2012 First Look: Defense Comment Count

Brian

DEPARTURES IN ORDER OF SIGNIFICANCE

MIKE-MARTIN-112109-1-thumb-320x389-17091[1]Will Heininger Notre Dame v Michigan ft_wTXsLodyl[1]

Van Bergen and Martin, Heininger

  1. NT Mike Martin. Penetrating, active nose tackle a major factor in Michigan's massive improvement in run defense; forced a pitch on a speed option; late-season run was absolute dominance; backed up by air, hope, and freshmen.
  2. SDE Ryan Van Bergen. Crafty veteran and iron man was less explosive than Martin but not by much; turned in huge OSU game; consistent production in UFR even if the actual numbers aren't that amazing; backed up by walk-on.
  3. DT Will Heininger. Walk-on evolved from liability against MAC teams to solid, maybe even better than that, Big Ten DT; made a play or two every game after the nonconference schedule; replacement will be Will Campbell and the hope he can finally play some football.
  4. CB/S Troy Woolfolk. Bounced from CB to S throughout career; basically a NEVER FORGET poster all to himself after series of injuries robbed him of all or much of his senior year twice; marginalized by injury and burned by Posey; did not start Sugar Bowl.



    [worry ceases]
  5. JB Fitzgerald. Touted recruit never managed to see the field except on occasional snaps spotting Demens or playing DE under GERG.
  6. Brandon Herron. Scored two touchdowns against WMU and was never heard from again.
  7. Jared Van Slyke. Saw some snaps due to injury over the course of his career.

WHAT'S LEFT

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Kovacs, Ryan, Roh

  1. SS Jordan Kovacs. Never going to be a great deep half guy but the best damn tiny linebacker there's ever been; great tackling in space; great angles; huge part of Michigan's lack of big plays given up; best safety since at least Marcus Ray and probably further back.
  2. SLB Jake Ryan. Explosive edge athlete with a burst opponents are unprepared for; did get confused sometimes as a freshman; outstanding flow; nickel DE.
  3. WDE Craig Roh. Solid, but did not provide the explosive edge rush Michigan was hoping for. May end up moving to SDE, but his size and body type seemingly disqualifies him from that.
  4. CB Blake Countess. Touted recruit stepped into the starting lineup when Woolfolk was struck down and played very well; crappy edge tackling needs work; had tough close to the season against OSU and VT.
  5. CB JT Floyd. Resurrected his career and even turned in a big play or three along the way; jumped a route against Illinois to salt that game away; best technique amongst cover guys; still not that fast; also crappy edge tackling.
  6. MLB Kenny Demens. Ate a lot of blocks after move to new system; hopefully will get more decisive in year two; highly underrated cover guy; not much of a blitzer; may seem a lot better if the NT in front of him is a space eater instead of a penetrator.
  7. FS Thomas Gordon. Also a big part of Michigan's excellent big play prevention; largely exempted from secondary criticism after OSU game because he was not on the field for the worst of it; sweet-ass interception against EMU; probably a better fit at SS.
  8. WLB Desmond Morgan. Wrested the job away from a couple veterans once he got healthy, whereupon he was okay for a freshman; problems in coverage; problems with misdirection; a big chunk of Michigan's outside vulnerability; will either improve or see someone yoink his job.



    [starters cease]
  9. Nickelback Courtney Avery. Diminutive but quality underneath cover guy; PBU and INT sealed OSU game; also a crappy edge tackler; fine option as a third corner.
  10. WDE Jibreel Black. Spotted Roh, could not take his job; may be a candidate to move to SDE if he can put on the weight; emergence of Frank Clark threatens to cut into playing time.
  11. DT Will Campbell. Alternates tossing his man into the quarterback with passive acceptance of blocks. Conditioning and effort an issue.
  12. WLB Brandin Hawthorne. Tiny safety-sized LB a man without a position after Michigan ditched the 3-3-5.

WHAT'S NEW, OR CLOSE ENOUGH, ANYWAY

campbell-cosgrove

please don't be our DT.

