How Don Brown has handled Michigan’s defense through stay-at-home

How the Wolverines defensive coordinator has kept his unit sharp despite not being able to get onto the practice field all spring.

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Things are a little bit different for the Wolverines — as it is for every college football program across the country — due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. How teams handle things is up to their own drive and creativity with ‘stay at home’ orders in place.

Thus, while Michigan is working to develop more player-led leadership, how the team strives this offseason is led by the coaching staff.

Naturally, these are uncharted waters. No one in the nation has gone through anything remotely like this. And given the circumstances, there’s an element of being self-driven that has to come from within.

“The one thing I’ve learned in this process is don’t take coaching for granted,” Brown told Jon Jansen on the In the Trenches podcast. “Work hard every day. Try to be a great role model for your players. Have fun with the guys. And just realize that coaching football is a gift, it’s not a right. That’s what’s important.”

He continued: “One of the other things that I noticed is when we’re running our virtual meetings, guys are never late, very attentive,” Brown said. “I don’t think I’ve had one discipline issue through the entire seven weeks. You can tell the old love of football is there. They’re anxious to learn.

“The No. 1 question you get though is, ‘Coach, when are we coming back? When are we coming back to play?’”

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Given that spring ball was canceled just before it was set to begin in Ann Arbor, that means that the defense hasn’t been able to include much new scheme — at least on the field.

However, off the field, Brown notes that this current version of ‘normal’ has gone quite well. Everything has been streamlined. But most importantly, it’s allowed for the coaching staff to really hone in on problem areas.

With that in mind, there’s certainly an opportunity here to make sure that the players know precisely what they’re doing at all times, given that the coaches can impart the playbook in its entirety.

“We’ve reduced it to eight installs, Jon,” Brown said. “Obviously, we take them through the installs, but the one thing that I’ve learned here, and I tell the coaches on defense, don’t neglect a teachable moment. So if you’re into a concept – for example, you’re working on a run concept and guys are struggling, the feeling that, ‘Hey, I’ve gotta move on. I’ve gotta get them all the material,’ makes a teachable moment. Make sure you give due time to whatever concept that you’re working with so that the players have a complete understanding.

“If you’re looking at it negatively – you can’t see them in person, fighting the virtual world – but if you look at it positively, you don’t have any time constraints. You’ve got plenty of time to install, review and teach your guys, so that when they hit the ground running, whenever that is, we’ll be ready to go.”

So, given that the players haven’t been able to maintain conditioning in a traditional sense, it’s incumbent upon them to stay sharp and at the ready.

They might be champing at the bit to come back to work inside Schembechler Hall, but given that we don’t know exactly when that might be, it’s an entirely different challenge.

While the team might be out of its comfort zone, Brown says that the best they can do is to stay focused on that which can be focused on.

It’s the best chance that the maize and blue defense has at getting back to an elite level.

“Do a great job of the mental process, because now’s the time we can really attack the mental part of the game,” Brown said. “The scheme, the concepts and those kinds of scenarios. Just control the things you can control and when they tell us, ‘On your mark, get set, go!’ make sure you’re ready to go.”

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