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It had been a unit in decline since the Ohio State loss in 2018, but the 2019 Michigan defense was at least one of the best in the country, even if it had taken a step back.
2020 was another story.
Blowout losses were once relegated to the regular-season finale against the Buckeyes when Don Brown was leading the charge, but they became more commonplace. Losses to Wisconsin and Indiana saw a defense in disarray, and closer losses to Michigan State and Penn State — teams that were struggling offensively all season — were beyond problematic.
Now, Brown is out, but he’s landed a new role already. Leading the charge under former Michigan pass game coordinator Jedd Fisch — the new head coach at Arizona — Brown is tasked with revamping the Wildcats attack on that side of the ball. But, speaking to Tuscon.com, he looked back at what went wrong for the Wolverines defense in his final year in Ann Arbor.
“With the pandemic, we lost a very important element of college football, and that’s spring practice,” Brown said. “You’re learning a lot of technique and fundamentals. You’re also attacking the tackling phase, the turnover phase.
“We had an interesting team. We had a group of older guys, but we weren’t very deep. And then we didn’t have a very big junior or sophomore class, so then it became the true freshmen and the redshirt freshmen jumping into strategic roles.
“Now you’re practicing in June, and then the Big Ten decided to cancel the season. Then we lost a couple of key players on defense (to opt-outs). Then you kind of jumped back into practice when they OK’d the Big Ten season, and you had to get ready to play a game.”
He, of course, is speaking about senior cornerback Ambry Thomas, who opted out when the Big Ten pulled the plug initially on the season in August — though he was the only key player that opted out, as defensive end Kwity Paye, in particular, opted to play — though he lost some games due to injury.
“The techniques and fundamentals, I could have done a better job in that area,” Brown said. “(But) we gotta do the best we can. We ended up missing three weeks due to COVID. We had significant injuries. We were down to playing a walk-on ‘Mike’ (middle linebacker) and a walk-on safety, and they did a great job. But that just gives you the idea.”
Michigan is expected to hire Mike Macdonald, the Baltimore Ravens linebackers coach, as its new defensive coordinator to replace Brown once the Ravens season has culminated.