Wink Martindale pushes back on Don Brown comparisons: 'This is our defense. This is Michigan's defense'

Michigan Wolverines football will have a familiar defensive scheme this season under coordinator Wink Martindale, who was one of the originators of the system while with the Baltimore Ravens, where he spent 10 seasons including his final four as coordinator (2018-21). However — and Martindale will be the first to admit it — every play-caller has their own style.

Martindale is known to be aggressive — more so than previous coordinators Mike Macdonald (2021) and Jesse Minter (2022-23), which could make some fans uneasy given the level of success the Maize and Blue have experienced in recent years.

The Ravens ranked first in the NFL in blitz rate for three-straight seasons under Martindale’s watch (2018-20), before coming in eighth in 2021. He was first (2022) and second (2023) in his two seasons with the New York Giants, too.

But just because he’s known to bring pressure doesn’t mean Michigan won’t protect its bases — and Martindale believes comparisons to former U-M defensive coordinator Don Brown (2016-20), whose nickname is ‘Dr. Blitz,’ are unfair. Martindale is aggressive, but his defenses are also known for their many fronts and coverages, disguises for each of those, and ability to adapt.

“There’s a narrative out there right now — and one of the things is, I don’t listen to the radio and 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 on the Champions Circle Leaders Series with Jake Butt. “That’s not the case whatsoever. To me, that’s profiling. Just because I’m old and Don Brown’s old, you can’t put us together.

“I’m proud of the coaches that have come out from underneath this defensive tree and that’s worked with me and that’s gone on. There’s [D’Anton] Lynn at USC — he was with me. Anthony Weaver is the defensive coordinator at Miami — he was with me. Of course, you know Mike went to Seattle, Jesse’s the Chargers’ [defensive coordinator]. Brian Duker is down at Miami [as secondary coach]. We were all together there, and there are a bunch of guys … Drew Wilkins, who’s at New England now [as outside linebackers coach].

“There are a bunch of guys who have been through this tree, and they understand the flexibility of the defense and the success you can have. So it’s a fun defense to coach and, listening to the kids, it’s a fun defense to play in.”

‘Flexibility’ is a key word for the Michigan coordinator’s system, and it was one of the geneses of how it was born.

“It all started, really, with [Ravens head coach] John Harbaugh. Which no one understands unless you’re in that room, I mean, the Harbaugh family I have so much respect for — and all they do is win, whoever they’re coaching with, wherever they’re coaching. And John, when he hired me as the defensive coordinator, he charged me with, ‘Hey, I want to be more flexible with what we do.’

“And what it was, it was from names of the past of going back Dean Pees, Greg Mattison, Chuck Pagano, Rex Ryan. And it had just become tangled kite string of a defense, where everybody … they couldn’t play as fast as we wanted them to play. And John said, ‘Let’s simplify this thing and yet also make it flexible enough that you can call whatever front you want and have easy ways to close the front.’ We went from that to pressures, from pressures to coverage. And it’s just a bunch of concepts that we can play to the personnel that we have.

“And I think it helped that I was an educator when I first started this thing as a teacher. The way we did it, it was about a six-month project of designing this defense. And then everybody else has put their own mix on it.”

That includes this year with Michigan, even though Martindale is extremely experienced, having coached in the NFL for 20 seasons, including seven as a coordinator. The Wolverines’ staff has been collaborative, with all three other defensive assistants possessing coordinator experience — defensive line coach Lou Esposito, linebackers coach Brian Jean-Mary and secondary coach LaMar Morgan.

“Even this year with the staff that we have — [head coach] Sherrone [Moore] hired a great defensive staff. I have one of my guys with me, Kevin Wilkins, who is an analyst — hopefully they pass that where the analysts can coach, because he’s a great coach. We have LaMar, Lou and BJ as the main guys who all have coordinating experience, so of course I’m going to lean on them heavily going back from pro to college.

“And it’ll be our mix. This is gonna be our defense. This is Michigan’s defense. This is Sherrone’s defense. And if you take one of those elements out next year, it’s still the same system, but there will still be another little personality thing to it. And it comes down to who’s calling the games, as well. Which I’ll be calling the games.

“But the defense has so much flexibility, and we haven’t even talked about the players yet. It has so much flexibility that it shows the personality of who’s coaching the defense — and we’re all coaching it. 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 — a couple weeks away — but also I’ll be continually thinking about different ways, different looks, different things that we can do.”