ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Pundits across the country are skeptical that Michigan football will be able to field a defense nearly as good as last year’s, despite the 2021 defense being the second-worst statistically in Jim Harbaugh’s tenure in Ann Arbor.

Not only did the Wolverines lose Aidan Hutchinson, David Ojabo, Dax Hill, Brad Hawkins, and Josh Ross, but they lost the architect of the new-look defense in Mike Macdonald.

Though there are some narratives about new defensive coordinator Jesse Minter — who oversaw the 119th-ranked Vanderbilt Commodores last year — like Macdonald, he comes from the Baltimore Ravens coaching tree, where he coached defensive backs. Now he’s had a full spring and is knee-deep into fall camp with his defensive unit — one that Harbaugh recently said is ahead of where last year’s defense was.

Here’s everything he’s seeing from his side of the ball just over a week into fall camp.

We always have said a loud defense is a good defense. One of the pillars of our defenses is obnoxious communication. And so, a lot of our calls, it might be rotation of coverage, it might be where’s the pressure coming from? It might even be just, hey, they’re lined up like this, alert for this. And so I think our group has just bought into that being a foundation of how we want to play defense. I think they started to do that but I think, as they continue in the second year, and have a lot of carryover, that allows them to do that with a lot of confidence.

The more confidence you have, the louder you communicate. So when you look at the younger guys, sometimes it’s quieter, it’s not as good. And so the more that the more of those guys gain confidence in them, knowing what their assignment is, knowing what they’re doing, the louder it becomes.

One of the things we’ve talked about is we’re not worried about replacing whoever. There are certainly some really, really good players. We want to have the best 11 players on the field for the given situation that’s occurring. When our guys buy into that, and they play really hard, they’re not worried about who makes the play, when somebody makes the play, we all make a play. I’ve been very, very pleased with just the mentality in that regard. And then they also know that we’re going to move people around, we’re going to try to create matchups, given the opponent. And I look at it like this, whatever it looks like going into the year, I hope we have a bunch of stars at the end of the season.

I hope that it’s multiple guys. I think we have some edge players — Mike Morris, Braiden McGregor, Taylor Upshaw, Jaylen Harrell — that have the capabilities of being good rushers. I think Kris Jenkins, Mazi Smith have the ability to push from inside. I think Mason Graham, Cam Goode — new guy — all these guys have capabilities of being good rushers. It’ll fall into, situationally, who we have out there. But they’re all capable of taking advantage of opportunities. I think it’s our job to just make sure we try to put each guy in the best position to have that success.

And then, the other thing is, because it might not be one guy, it’s given us the ability to maybe move people around more, maybe a guy that rushes a lot one week, drops the next week, and it sort of changes our tendency. So I think the guys are really bought into that. We want to have a high total at the end of the year. But we’d love it for it to be a lot of different people with multiple sacks.

I think all those guys, as they’ve learned a second year, as we’ve progressed, they understand how to drop now. And when you talk about edge position, it’s like, can you rush the passer? Can you set the edge? And then can he be in the right spot, we ask him to drop? We don’t want to put them in bad situations where they could be in a bad matchup. But a lot of times, it’s maybe a simulated pressure or something that we’re asking him to cover a quick throw, really just be in the right spot. Don’t screw it up. Don’t overthink it. All those guys have done a really good job going into the second year of understanding where they need to be.

Yeah, I think every situation is its own. The system we ran at Vanderbilt was built for Vanderbilt. We had a defensive head coach, we kind of put some stuff together based off most of both of our pasts, the both of our histories. So honestly, not a lot of terminology carryover. Certainly, there’s only so many structures of defense you can play. So there were some things we did that probably look the same. But now it’s kind of back into the system we had built in Baltimore, from a terminology standpoint. So, there’s carryover in how you play defense and what’s important to play good defense, but,  definitely, probably two different systems.

Absolutely. Coach Lea and I at Vandy had kind of built it together. I said, ‘Hey, paint me a picture of what you want the defense to look like.’ So then we were able to put it together. Here — it was same conversation. Coach Harbaugh, ‘Paint me a picture of what you want the defense to look like from your perspective as the head coach.’ Okay, now let’s get our paint brushes out so we can make it happen.

I think Junior’s having a really good camp so far, growing, understanding what we expect. I think Nikhai is having a really good camp. I think Michael Barrett is having a really good camp. Kalel is, as you guys have heard, splitting a little bit of time. But he’s doing well at linebacker. So he’s a guy that can probably play, have roles on both sides.

And then, the two freshmen, neither one were early enrollees — Jimmy Rolder and Deuce Spurlock. I think they have flashed, and you can tell why they were recruited here. They certainly have a lot on their plate of learning. But I’m pretty pleased with that group right now.

People have said that about us when we were in Baltimore, that we were just similar. There was a time where he was in the DB room and then he moved to the linebackers, and I kind of moved into the DB room. But I think we both look at the game similar. We both have a fairly calm demeanor about us, that allows us to stay in the moment and not ride the wave of emotion. But, we’re different people, and we look at the game different at times. Like, he had moved to the linebackers, he might have looked at things a little more front-to-back, I look at it as a DB coach, my whole career pretty much, kind of see things from the back to the front. And so, there’s definitely similarities, but I think we’re two different people as well.

