Jesse Minter has high expectations for Michigan secondary

Michigan is one of the prohibitive favorites to compete for the national championship in 2023 in large part because of an offense that returns effectively every major piece. But defensive coordinator Jesse Minter has high, high hopes for the Michigan defense, one that will be lead by an experience group in the secondary.

Beyond combine darling DJ Turner and fellow cornerback Gemon Green heading to the 2023 NFL Draft, Michigan returns every defensive back who played notable snaps in 2022. And they added a solid group of freshman to the room, too, spurring Minter to rave about the group on a recent episode of the “In the Trenches” podcast published by Michigan football.

“It’ll be our job as coaches to put the best combination of five players on the field when we have five DBs on the field and that could be really any combination of those guys,” Minter said.

Outside of running back, safety is perhaps the deepest and most experienced position on the entire Michigan roster. The Wolverines return all three players who took the vast majority of snaps at the position: junior Rod Moore and seniors Makari Paige and R.J. Moten.

Moore, who is listed (generously) at 6 feet tall on the Michigan roster, was the third leading tackler for the Wolverines in 2022 and lead the team with four interceptions, including a pick in the Fiesta Bowl against TCU. Paige and Moten weren’t terribly far behind Moore, each finishing in the top 10 on the squad in tackles and nabbing an interception.

More than their production, Minter values having three experienced “traffic cops” seeing the defense in front of them. The trio of safeties have played in 69 total games at Michigan.

“The safeties are always the traffic control cops. And to have experience there, to have older guys that have played and played a lot and know what it takes to communicate at a high level is a major advantage,” Minter said.

Continuing to cornerback, Minter was high on the work that star sophomore Will Johnson has done. Johnson, a five-star recruit and crown jewel of the 2022 signing class for Michigan came on strong at the end of the 2022 season. He flashed in front of a national audience with a two-interception performance against Purdue in the Big Ten championship game. He finished with three interceptions in his true freshman campaign.

Minter sees a new aura of confidence with the second-year corner now, though.

“But he really trusted the process and played his best ball when we needed him to play his best ball. Just really excited to see him evolve and go into Year 2 with, now — now real confidence. I think when you come in as a freshman you have, like, ‘Oh, I’m this highly-recruited guy.’ And Will was always pretty humble. But now he has tangible evidence that he can do, he can cover,” Minter said.

Along with Johnson, wideout-turned-nickel corner (and secondary Swiss army knife) Mike Sainristil will feature heavily for the Wolverines in the 2023 secondary. After beginning his Michigan career by moving from defensive back to wide receiver, Sainristil made the transition back ahead of the 2022 season and became a consistent force on the defense. With his ability to play outside corner, safety, and preferably nickel back, Minter has much more flexibility to toy around with.

And that will be helpful as the Wolverines answer the one question in the secondary: Who will start at outside corner opposite Johnson? The early favorite is another wideout-turned-defensive back in Amorion Walker.

Walker took his lumps in the spring game, with a few receivers getting the better of him. But with his physical tools and where he’s at in learning the position, Minter is happy with where Walker is on the learning curve.

“What I say is he has the traits, the skills to be able to play the position. He hasn’t played the position enough to be really, really comfortable yet. I think, you know, he might not like me saying this but I think one of the best things that happened to him was the spring game and going through a little bit of adversity, having guys make plays,” Minter said.