself to come in and really sort of...I didn’t know exactly what Mike was running last year. I had an idea just based on some conversations, so to come in and kind of dive into it, and all the exact terminology he was using and things like that, I think that was the whole goal is just...we lost some really good players, some key players lost, we lost, Mike, and it’s like, 'How can we keep this thing moving in the right direction?' Everybody kind of enjoyed the defense and liked what we were doing from a schematic standpoint, so just really tried to keep it going and add things.
"Whether I was here or not, I think there would have been...the defense always evolves; you’re always trying to find a way to get better. When you do play well or produce that, like people spend the offseason studying you, so you’re always going to be trying to stay a step ahead. So that’s something we’ve really tried to focus on."
Whatever Minter did and has been doing, is working. He knows it, his players know it and Jim Harbaugh knows it. That kind of confidence, coupled with the speed and ability of the defenders in the winged helmets, has resulted in the best defensive unit in the nation with a chance to be the best overall team when it's all said and done.
