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ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Thus far, four games into the season, according to PFF, Michigan sophomore defensive tackle Christopher Hinton has been solid, but not spectacular.
The Wisconsin game notwithstanding, Hinton has managed solid grades across the board, but the interior defensive line — or the whole of the D-line — hasn’t been able to get home. Five team sacks in Big Ten Week 1 gave way to none for two successive weeks before Carlo Kemp ended the drought against the Badgers.
For Hinton, he’s aware that he’s doing an OK job, but feels like there’s a lot more he can do to help the team.
“Personally, I feel like – I always feel like I could play better,” Hinton said. “I don’t care how well I play. I’m a hard critic on myself, I’ve been like that since I was a little kid. My parents, they’ve instilled that in me, just never be satisfied. Obviously, we haven’t been getting the results that we’ve been wanting. Obviously, no matter how well I’ve been playing, there’s still ways that I can play even better to maybe impact the game even more. The D-line, we all feel the same way. At this point, it doesn’t matter how well we play, because the results have not been what we’ve been wanting. We just look at ourselves in the mirror, just have to improve every week, every day.”
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So why hasn’t the defensive line been able to break through? Why has it been subpar compared to its predecessors?
Hinton says a lot of it has to do with what other teams are doing offensively.
“A lot of teams have been doing a lot of max protection and play action,” “A lot of quick throws. You’ve seen the quarterbacks we’ve been playing against are getting the ball out really fast. If you watch, we’re like one step away – a lot of times we’re one step away or like one second away from getting a sack. But the quarterbacks and the scheme – there’s been a lot of quick throws and a lot of max protections.”
That said, Hinton says there’s no excuse for the defensive line’s struggles. No matter what an offense throws at the unit, he says it has to find a way to get home.
Without that, the struggles very well could continue.
“I try to get my hands up, try to deflect passes, because a lot of these short passes are low to the line of scrimmage, so I have a good chance,” “I have long arms and I have a good knack for where the ball would be. Get my hands up and try to deflect passes – you can change the game in that sense. Maybe just change up some pass rushes – just don’t have that much time. Just try to get there quicker. You just try to find things here or there to get there faster. It’s hard, but there’s no excuse. We just have to be able to execute, get pressure on the quarterback and get hits on the quarterback, because that’s the name of the game.
“Just seeing if you would have been able to pulled in faster here, or maybe swim faster here, you could eliminate the one second that we needed. We’ve been sure been trying to hone in on that.”