The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1531518
20 THE WOLVERINE ❱ FEBRUARY 2025 there are young guys behind him that will push for time. "Mason Curtis and Brandyn Hillman have a chance to be better than all of us," Johnson said. "They have a lot of talented young guys." And many of those young guys con- tributed in a big way down the stretch. They knew a dismal showing in a home loss to Texas wasn't who they really were, Johnson said, and by the middle of the year, it started to come together. Some proposed that Martindale be- came less "stubborn" and changed his approach with less blitzing and more variety on defense. The veteran DC said it was more that they got to know and trust each other a bit more. Whatever the approach was, the de- fense started to come together in the second half of the game against No. 2 Oregon, he recalled. "I think it just kept building," Mar- tindale said. "Against Indiana, I thought we played really well [in a 20-15 loss]. They had 18 yards in the second half. "The players finally realized when you hit a quarterback like we were hitting quarterbacks — Northwestern, Indiana, those quarterbacks —they're a different quarterback. And I think that was one of the biggest lessons defensively that they learned." Ohio State's Will Howard took huge shots from Paige and linebacker Ernest Hausmann, and he was never the same in a 13-10 Michigan win in Columbus that stunned the college football world. The performances against OSU and Alabama were literally two of the best showings from a defense in all of col- lege football this year. From Week 1 to Week 12, the defense morphed into what many thought it would be the entire year. It just took a while for the players to adjust to their new coach. "When kids hear the truth, they don't like hearing it sometimes," Martindale said. "I said at the beginning of the year that this is going to be a different year — not knowing how different — for you. You're going to have some more chal- lenges. "Some kids like hearing that, and some kids don't like hearing that. Noth- ing's automatic in this great game. "I think you saw a bunch of kids come together and say, 'We're going to play our tails off and take care of what we can handle. And that's all they can do." And exactly what they did, creat- ing experiences to remember down the stretch. They also created a strong sense that next year's defense could be outstanding, too, even with the loss of several key players. "I think it was a great experience for them," Martindale said. "It was a great experience for me. It was a great experi- ence for the staff. "It was one of the most rewarding experiences that I've had personally in coaching just because of where we came from. I think that the future is bright, and I'm looking forward to it." ❑ Defensive coordinator Wink Martindale said he thought his unit started to come together in the Oregon game with gang tackles like this from Rayshaun Benny (26) and others. But it wasn't until the last three games of the season that U-M really showed out, holding Northwestern, Ohio State and Alabama to a total of 29 points (9.6 average). PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL