Not to compare it to last year, but what is a Doug Nussmeier offense? What is this offense going to look like?

“We want to play physical. We want to establish an identity as a physical and explosive offense.”

How have the guys embraced that?

“I feel really good about the way that our guys have worked. The players have worked extremely hard, had a good summer with Coach Wellman and come to camp, like I said, really focused. They’ve had a good first week.”

How important is it to figure out who you are on the offensive line and let them gel? [Note: that’s my best guess as to the question. The audio was garbled.]

“Obviously the sooner you can answer that question the better off you’re going to be. It’s not just the verbal communication but it’s also the nonverbal communication that goes on there. It’s something that we’re working on. We’re looking at a couple different scenarios and combinations right now and we’ll settle on that soon.”

Is there pressure or excitement or both?

“You know, it’s all how you look at it. There’s always excitement and pressure’s what you put on yourself. For me, the expectation at Michigan is extremely high and that’s the way we want it. That’s why you coach at Michigan, that’s why you play at Michigan. You embrace it. There’s a lot of guys that have played in this program and coached in this program before that have set a standard and you want to be part of that and that’s why it’s a special place.”

The offensive line had its struggles last year and yet lost two NFL Draft picks. How can this line be better even without that group?

“Well, we’re really excited about the group we have—young players and they’re growing everyday with different things. They’re trying to focus in on certain things that we do every week so that they can really get good and, as you say, get better with repetition and so hopefully each week we’ll get better and better.”

Are you starting to see guys blossom because of the opportunity?

“I think Coach [Hoke] has said it many times, we’ve created some really good competition on our team. We’re getting better and deeper as far as creating competition at different position and we’re moving guys around to create competition, so you’d think that competition brings out the best in every player.”

Coach Hoke said today that Drake Johnson and De’Veon [Smith] are kind of a cut above the other running backs. What set them apart, those two in particular?

“Well, first thing when you talk about De’Veon is you talk about how physical of a player he is. He’s a tough, tough guy and really day in and day out he’s a guy that puts on his hard hat and brings his lunch pail. To me that’s the thing that’s stood out the most about him. Drake looks really explosive coming off the injury from last year, did a great job with rehab. Schmidty [Paul Schimdt, Head Trainer] and his staff and Aaron [Wellman] this summer, they’ve done a great job of getting him ready to go. And Derrick Green’s done some really good things. Justice does some good things also. There’s a group of guys there and we’re really looking for somebody to separate themselves from the group.”

Brady [Hoke] said he wants toughness to be the identity of this team. For an offense what does that mean?

“Talk about being physical, being physical at the line of scrimmage. That’s across the board. Our wideouts are going to be be physical players. We’re going to demand that from everybody on the offense.”

[After THE JUMP: offensive installation, Devin Gardner, and Jabrill Peppers?]

What do you know about Brady Hoke from afar and then from working with him on a daily basis?

“You know, I’ve known Brady from a distance for quite a while. You talk to people within our coaching fraternity and you hear not only what a great coach he is when you talk about X’s and O’s, his understanding of the game, but also what a great person he is and the passion he has for the success of our players and this program. On a day-to-day basis his caring of these kids and what’s best for them and what Michigan Football’s all about from the whole thing that Michigan Football embodies when you talk about the social skills, you talk about the academics, and you talk about athletics, the combination of all three.”

What’s been the biggest surprise so far?

“I don’t know that there’s been a surprise. It’s training camp. It’s hard work every day. The biggest thing is for us to continue to improve every day.”

What was the biggest challenge that you faced in taking this job and having to basically rework the Michigan offense?

“Well, with anything you do that’s new there’s always going to be an adjustment and obviously it’s a steeper learning curve anywhere you go new and install new systems and you’re trying to get everybody on the same page. Our guys have worked extremely hard and we’re going to continue to work extremely hard and we’re growing each and every day.”

Amara Darboh hasn’t been in live action. What’s he done to show you that he can be a part of this offense?

“He’s an extremely physical player. We talked about our identity. He’s played extremely physical and made some nice plays for us. His consistency day in and day out, we talk about it all the time. You’ve got to set a standard, a standard of excellence, and you’ve got to perform at that standard every day. He’s just been a guy, every day, consistently, who’s come out and worked extremely hard and been really productive for us.”

