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ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Despite seeming like it was peaking at the right time, once Michigan got to the final game of the regular season in 2019, it was the same result as the year before: a blowout loss to Ohio State.
The offense kept the Wolverines in it, at least in the first half, but as execution issues started mounting up throughout, eventually the Buckeyes pulled away.
Beyond that, the maize and blue had a tougher pull than normal in the bowl game. Though relegated to the VRBO Citrus Bowl — a non-New Year’s Six game — they had to play Alabama, a team that was in every College Football Playoff before that. But that time, the defense mostly held strong, with the offense failing to put up any second-half points.
As a result, Michigan’s season ended at 9-4 and the defense — usually in the Top 4 nationally by yards allowed — finished at No. 11 on the season, the worst in the Jim Harbaugh era.
So, how does defensive coordinator Don Brown look at these things in hindsight?
He demurs somewhat to what Harbaugh had to say on Mike Tirico’s program on Wednesday as far as Ohio State is concerned, but shares how close he feels the defense was from having success in The Game and in the try against the Crimson Tide.
“That’s a great question. I think Coach (Harbaugh) addressed the Ohio State issue yesterday. Am I right?” Brown said. “So that’s what I – he’s the boss. That’s what he said, that’s what I’m gonna try to do. He’s the boss. So as far as that goes, I’m getting in line right behind him.
“In terms of the Citrus Bowl, obviously we had the bad play on the first play of the game and then late in the second quarter, we have a key sack and they call a roughing the passer. That was a killer, because we had done a good job after that first series of really stemming the tide. I thought we played pretty darn well in that game now. There’s – I love it – ‘Hey! You’re gonna double this guy, you’re gonna double that guy, you’re gonna double…’ You can’t double them all! And, I also think this: we’ve got good players, okay? We’ve got good players, too. Okay? And I thought we played toe-to-toe with them. What was it: 21-16 in the fourth quarter? So I feel very strongly about at times we played really, really well in that football game. And our guys were certainly up to the challenge and we fell short. I take the positives from it and then obviously we go into the offseason, but in kind of completion to your comment, your question — is we took all the pieces of that game that are negative, and I promise you, we’re gonna practice those plays against the sorted looks.
“And we took the same thing from the Ohio State thing, and we’ll be practicing against those plays, too, because in that scenario, again, it’s college football when you’re not successful, it’s 8-9 plays or it’s a group of plays where you just want them back. That’s certainly those scenarios.”
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Overall, however, Brown feels like the defense did a solid job of regrouping after a tough start.
Middle Tennessee put up 21 points and 301 yards in the season opener. Army took the Wolverines to overtime. Then, the wheels fell off at Wisconsin.
However, beyond that, until Ohio State, no team put up more than 350 yards or 30 points. Sure, it was a loss at Penn State, but that can be more chalked up to some early defensive miscues along with an offense that didn’t get rolling until the second half.
Brown shared his thoughts about how the defense performed as a whole during the entirety of the season, and how it intends to rebound moving forward.
“Now, looking on us defensively last year, okay, first off, we played pretty good against a Middle Tennessee team that was a 10 personnel – meaning four wide receivers across the board for the most part – bring in the tight ends and all that. But they were a 10 personnel starting point team,” Brown said. “We played Army, and I thought we played about as well as we could play in that football game and won it with a strip-sack. Then we played Wisconsin and we had 4-5 bad run fits, two bad plays in the pass game and we’re out of the football game. Then we play Iowa, okay? Guess what? Iowa’s pretty good. And we had 8 sacks, 14 TFLs and they had one yard rushing and they run the ball like Wisconsin does. So as poorly as the outcome was at Wisconsin, the work that our guys put in going into the Iowa game was obviously well done and resulted in what I think was the turnaround for our season defensively. Then we went on a tear in defense right out to the end of the year, where I thought we played pretty darn well. First half of Penn State, there’s two bad plays, but we hold them to – you go in at halftime, you make your adjustments and you hold them to 72 yards in the second half. That’s good football.
“We beat Notre Dame during the stretch. We beat Michigan State during the stretch. We beat Indiana who was in the Top 25 pretty handily. Once again, the Ohio State game was a huge negative for us. I’m not gonna live in that world. And I don’t want the players to live in that world. We acknowledge it, we move on from it, and hopefully I do a better job. Because I don’t blame players for anything. You blame the old guy right here, okay? I gotta do a better job of getting our guys ready, and I promise you I’m going to.”
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