One of the big narratives that Michigan football fans have openly discussed after Wink Martindale was hired to lead the Wolverines defense is what it will look like compared not only to the past three years but to the defenses of years past.
The aggressive, blitz-heavy coordinator has drawn a lot of comparisons to former defensive leader Don Brown — who was nicknamed Dr. Blitz during his time in Ann Arbor. But on a subscriber Q&A with Champions Circle members, Martindale stressed that there is no comparison between he and his distant predecessor.
“There’s a narrative out there right now, one of the things is — and I’m telling all the listeners: I don’t listen to radio, I don’t read articles or anything else — But there’s a narrative now that some people are afraid it’s going back to the old school Don Brown system,” Martindale said. “That’s not the case whatsoever. To me, that’s profiling just because I’m old and Brown’s old. You can you can’t put us together.”
So, what will it look like? In a lot of ways, it will look similar to what the defense looked like under Mike Macdonald and Jesse Minter — but Martindale will certainly put his spin on it.
Even so, Martindale will tinker, and he’s already doing so in his mind. Of course, he has to get used to the personnel, and he’ll get the best view once fall camp comes around.
“This is Michigan’s defense. This is Sherrone’s defense. And if you take one of those elements out next year, yeah, it’s still the same system,” Martindale said. “But there will still be another little personality thing to it. And it comes down to who’s calling the game, as well — which I’ll be calling the games.
“But yeah, the defense has so much flexibility. We haven’t even talked about the players yet. It has so much flexibility. It shows the personality of who’s coaching the defense, and we’re all coaching — this is a we thing, this isn’t an I thing. We’re all coaching it and I’m looking forward to this month being over with all the official visits and — alright, I’ll tell you, I’m looking forward to vacation weeks away, but also I’ll be continually thinking about different ways, different looks, different things that we can do.”