The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/70103
MICHIGAN FOOTBALL The Bar Has Been Set For Michigan Defense T with the departure of three starters along the line, and it is because of those absences — Mike Martin, Will Heininger and Ryan Van Bergen — that many expect the Wolverines to take a step back defensively. Coordi- nator Greg Mattison, however, isn't among the disbelievers. "Last year's defense, and really he Michigan defense will re- ceive a makeover this spring those seniors, will never get the credit they deserve," he began. "For them to go all through the growing pains, and all the criticism, and all of the coaching that they did, and then for them to step up like they did … that says volumes about them. And that's really what excites me — the groundwork has been set now. "The bar was close to being achieved at times, and now, when you speak about expectations, this team, and the group taking over now, they understand it. You don't have to talk in hypothetical anymore about what you want a Michigan defense to be. You can point to the good things we did last year and show them." If a few position moves prove suc- cessful this spring, Michigan will replace its three departures with a senior (Craig Roh) and two juniors (Will Campbell and Jibreel Black) while at least eight more defensive linemen, plus a host of linebackers and defensive backs, from 2011 are set to return, a year older and more experienced. "The scheme we run won't be all new to them," Mattison said. "Ev- ery time we put a new wrinkle in, you had to continually rep it and rep it and rep it because it didn't come naturally to them. Now, when we go back through the cut-ups, we can use plays from this season rather than NFL cut-ups of what this is supposed to look like. "You can coach so much better off the mistakes that we made. Even right now, we go through every play of this past season and make notes of what we can do better by doing this or doing that. It's not so much the players playing, but things in the scheme we can do a better job of coaching. All those things make you excited about what's coming." Michigan returns eight starters Defensive coordinator Greg Mattison said last year's squad set the groundwork for the perfor- mance of Michigan defenses in seasons to come. 40 THE WOLVERINE APRIL 2012 PHOTO BY PER KJELDSEN from last year's defense, and those three vacancies loom large. But Mat- tison believes the Wolverines will fill