What do you like about what Jack Miller’s done in your short time working with him, with the opportunity that he has?

“Jack’s done a really good job. Really, really, smart guy and obviously we’re going to demand a lot of our center when it comes to making calls and making sure everybody’s on the same page but really happy with where Jack’s come this last week.”

Some people would say Alabama has the most talent in the country. Coming in from the outside to this program how does the talent level compare?

“Well, we’re really excited with the group we have. Got a lot of young talented players—really excited to grow through camp. We’ve got a couple weeks here but our progress in week one has been good. I think it’s important for our team to grow each and every day.”

What has your relationship been with [Devin] Gardner and what have you been trying to do with him in the amount of time you’ve had?

“I can’t say enough about Devin’s buy-in to what we’ve asked him to do. He’s done an outstanding job. He’s gotten better each and every day and when you look at the progression from day one, first practice of spring, and he goes through spring a little limited with the foot through the fifteen practices—what he accomplished this summer with our goals in the weight room and where we wanted him to be as we opened camp, and then to see where he’s gone in the first week of camp, really, really pleased with his progress.”

Is it a fine line for you to let him use his athletic ability but not try to do everything and not run around all the time?

“You never want to restrict a player’s ability. You’ve got to play to a player’s strengths. You know, we talk about it all the time in the staff room. It’s out job as coaches to put our playmakers in the best possible position to make plays and Devin obviously has great natural playmaking ability so the focus has been to let the system work for him and then when things break down to let him use his natural athletic ability.”

What’s been different about being here than being down south?

“Well, weather’s been pretty cool. No, I’ll tell you, there’s something special about Michigan. We say it all the time, there’s something special about being at this program every day, just feel blessed to have the opportunity to work in such an outstanding environment.”

What’s the area where Devin’s improved the most?

“I think his overall understanding, read progressions, getting off a primary target, getting to a secondary target—really starting to learn to utilize his checkdowns and his progressions.”

And then go into verbal checks, some verbal, and some nonverbal, that kind of thing.

“Extremely intelligent guy. Has a very high football IQ, so we’ve been able to do a lot with him as far as getting us out of bad plays and into good plays.”

Have you been able to maybe add more to his plate because he’s able to handle it?

“Well, we talk to our players in camp, we give them a lot of information, a lot of volume of plays. We talk about—we build a library. And we build a library so that when we get into the season we’re going to run these plays against these opponents and so when you get to the season there may be a play you didn’t run for two weeks because it didn’t fit the opponent you were playing. We can say, ‘okay, we repped this in camp. We ran it. This is one of the plays.’ And you bring it back off the shelf, so to say. We’re building that library, challenging our guys every day.”

Brady said Mason Cole’s put himself in a position to get some snaps. How can a freshman offensive lineman do that? What has he done?

“You know, perform. Performance doesn’t have an age tied to it. So he’s had an outstanding camp to date. He continues to improve. Obviously it’s a little different than playing at the high school level but the fifteen practices we had in the spring allowed him to get acclimated a little bit and just really feel like he’s taken strides every day.”

When you encountered Devin at first did you feel there was a little bit of a confidence that had to be rebuilt given the way last season went?

“Devin’s an extremely confident guy. And he should be with his skill set. I think that the biggest thing was to get Devin focused on what we wanted to accomplish as an offense and get him to understand, you know, why are we calling the plays that we’re calling. Is it built to be an explosive or built to be an efficient play? And asking him to make the checks we’re asking him to make. Those are things that take time and he’s really done a good job of taking extra time to get to know those types of things.”

When you look at the film from Devin’s turnovers last year was that a lack of focus, concentration, or is it just execution?

“Well, I think you go back to the fine line we talked about. There’s a fine line between playing smart, athletic football and then making decisions that can put the team in an adverse situation. One of the things we’ve talked about is playing winning football first and winning football we define is not necessarily about the number of plays we run or the yards we get, it’s just about the things that we believe are winning statistics in football and that’s the turnover margin, third down conversions, what we do in the red area, those type of things so we’ve really focused on the special situations of the game.”