Most of the DL. YAYAYAYAYAYAYYYYYYYYY. The best unit on the team is strip-mined by eligibility expiration, leaving the next generation to… oh, right, the next generation doesn't exist. Fantastic.

Michigan's options at SDE are redshirt junior walk-on Nate Brink, who saw occasional snaps this year and was blown up on 80% of them, guys no one has seen or heard from like Jordan Paskorz, or true freshmen. At defensive tackle they've got two spots to fill and two guys who have seen meaningful snaps, Quinton Washington and Will Campbell. Kenny Wilkins and Richard Ash exist, Chris Rock will be coming off a redshirt, and there are some freshmen arriving. The most prominent is 330-pound tank/battleship/Hoke impersonator Ondre Pipkins.

I'll wait for you to finish retching.

All right! We retched it real good! Anyway. Massive dropoff is all but inevitable here. I'm betting Brink, Pipkins, and Campbell are your opening-day starters with Washington a guy who rotates in on the interior; Godin, Strobel, and Wormley will all play immediately due to necessity, leaping past Wilkins and Ash. Rock may also get some PT.

Nothing else. So we've got that going for us. Except…

Maybe WLB. Desmond Morgan is far from invulnerable at WLB, especially with Joe Bolden and Kaleb Ringer enrolling early. James Ross is extensively praised for his play identification ability and should be a candidate for early playing time. Teeny-tiny Antonio Poole is coming off a redshirt and is presumably less teeny-tiny.

That is a lot of guys vying for a single starting spot, many of them more athletic than Morgan at a spot that puts a premium on athleticism. Meanwhile, Kenny Demens is backed up by Mike Jones and more freshmen. Like Omameh, displacing him from the starting lineup provides an ancillary benefit by creating a quality backup where there is none already.

WHAT'S THE FIRST FOUR SEASONS OF BATTLESTAR GALACTICA

Sanity. O Mattison, without whom we are naught, yea, verily doth we bring these burnt offerings to your lustrous feet. May they keep your pecs jiggling as they command our forces to do something wondrous.

Experience. Michigan has it with eight starters back. For the first time since Carr's final season Michigan will go into the year running the same thing they did the year before. Run and tell that.

Depth at linebacker and quasi-linebacker. Michigan may have to pirate one of the three valid options at WDE to help out on the other side of the line but right now you can have decent confidence in any of Roh, Black, and Clark. At SLB, Ryan is a bust-out star, Brennen Beyer is coming off a freshman season with some promise and a role in short yardage, and Cam Gordon's still hanging around. In the middle, a flood of touted freshmen arrive to back up returning starters; Poole is also around.

Bending but not breaking. Kovacs and Gordon gave up vanishingly few big plays over the course of the season; both return.

WHAT'S THE LAST SEASON OF BATTLESTAR GALACTICA

The line, obviously. There's some talent there but if Michigan doesn't experience a massive backslide it's time to assume that Michigan's DL will be great as long as Hoke and Mattison and Montgomery are around.

Michigan-Jake-Ryan-tips-pass-by-Western-Michigan-Alex-Carder[1](caption) Michigan linebacker Craig Roh (88) and defensive tackle Ryan Van Bergen (53) get to Western Michigan quarterback Tim Hiller (3) for a sack. Michigan's Brandon Graham (upper right) was also in on the play. The Wolverines defense sacked Hiller twice in the game.  *** Michigan built a 31-0 first half lead, then coasted to a 31-7 season opening victory over Western Michigan University at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor. True freshman quarterback Tate Forcier threw three touchdown passes to lead the Wolverines.   ***  The University of Michigan Wolverines open Rich Rodriguez' second season against the Western Michigan University Broncos at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor. Photos taken on Saturday, September 5, 2009. ( John T. Greilick / The Detroit News )</p>
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okay, but what about, like, teams other than Western Michigan?

