Michigan football defense grades from the 2019 season

Punting/Kicking: B

The big battle on special teams before the 2019 season was at kicker between Jake Moody and Quinn Nordin. The kicker job would be in rotation until near the end of the season when Nordin would be the lone kicker remaining. Both did well but weren’t as consistent as many would like them to be.

Nordin went 28/29 on extra points, and 10/13, a 76.9 percentage, on field goals this year with his longest being from 57 yards out. Moody was 18/18 on extra points, but 6/9, a 66.7 percentage, on field goals with his longest being from 43 yards out. Both kickers did miss three field goals, but Nordin was the lone kicker to miss an extra point.

At punter, Will Hart was the main man once again and he had a great year with his leg, punting 51 times for 2,256 yards, while Brad Robbins stepped in and punted four times for 171 yards. Hart was able to pin opponents deep and make it harder for them to drive down the field.

Kick/Punt Return: B-

On kick returns, that duty was given to wide receiver Giles Jackson this season and a good one at that as he had 24 returns for 622 yards and a touchdown. Punt returns were mainly on wide receiver Donovan Peoples-Jones, returning 24 for 173 yards, but while he was out with an injury, wide receiver Ronnie Bell stepped in and didn’t do well with eight returns for 67 yards.

Defensive Coordinator Don Brown: C+

For the first time in his tenure at Michigan, Brown finished with a defense ranking outside the top 10, as the Wolverines finished this year with the 11th ranked defense. For what Brown was given though, that is still impressive. Early in the season when the offense was sputtering, the defense had their backs and kept them in the game.

It would be later in the season when the defense started to collapse and the roles would be reversed almost as the offense had to keep the defense in the game sometimes. Brown once again got blown out against Ohio State and in the bowl game, which is the worst way to end a season as a Michigan Wolverine. While they did have their struggles, the Michigan defense did do a lot of good. They held Iowa to just three points, Notre Dame to 14, and while it isn’t good that they lost, Alabama to 35 points, tied for the lowest they were held to all season long.

The defense wasn’t supposed to be as good as they were. They lost former players like Rashan Gary, Chase Winovich, Devin Bush, David Long, and Tyree Kinnel. They lost two of their three secondary coaches to their arch-rivals. Brown did a lot for these guys and helped them prove a lot of people wrong in the end. While the defense had their same collapse to end the 2019 season, they still were able to perform well overall.

2020 will be interesting for Brown as he was considered a head coaching candidate for Temple last season and he could draw interests from other schools looking for a new head coach. He has expressed interest in wanting to be a head coach somewhere and maybe this year is the year, or he maybe he returns once again in 2020. Time will tell with that one, but no matter what, Brown has certainly helped Michigan rebuild their defense.