ANN ARBOR, Mich. — For whatever reason, when it comes to defense in the Big Ten, all of the talk has centered on Ohio State and Penn State. Both are deserving, of course, but the reigning conference champion and the team with the best defense for the past two years is Michigan football — and it’s only getting better.
The Wolverines lead the country in scoring defense, though not in total yards. The impressive part is that the starters have mostly rotated out midway through he third quarter, thus, we still haven’t even seen the starting defense for a complete game, whereas the others have needed to use their starters for the entire 60 minutes.
But what makes this particular iteration of defense so good? One Wolverine has some answers, and part of it is expectation.
“We were just talking about this, about how deep we are, and how well-coached we are, and how we just don’t give in if they get a first down,” senior edge rusher Braiden McGregor said. “(We) say, ‘OK, well, now we got to stop them on this first down.’ It’s not like — we never worry. Michigan is always known for the defense. You look at the 2016 defense, 2018, 21, 22, and now 23. It’s just like, every year, there’s an elite defense here. And that’s kind of the standard is just — when you come to Michigan, you play defense. You got to be able to stop the run, you got to get the quarterback, and you don’t want these guys to score. So be able to have one of the best defenses this year, we just got to keep growing, and keep grinding every day.”
All season long, the Michigan defense has worked hard for a shutout, but on the final drives of some of its games, it’s lost out on looking up at a zero on the scoreboard. East Carolina scored a walk-off field goal in Week 1, UNLV scored a final possession touchdown, and Nebraska got a long TD against the backups in the fourth quarter. But against rival Michigan State last week, the defense finally didn’t relent, keeping the Spartans from getting on the scoreboard.
For this group, it’s been a long time coming, and McGregor is proud that his unit was finally able to secure the zero against a hated rival.
“It’s been a goal for us ever since the beginning of the year: don’t let these guys score any points. There’s no reason they should,” McGregor said. Every time we play, we go out there and do what we should do or what we can do. There shouldn’t be a point scored. So be able to get our first one on Saturday was against Michigan State, which is awesome, being able to go out there and walk out and look at 49-0 — which is like, and that’s awesome, man. They scored zero points, and then Mikey scored six. So as Coach Harbaugh always says, ‘Defense, you guys get scored more than they scored!’ So, it’s just awesome to be able to walk out there with a win and a shutout.”
The Michigan defense was on bye this week but will take the field again on Saturday when the Wolverines host Purdue. The game will kick off at 7:30 p.m. EST and will be broadcast on NBC.