Interpreting some post-game quotes from the coaches

I was reading an article over on The Athletic (well worth the subscription, btw), and a couple of comments the coaches made I thought indirectly answered some questions, or provided context for some of the discussions I've seen on this here blog. I copied just some of the direct quotes below (I believe these are directly from press conferences, so not disclosing paywall information), with my interpretation for what can be gathered about the innerworkings of the coaching philosophy:

“After the first game, the captains said 50 percent of our defense hadn’t played in front of fans before,”  - Mike MacDonald

That's actually a pretty interesting anecdote. I knew this defense was breaking in a lot of new players. 50% of the defense having never played in front of a crowd creates a pretty unique dynamic. I'd imagine this unit will be prone to mistakes, especially on the road. By the end of the season though, it seems more possible than we had originally thought this group could be very good given the trajectory they're on.

“I think you always go in with the intention to run the ball,” Hart said. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I don’t think the intention was to run that ball that much. … None of us thought we were going to run the ball that many times against that defense because it’s a great defense.” - Mike Hart

Seems to be suggesting what a lot of us tried to either extrapolate or rationalize from the game plan. The game plan was not to run the ball that much, but if it's working and the defense is going to give it to you, then you take it. It doesn't sound like, however, the coaches think an 80/20 run-pass split is what will be effective game in, game out.

“I’ve got to get [Edwards] on the field more, he’s talented. I told him the other day he should have had more carries against Washington, without a doubt.” - Mike Hart

This might put to bed the debate on the board related to who manages the running back rotation. Admittedly, my assumption was that those responsibilities belonged to the offensive coordinator. But Mike's comments would speak to the contrary. My personal opinion, I don't see any rush to get Edwards a significant amount of touches this season; and I am very high on Edwrds, I think he's going to be great. Michigan has two, more experienced, NFL caliber running backs in my opinion ahead of him. I'm not sure what is missing from Michigan's running game that can't be delivered from Haskins/Corum. I don't see the upside in squeezing Edwards into the rotation at the expense of potentially disrupting the rhythm that Haskins/Corum are in. I think just continue to give Edwards some low-leverage game snaps, and let him develop over the course of the season with Mike Hart in practice. Next year the training wheels come off and he will assume the workload that Corum is getting this season. The again, I'm just a guy on the internet, so we'll see.

“When you have great players, you try to put them in positions to succeed. The expectation is that [Hutchinson] plays to the level he’s playing at. We’ll have wrinkles, and we’re going to move him around, but we don’t want to overthink it, either. We don’t want to get in the way of that.” - Mike MacDonald

This quote from MacDonald, to me is very encouraging. I may be misremembering, but I got the sense that in Brown's scheme, player responsibilities are relatively static, and the key to success is to be more dominant at your job than your opposing man is at his. In modern football, I think that is a losing proposition because that means you have eleven potential points of failure dependent upon the matchup any given week. It sounds like in MacDonald's scheme, player responsibilities may change subtly week to week. He won't entirely get away from letting guys do what they do best, but their assignments may not look exactly the same every week. This makes it more confusing for offenses to understand what they're looking at, and also gives Michigan the luxury of disguising or hiding certain weaknesses of the defense. I like that approach for this defense.