Getting to the quarterback. Roh did not blow up as we hoped and most of the options to replace other guys are ponderous. Campbell and Washington and Pipkins are going to be the sorts of guys who shove a couple dudes at the LOS on passing plays. Michigan got away with a lack of pass rush from the outside last year because a couple of their inside guys were great penetrators; next year Michigan needs their outside LB types (WDE and SLB) to MAKE PLAYS or opposing quarterbacks will be able to grow small businesses in the pocket.

Secondary athleticism. I love Kovacs with all of the hearts and think whatever athleticism he lacks is more than made up for by his smarts. At this point I'm not sure athleticism is even an issue. I can't remember the last time it came up in a game.

The rest of the secondary… we don't know about. Sometimes you're going to get burned over the top. When you have great recovery speed you can live. When you don't you die, which happened to Michigan time and again against Devier Posey. JT Floyd is much better but isn't likely to get a sniff from the NFL; Countess and Avery are faster but little buggers ill-suited to take on the Michael Floyds of the world. Thomas Gordon has decent to good speed; he still got burned over the top big time by Nebraska.

There are no blazers and the big guy in the secondary is almost kind of maybe outright slow. Yeah. So… could be an issue.

WHAT'S INEXPLICABLE JIMI HENDRIX

Can these coaches salvage the line? Tell me lies, baby.

How ready to play are some of these freshmen? If Bolden comes in and rips Morgan's job away from him that's probably good, but we're really talking about Ondre Pipkins, Chris Wormley, Tom Strobel, and Matt Godin here. Pipkins all but has to start from day one and two of the other three will be frequently-used depth guys.

Are the cornerbacks for real? They seemed fantastic over the first 11 games but the results against OSU and VT are alarming.

MANDATORY WILD-ASS GUESS

I'm torn. There is a case for a backslide despite returning eight starters. For one, the fumbles will not be as plentiful. For two, a lot of Michigan's weakness was covered up by Mike Martin being essentially unblockable the back half of the season and Van Bergen being so reliable. I'm worried that without those two, Michigan is going to have issues. In the best case scenario the new guys prevent OL from getting to the second level, making a lot of plays available for the linebackers that the linebackers might not make. I also don't see where the heat comes from.

But they do return eight starters and go from year one to year two in the same system. They seem pretty injury-resilient at spots that aren't Jordan Kovacs and bring in a lot of talented freshmen. They will be much older at just about every spot.

It's mandatory, though, so… yeah, they'll be worse. The lack of consistent pressure will be a year-long problem that exposes some of the issues in the secondary and the linebackers are not at the level they need to be to benefit from planetoid DL.

Sacks backslide into the bottom half of D-I after finishing 29th, total defense slides into the 30s, and the scoring defense does not repeat its top ten performance from a year ago.

Comments

RoseBowlBound

January 11th, 2012 at 3:42 PM ^

ZONE BLITZ!!!  Mattison will probably be working on Roh's drop into coverage this year.  That's my bet.  He's going to bring pressure and force the QB hot read early and often which will produce a large RPS positive or negative variance.

sammylittle

January 11th, 2012 at 4:04 PM ^

Prevaling thought is the UM rounds out this class with a TE, OL, and DB.  Looking at this summary, I am even more worried about NT/DT depth than previously.  Boy, what if Pipkins is injured or a Big Will style bust (at least during Big Will's underclass years)?  I would love for the coaches to add at least one more recruit to the center of the D line this recruiting cycle. 

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

January 11th, 2012 at 4:20 PM ^

Hey look, Mike Martin got mentioned this time.

Also: Kovacs is coming back??  You mean I spent the whole year assuming he was a senior and I was being an idiot the whole time?  I hate when that happens.  Obviously he is going to be our nomination for the Big Ten's 7th-year-senior-what's-the-name-of-that-Wisconsin-guy-the-award-is-named-after? trophy and probably a shoo-in.

Seattle Maize

January 11th, 2012 at 4:20 PM ^

I think someone who will explode next year is Frank Clark.  Kid is supposedly a freak athlete and has drawn the praise of coaches.  If he makes a leap this offseason I think he could start at Rush End and push the Roh/Black combo out to the Strongside.