It’s not my job to evaluate them, but they’re both exceptional players. And I think, at times, one of the things about Cade is I think he’s actually more athletic than maybe people talk about. He moves around really well in the pocket. J.J. can certainly take off and make plays, but they’re both really good. They both present different challenges. We talk to our edge guys about which one’s in there, how to rush different — those types of quarterbacks. So it’s great work in that regard of having to recognize some teams might play two quarterbacks, you got to recognize how we rush one guy a certain way. One guy you might not mind if he gets out, one guy, you definitely want to keep him in the pocket.

So tremendous opportunity for us to go against not only those two, but our entire offense. Coach Weiss, Coach Moore, Coach Harbaugh — tremendous talent over there, tremendous scheme that we get to go against. So it’s a blessing for us to try to get better every day.

I called plays for six years before I went to Baltimore, as well. So I have a lot of confidence in my myself in the regard of just staying in the moment. Sometimes as a — I remember, as a first-time play caller in 2011, I was young, and you ride the wave. You sort of ride the emotion of the game at times when you first start and I think it’s the ability to sort of take yourself out of the good and bad, focus on the next play. Just like you want defensive players to have the next play mentality, I think as a play caller, the more you do it, the more you sort of understand, one play is not gonna make the difference.

So it’s putting the guys in the best position, every play, not being emotional. I think sometimes play callers can be emotional in response. And sometimes that’s not the best thing for that situation. So I’m confident my ability to do that.

Absolutely. I think the more you do it, the more you sort of figure that out. My demeanor over the years has changed, probably to be calmer. So, it’s definitely something that that I’ve focused on.

He’s a freak. I think there’s a list that came out that, he was No. 1 in the whole country. The thing that I enjoy the most about Mazi is just how good he wants to be. So he works really hard. He studies film. He’s very meticulous in his technique. He’s meticulous in how he trains — huge credit to our strength staff for, not only with Mazi, but what they’ve done with our whole team.

But he’s just a humble, really hard worker who knows he has some ability, but wants to be really, really good. He wants to expand on his role from a year ago — that was one of our first conversations, ‘Hey, we’ve lost this stuff.’ And he wants to be on the field more. He averaged 41 snaps a game last year. I don’t know what the number will be, but in any critical situation in the game, when we have Mazi out there, we’ll have a great opportunity.

With sort of the inexperience in game situations with our edge guys, I think it’ll play itself out. Because we’ll certainly scheme things up, move people around, pressure different people, try to get other guys involved in pressure. But at the same time, if one of those guys just emerges as a great one-on-one rusher, then it’s our job to continue to put him in the situations to be a one-on-one rusher.

So, would I love for one guy to have 19 sacks at the end of the year? Absolutely, but I just don’t know yet. Because a lot of these guys haven’t rushed the passer consistently in live situations. So I think that’ll sort itself out, especially over the first couple of games of the year.

It’s just a level of comfort that they have within what we’re trying to do. There’s things that we’ll do a little different, there’s things that we might do more of, there’s schematic things that we may have added. I’ll try to let the first few opponents figure that out.

He’s just another — he’s Mazi’s junior. First and foremost, because of his attitude — very, very humble, very, very detailed. And his approach — which is extremely unique for a freshman that wasn’t here in the spring. He’s taken to everything Coach Elston has tried to teach him and get him to do, at a very impressive level for a young player.

Same thing in the weight room. Over the course of June and July, you could sort of see him transform and take exactly what Coach Herb and the staff wanted him to do. And then on top of that, he’s extremely gifted. He’s a 350-plus-pound human being that moves really well, that is really, really strong, naturally. And so, some of the things that we test those guys in, it’s pretty freakish to watch him go up the plyo steps, or move laterally, move side-to-side.

So, blessed that we have him and I think he’s got a really, really high ceiling.

Yeah, 100%. Great defenses are ‘next play’ mentality. You know, you can, you can gain momentum as a defense, and that’s good to use — make a good play, everybody gets excited, you make another good play, you keep that energy up. The really, really good defenses that I’ve been around, that I’ve watched, that I’ve studied, it’s what happens when a bad play happens. How do they respond?

I’ve been pleased with how we’ve responded at times in practice. And so it’s just a mentality of, it’s always the next play is the most important play. And the way I always have looked at it is, when you go back and watch games, everybody’s always like, ‘Hey, these five or six plays that made the difference, good or bad.’ The thing is, you don’t know what five or six plays those are as the game is occurring. So it’s important to just play the next play, lock-in.

Especially as an old secondary coach, like every guy is gonna give up a catch. It’s how do you respond? How do you come back and play? How do you stay locked in every play? So I think the guys have done a good job of sort of embracing that mentality. And hopefully, we can carry it over as we get — we will face adversity, and so it’s how do you handle adversity? How do you handle it? I look at last year and study what happened. The first drive of the season, they go down and score a touchdown. Well, they responded really well, so at some point over the first month of the year, we’ll be in some adverse situations, and I’ll be anxious to see how we respond.

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He's going to be really, really good. #GoBlue

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