You talked about having a guy separate at running back but in the spring you talked about rotating guys and how important that is. Is that still the plan?

“Yeah, definitely. We’re going to play a number of guys and what you look at is who’s going to really shoulder the load and how many carries does each guy get and what does each guy do well. We’re not going to be just a one guy system.”

Is that a percentage thing? Like a 70/30 kind of deal?

“At that position there’s a lot of variables that play in. There’s certain types of runs, each back has different types of runs that they excel at. You talk about the protection stuff. Ok, where and who excels at the protection type things and where do we want to implement that in the gameplan. How many touches do you want to get a certain player that maybe is not ready to play the whole load but does have a special skill set. We say, ‘put this guy in for X amount of snaps.’ Those are all variables that we’ll identify as we get to is there a guy who’s going to carry the majority of the load or are we going to do it by committee, so to say.”

What do you like about this wide receiver group?

“I really like their work ethic and I think we’ve got the ability to be explosive. We talked about the ability to create explosive plays. Those guys have shown the ability—really worked well against our defense. We’re getting challenged every day by those guys and I really like the way our guys have approached that every day and their desire to get better and like I said, we want to create explosive plays with those guys.”

How’s the depth there?

“You know, I think we’ve got some depth. We need some young players to make some steps. You talk about the receiver position and how you’re going to play young players—I really think it’s important not to ask them to learn the whole gameplan. Focus on a portion of the gameplan that they’re really going to excel at, otherwise they play slow. There’s too many coverages and coverage variables when you talk about playing at this level and too many different things that happen to them in a game that force them to play slower if they don’t have a really good understanding of what you’re asking them to do.”

You gave Shane [Morris] a lot of reps in spring. How’s his progression been?

“Really pleased. We’ve given him some first team reps and he’s done a really nice job. He continues to push Devin each and every day and I’m really, really pleased with where he’s at.”

Have both of those guys benefitted from that, pushing each other?

“I think you always benefit from competition. It brings out the best in everybody.”

Going back to the running backs for a minute, is it hard to know how many practice snaps to give Ty Isaac considering his situation?

“Well, like I said, it’s undetermined right now so we really don’t know where that is. You have a plan for every player. We have a plan for every guy on offense every day when we go to practice, who’s getting what reps with what group. You try to look at different guys in different situations, especially early in camp like this, to find out can this guy do this or maybe he can’t do that. Maybe we think he’s further ahead than he is and we might move a guy up to group that’s higher than the group he’s been playing in to see how he handles it. We do a lot of different things and I think it’s really too early and with the Ty situation really being unresolved I really don’t know the answer to that right now.”

The guys who are going to rotate at the top with the running backs- is it important to have different styles there as opposed to the same style?

“I think when you have different styles of guys it creates a different perspective for the defense. You know, a different perspective to defend. Like I said, you may run different plays with certain guys because those are the plays that they run better but the rotation system, a lot of it is built on—I think in today’s game it’s hard to keep a back healthy an extended period of time and be successful the length of a season when they’re getting sometimes overused.”

What have you seen out of Derrick Green in that mix?

“I think Derrick’s done an outstanding job as far as he’s gotten his weight down. He looks really, really good as far as his footwork, his timing, those types of things. He’s still learning the protections but really happy with the growth he’s made. He just needs to take that next step.”

When you look at him from a year ago to now when you look at film how much different does he look explosive-wise?

“I think he’s way more explosive.”

You’ve obviously coached in high pressure situations before. Is there a different type of pressure when you’re brought here to fix this offense? What does it feel like?

“Like I said, pressure’s what you define as pressure. I don’t feel pressure. People may say you’re under pressure but I don’t know how you define that. How do you define pressure? I know there’s an expectation and our expectation is that we’re going to prepare and get ready to play our best every week.”

Is the installation of the offense here in this situation different than what it’s been other years?

“It’s always different. Installation’s always different because you’re trying to find the right place for your players. What’s the best set of plays that fit this team? Which may be a totally different set up of plays that fit another team.”

