The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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"Aggressive play from the back end is really what Coach Mattison has been harping on," Wilson said. "That is going to be different from last season. Last year, we didn't do a good job. We had a lot of big plays because we were playing so much off-coverage. Being more aggres- sive and pressing more could really change that." In winter conditioning, Lewis (up four pounds) and sophomore class- mate Channing Stribling (up five pounds) both remade their phy- siques while redshirt sophomore Terry Richardson (five pounds) and redshirt junior Blake Countess (one) also put on weight. Six cornerbacks on the three deep — seniors Ray Taylor and Delonte Hollowell are the others — spent countless hours honing their funda- mentals so that Mattison, Manning and Mallory would feel confident in their ability to call for tighter cover- age in the fall. "We really just want to give Coach Mattison that leeway to say 'Let the corners play,'" Countess said. "If he can trust us, he can do a lot of dif- ferent things in terms of blitzing and being more aggressive in that aspect because he knows the back end will get things taken care of. "We need to get better as a defense. Last year was not good enough at all in any aspect of Michigan football, so we really have to make strides this spring. Things got sloppy toward the ends of last season, and there were more big plays allowed than we've had in the past, and we have to elimi- nate those type of things." ON THE RISE Michigan's final spring practice included 50 minutes of scrimmage situations, and the day was not kind to the offense, which mustered 191 yards on 51 plays. The defense, how- ever, would have recorded five sacks if the quarterbacks were "live" and did notch two interceptions. Both of Sophomore safety Dymonte Thomas is one of the young underclassmen in the U-M sec- ondary who will be competing to see signifi- cant playing time this fall. PHOTO BY PER KJELDSEN