USC hopes the LSU game sharpened the Trojans for Michigan. The Wolverines hope their 31-12 loss to Texas will make them better and more disciplined against USC. Wolverines Wire has more details on this:
However, we saw similar issues, particularly in Week 2 against Texas. Martindale is pressuring much more than his predecessors and that has caused some issues, but there have also been execution issues, players not being in the right places, et cetera.
Junior defensive tackle Mason Graham is confident that Martindale is scheming things up correctly on a per-game basis and that the blitz rate is contingent upon the opponent.
“I feel like it changes every week, depending on who we’re playing, it’s kind of goes week to week,” Graham said. “If he feels like he wants to blitz and we’re going to blitz and feels like that’s what’s up best for us, then that’s what we’re going to do. So, we have trust in him, supporting him. All the defense guys rally around each other, whatever, we all play together. So it’s kind of just trying to get the job done at the end of the day.”
The blitz rate is up about 20% from what it was last year, at least through three games. But given that there are multiple things to clean up defensively, sophomore edge rusher Cameron Brandt says that the onus is on the defense being better in terms of execution and that there isn’t pressure to rise back up to the defense’s lofty expectations.
“No, I wouldn’t say really pressure,” Brandt said. “Just making sure we’re again, setting our standard, making sure that’s all good, making sure (we’re) maintaining our pillars throughout everything. Feel like, yeah, maintaining our pillars, keeping things the same.”
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