You have goal numbers- is that how this works?

“We do.”

Can you give us kind of an idea-

“We want to be physical and we want to be explosive and we will define—we have certain things that we will define, you can set a percentage mark on them of what we want our percentage to be on third down conversions, what is our percentage going to be in the red area, those type of things you can define. There’s also many subjective things that we talk about on a daily basis that are not as black and white.”

Is there a patience that gets tested? I mean, you goys are young, you’re installing something new, it needs to work quickly. What’s been the process of that, and is it coming along as quick as you’d want it to come?

“That’s hard to say because we’re challenging our guys with a lot of information right now. That’s the whole point of camp, to really focus on becoming better football players and then challenging them from a mental standpoint to make adjustments, to communicate when we talk about the offensive front, to learn how we’re going to handle and block blitzes, to learn how we’re blocking all our different run schemes against all different types of fronts. You know, when you work against our defensive guys—Greg’s [Mattison] so good at doing so many different things and it really challenges our guys. There’s no frustration. Really, really pleased, like I said, with the first week. We’ve still got a long way to go. It’s got to be a daily progression.”

Have you been impressed by how Jake Butt’s worked to get back?

“Jake’s done an outstanding job. I don’t know at what point in time we’ll get him back but really pleased with his work ethic, his focus, what he’s done to date.

Michigan’s offensive line has come under heavy criticism the last couple season. How is that unit coming together and has anybody really taken the reins as far as leadership goes?

“Really excited about that group. They’re growing on a day-to-day basis. We’ve got young players there and they continue to get better. You know, you talk about any position—when you talk about the learning curve it’s going to be much steeper, obviously, for younger players than it is for older players. Even when you talk about installing a new system, guys that have playing experience in games in the Big Ten are going to adjust a lot better than someone who’s just coming out of high school, for example. We’ve got a long way to go but really pleased with the way that unit’s coming together and where they’ve gone in a week.”

How talented is Michigan Football? People have questioned because they recruit real well but that hasn’t translated on the field. You were at Alabama, I’m not asking you to compare it to Alabama, but where do you think this team is talent-wise?

“Well, we’re going to find out. We’re going to go out on August 30th and play a football game so we’ll find out.”

How much of the playbook have you installed?

“All of it.”

/long pause

“I’m joking. I wouldn’t put a percentage on it right now. We just continue every day to give them a little bit more. Sometimes you want to give them a little bit more and they’re not ready for it, so you say let’s slow down a day, let’s get back, let’s re-teach. It’s about teaching. Coach really stresses it’s not about what we know as coaches, it’s about what they know because they’re the ones that have to play. I think it’s important that we always keep that perspective.”

More or less accelerated than you thought it would be?

“I think we’re more accelerated from the standpoint of—one of the biggest challenges we gave our guys leaving the spring was when we come back in, day one, we’re going to re-install the same system we installed in the spring. We can’t go backwards and have it be practice one again. This needs to be sixteen. We should know the basis because you did it and you did it over the summer on your own and they took that challenge and really exceled at it.”

Biggest thing that’s impressed you strictly personnel-wise about the offensive unit.

“The thing that’s impressed me the most about our guys is their want-to and their desire. Every day they come excited to want to get more and then we talked about how much of the system (inaudible), they want to be good at what we’re doing. It’s important to them to do the little things right and when you have that it allows us to really challenge them every day.”

We’ve heard a lot about the simplification you’ve brought in. Is that your style or is that something you did for this team?

“I think it goes back to when you’re a player. You want to hang your hat on something, you want to know, ‘here’s what our identity is.’ Coach talked about it, we have to establish our identity and the things that we do—you want to know that the players and the coaches, that everybody has confidence in what we are and we create that identity and that’s been the biggest thing, probably, that we’ve focused on since the start.”

Beyond Canteen and Cole, do you see any freshmen that could help this offense this year?

“That’s a good question. I think it’s probably too early to tell. We’ve got a long time before we play a game. You say it’s a long time but it’ll be on us before we know it. Really excited to see how those young players grow over the next couple weeks.”

So not [Jabrill] Peppers?

“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask that one to Coach [Hoke].”

“