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Joel Klatt told WolverinesWire in our annual exclusive interview before the season that Michigan football wasn’t that far away from having a 9-10 win campaign in 2021. He said he felt the defense could be better under Mike Macdonald, due to the multiple nature of it, and if the offensive line could protect and run block, that the offense would vastly improved.
So far, so good.
The Wolverines are 5-0 for the first time since 2016 after having beaten Wisconsin in Madison for the first time since 2001. Klatt was on the call with Gus Johnson, and after the 38-17 win, he shared his thoughts about why the maize and blue look so improved.
“This one was in dominant fashion and wasn’t in doubt, and that’s because they played a complete game,” Klatt said. “And that’s what you can say about this team in the course of this 5-0 start is that every single facet has contributed at some point.
“Let’s start with the offense. The philosophical change on offense to commit to the run game has really paid off. Now, they didn’t get out there and run crazy on Wisconsin, and they never were going to. But they did commit to running the football. In fact, they ran the ball 44 times in the game, got to over 100 yards against the best rush defense in all of college football. And what that did, that set up some of the play-action pass. This was gonna be about who could grab the lead first, who could give the defense the lead, so the defense could be aggressive on either side. And it was Michigan who got the lead first because they committed to the run game early. They did the flea flicker and McNamara goes up and over the top to Cornelius Johnson. That was a big point in this game and it started with the commitment and the identity. They didn’t have to run the ball great, and they didn’t. But they were effective enough and committed enough in order to impact the defense and get them to bite on the big play for a touchdown.”
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But the offense wasn’t the best part in Klatt’s estimation.
What he liked most was the incredibly aggressive and dominant defense, led by Aidan Hutchinson, Daxton Hill and Josh Ross. It’s a night-and-day turnaround from what we saw last year under Don Brown and a big part of the resurgence has to do with the schematic changes, Klatt says.
“The better part for Michigan, at least today, was the defense,” Klatt said. “I couldn’t wait to see this new-look defense. Mike Macdonald comes in from the Baltimore Ravens — Jim Harbaugh wanted a Ravens-style of defense. He felt that the players and personnel he had on this team — namely Aidan Hutchinson — were gonna benefit from an NFL-style of defense that had stand-up edge players, and we saw that. The pressure on Graham Mertz and Chase Wolf and he had to go in the game was immense. Mertz, when he had left the game, had dropped back 18 times. He had been hit nine times. Daxton Hill finally kind of lays out the knockout blow and just delivers a huge hit to the ribs of Graham Mertz. Aggressive, attacking style of defense, and yet, they didn’t have to do it with just man coverage, playing with one-on-ones on the outside.
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“Now, they will do that, but they mix in enough zone coverage, they mix in some of that, that it’s gonna be harder for teams to key in on their defense like they were able to do in previous years.”
That said, Klatt isn’t getting ahead of himself and he suggests that you shouldn’t either. Just because Michigan is 5-0 and has yet to trail in a game doesn’t mean that things can’t, at least temporarily, fall apart.
And whatever you do, under no circumstances, should you start thinking about the Week 13 game on Nov. 27.
”I said this during the broadcast and I will continue to say: this version of Michigan I think is more suited to make a run at the back-end of the season than they had been suited in the past,” Klatt said. “In the past, they were running schematics that relied on their talent margin as opposed to their opponent. And they were able to overwhelm some of those opponents, but then when they got into like-footing — or in particular, in a situation like Ohio State has better players — they were never able to hold up. I think these schematics they have, the commitment to the run game, the ability to throw the ball efficiently and not turn it over, and the attacking style of defense without having to play man coverage makes them much more suited to make a run at the end of the year. We’ve seen great starts from Harbaugh teams before — although this is only the second time that they’ve gotten to 5-0.
“So what is the bottom line for the Wolverines? Everyone’s going to start to think about like, ‘Well, is this the year for Michigan? Is this the year that they can beat Ohio State?’ Stop! Stop! I know that everyone is gonna want to know if this is the team that can compete with and beat Ohio State. Wait for that week. Just look at it a game at a time. Nebraska presents challenges. Michigan State will present challenges. Indiana will present challenges. Penn State will present challenges. If they can just focus on those challenges, continue to develop in these new schemes, then maybe they can get to the point where they can beat Ohio State. But focusing on that too early is not going to beneficial for this team or its fanbase. Let the team grow, mature and evolve and grow during the year and focus one game at a time.”
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