Jesse Minter speaks on bye week standouts, areas of emphasis
The Michigan Wolverines are back at work this week after a bye week, which was earmarked for rest and recovery in addition to improvements on the field. It was an opportunity week for younger players on the roster.
Defensive coordinator Jesse Minter was asked about a few guys that stood out to him during his Wednesday press conference in addition to the type of work that was put in with no game last week.
“It’s always good to see some of the scholarship guys who are redshirting, you’ve got guys like [freshman linebackers] Semaj Bridgeman and Jason Hewlett, those type of guys. Sometimes during the year, you’re coaching the guys who are playing. They’re on the look team or the exchange team, you’re not getting a chance to work with them as much. Those weeks are really good because we all get a chance to work with them. Coach gives them a lot of opportunities for those guys to play ball in front of the whole team and make a name for themselves. It’s great to see those types of guys get a chance.
“What you really love to see is that if they’re improving as the season goes on. We do it every Monday and then with the bye week, it adds in more opportunity for them. You just like to see those guys continuing to get better, focus on the details. Continue to learn the defense. You never know in this day and age when you’re going to need somebody. Particularly with the ability to play a guy for four games. You’re always trying to keep those guys improving, keep getting better and I think this program in particular does a great job with that.”
One of Michigan’s defensive pillars is ball disruption and forcing turnovers, and Minter has seen the team take major strides there this season.
“I think we’ve done a better job at attacking the ball, taking the ball away,” Minter said. “We’ve had a few more forced fumbles than we had even all of last year. Trying to attack the ball in the interception game. A huge, huge emphasis was after you get an interception, then what happens? Our ability to score with the ball, that is something that you have to practice. You can’t just assume somebody intercepts the ball and all the other guys know what to do. It turns into having Coach Jay on defense, it almost turns into a punt return concept.
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“Our ability to do something with the ball once we got it has been a huge area of emphasis as well. I think being disruptive on early downs, the tackle-for-loss game with our style of play was something we wanted to improve. It’s really just about trying to keep people from hitting big plays, scoring points and then trying to set our offense up with a short field as much as possible.
Michigan’s pick-sixes have been commonplace this season with four of them this year. The defense as a whole has surrendered five touchdowns total. The starters have allowed only three of them.
“A pick-six is really…sometimes it’s all 11 that have to react the right way,” Minter said. “Got to get the intended receiver blocked, got to get all these guys blocked. I think just the reaction. When you turn on the tape of a team, the reaction of what happens when they get an interception, we were poorly coached at it last year. That’s just self-reflection. Now I think we’re better coached at it and it’s showing up once we do get the ball.”
Michigan is back on action Saturday night against the Purdue Boilermakers at home. The game kicks off at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC.