MGoUberBlue

January 11th, 2012 at 4:32 PM ^

How did this guy go from tremendous hype in two straight spring seasons to rarely seeing the field?  Did the injuries set him that far back or is Jake Ryan really that much better than Cam Gordon?

What is the potential to move him yet again, but this time back to wide receiver?  If we are looking for good size wide receivers that don't necessarily have great speed (Junior Hemingway), shouldn't we give Cam an opportunity to get some snaps on the offensive side rather than ride the bench and play special teams?  I thought that he was moved from offense due to the need for smurf slots.

His disappearance seems troubling.

uminks

January 11th, 2012 at 9:56 PM ^

I was a bit worried about the DL coming into this season but our coaches turned Heininger into a true B1G lineman. Some one who was totally off my radar last summer! I wish we had someone returning as talented as Martin. Overall, the DL may be shaky early next season but by the time B1G play starts, I'm sure the coaches will have good starters along the line.

burtcomma

January 12th, 2012 at 9:20 AM ^

The 2011 defense demonstrated what our coaches could do with existing talent, and how they could identify our strengths and weaknesses and who could or could not play and piece together a pretty damn good defense out of the wreckage of 2009 and 2010.

2012 will be where we see how they do at recruiting (looks pretty good so far!) and whether they can continue to improve or stay level in terms of accomplishing what was done in 2011.  Each and every year a college team has to replace players, improve the guys who have experience that are coming back, and integrate the new players into the whole.

Here is the data based on team rankings for the total season with Mattison as DC with team's rank in total defense and scoring defense from 1999 (1st year I could get info) forward:

 

TEAM YEAR RANK TOTAL YDS RANK SCORING DEF
ND 1999 74 78
  2000 51 35
  2001 14 22
FLORIDA 2005 9 18
  2006 6 6
  2007 41 46
MICH 2011 17 6

  Seems his defenses get better with the exception of 2007 Florida versus 2006 Florida, where they had to replace 9 of 11 starters on the 2006 defense which won the National Championship game.

I'd say we are in the best of hands......

M-Wolverine

January 12th, 2012 at 12:10 PM ^

Since the performance from a year ago was...9 days ago. (What do you have against afterglow?)

But I think I'd put Woolfolk under the notch. I know we've lived off the dream "dang, he was our best defender, and if he hadn't gone done, we'd have been good in X year"...but really, I don't see us missing him that much, whether from inability to use him, or just not being as good as some around him.  The biggest loss may be the example he set in the locker room.

Van Slyke isn't worrisome, but I would like to give him props for some nice special teams play.

And I think you're underrating Demens, who's still developing and lead us in tackles anyway.

 



Battlestar Galactica - All Along the... by boyeatsgirl

Wazoo

January 12th, 2012 at 12:44 PM ^

Interesting how the top two returing starters on Brian's chart are a former walk-on (Kovacs) and someone who as I recall was not that highly rated and seemed to be more of an afterthought recruit (Ryan).  Sometimes the recruiting gurus do get it wrong. 

dragonchild

January 12th, 2012 at 2:00 PM ^

I honestly don't think the linebackers are tapped out in terms of potential.  Mike Martin basically held them back.  Demens, in particular, seemed at times to just be watching Martin and RVB blow up plays.  For example, maybe in a certain alignment he's supposed to key on the tailback for the option -- then Martin blasts through and gets picked up by the back as if he's a one-man blitz.  Cool, but now the key's gone.  Demens has no farking idea what to react to.

I'm exaggerating for clarity's sake.  Basically, havoc works both ways, and the Martin-RVB 4-3 under show was built around the DL.  Same goes for practice.  I'd give the starting DL the edge over the starting OL; Molk can't take both Martin and RVB at the same time.  Demens just feels like he doesn't have much to do; it feels like he's just passively patrolling a zone.  Now it's time for the linebackers to step up.  Mattison's no stubborn fool; with this turnover he might switch to a true 3-4.  The linebackers might do better with space-eating linemen than playmakers, and Mattison will be sure to get them to understand they can't expect the DL to make all the plays.