The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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80 ■ THE WOLVERINE 2025 FOOTBALL PREVIEW BY JOHN BORTON M ichigan put forward a staunch de- fensive effort in Wink Martindale's first season as its defensive coordina- tor, highlighted by a 13-10 win over Ohio State in Columbus. Martindale says this year's crew could be better, despite the loss of NFL talent. He sat down with The Wolverine to discuss what happened last season and what's ahead in 2025. The Wolverine: How did your defense improve over the course of last season? Martindale: "I think we improved in a lot of different ways — fundamentals and tackling. Early in the year we gave up some big plays on some double moves and things like that. We started to tighten all those things up. Some of the young guys were learning on the run. We came together at the end of the year and were a damn good defense." The Wolverine: What's the balance between drawing on the success at the end of last season and turning the page for this fall? Martindale: "The full focus forward is every year. You have to start from the foundation again, all over. It can't be, 'Hey, you have these guys back so let's start playing this and add onto that.' You've got to start everything from scratch — at all levels, but especially at this level. "You're going to plug in some new pieces and see where different guys are at. I think momentum is real. All the dif- ferent stat keepers and analytics guys say there's no such thing as momentum. I think that's BS. The momentum is real, because a lot of the guys who played in that Alabama game, it gave them confi- dence going into the offseason and spring ball. You saw the growth. "I thought we had a really good spring. That's more important than the Ohio State and Alabama games. It was a physi- cal spring, and we got a lot of work done. "I really do think that we can be a bet- ter defense than we were last year. I know that sounds crazy with the guys we lost, but we have more guys. There's more depth — across the board, but especially with the guys up front, the front seven. You're going to see some more substitu- tion. That's really a good thing. "The focus will be away from Will Johnson and the two defensive tackles, toward our linebackers. [Senior] Jaishawn [Barham], [senior] Ernie [Hausmann] and [senior] Jimmy Rolder had great springs. There are going to be times when all three of those guys are on the field at the same time, because every time you rank your top 11 players, you put them on the field and make it work. "That's the beauty of the system, the flexibility that we can do that." The Wolverine: What are some other early impressions on how this defense is shaping up? Martindale: "Position-wise, we never really did have Will Johnson. So, the ex- perience that Shug [junior cornerback Jyaire Hill] got out there at corner, and the same thing with [senior cornerback] Zeke [Berry], was big. I like [grad defen- sive back] Caleb Anderson. He tweaked a hamstring and missed about five prac- tices. [Freshman corner] Shamari Earls is on schedule. We needed to keep getting more and more corners in here. "We still need to get some depth at corner. We'll have to do some different things and call it different ways, because we don't have that lockdown guy. We didn't have that all last year, either. "I think the players just got better dur- ing the season last year. Sherrone [Moore] said this in one setting, and I don't know if he's ever said it to you. He did say that there was a national championship hang- over early, that we had to fight through." The Wolverine: Grad defensive lineman Rayshaun Benny said this year's defensive line reminds him of the 2023 line, in terms of depth. Is that a fair comparison? Wink Martindale Sees A Chance For Defense To Be Even Better In 2025 DEFENSE Q&A Martindale succinctly summed up the 13-10 upset win at Ohio State last season: "We physically beat them up." PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL