ANN ARBOR, Mich. — All offseason in 2023, we heard the Michigan coaching staff and players alike say they were hoping to get more defensive pressure from the inside of the defensive line.
While the pass rush has long been effective from the edges, not since Maurice Hurst in 2017 have the Wolverines had an effective force in the middle collapsing the pocket and getting to the quarterback. Certainly, there have been years where it’s been a steady force, but not necessarily an aggressive one.
Last season, the defensive tackles were particularly adept at run blocking and got some pass rush, but still not quite at the level the coaches were hoping. Thus far in 2023, it’s appeared to be much better. Though the line had no sacks in Week 1, it got five in Week 2, with 2.5 of them coming from the interior and edge players getting the other half.
On Wednesday, defensive line coach Mike Elston shared his thoughts on how the maize and blue are working to draw it up and the philosophy of how the tackles and the ends work together to create pressure.
“Offenses are sophisticated, and protections are very sophisticated,” Elston said. “It’s not like you’re gonna dial up a lot of pressures that you end up with a free run to the quarterback. Running backs are really savvy on picking up, they have the depth off the ball to see guys come in. And, we don’t feel like we need to bring a whole bunch of guys with the front guys that we have to try to get a mismatch.
“So we try to hit things with speed, intensity, and there’s not one time that we designed something that is designed to let the quarterback out of the pocket, so you want to work with levels to the quarterback. And then when you do that — so you have two defensive ends that are up the field and containing through the C-gap to turn the quarterback or push the quarterback to the inside guys who are pushing up from the inside, and they’re feeding the edge guys, and the edge guys are feeding the D-tackles. And, theoretically, that’s how it should work together. If you run a twist on of some kind, and then maybe the D-tackle goes outside, and he’s the contain, and he’s pushing it inside to the end who’s working the twist game. So every stunt or game that we design or pass rush that we design is designed to contain the quarterback, force him up, and then push the pocket inside.”
So, one game has had production, the other had a show-don’t-tell effect with pressure without stats. Where does Elston feel the line is in terms of production versus vision? And where does it go from here?
“I feel like it’s been very effective,” Elston said. “I feel like we’ll only get better at it as we continue to — the theme this week is to execute at a higher level up front. We want to execute our pass rush stunts or pass rush at a much higher level than we did in the first two games.”