Jesse Minter quietly doing fantastic job with Michigan football defense

When Michigan Wolverines football head coach Jim Harbaugh needed a new defensive coordinator ahead of the 2021 season, he placed a call to a trusted agent and known friend. His brother, Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh, pointed to two members of his own staff as great candidates to lead the Maize and Blue defense. Jim Harbaugh interviewed both Mike Macdonald, who he ended up hiring, and Jesse Minter, a runner-up of sorts who wound up coordinating the Vanderbilt defense in 2021.

When Macdonald left Michigan to return to Baltimore as defensive coordinator, Harbaugh reached back out to Minter and brought him to Ann Arbor. Continuity played a huge factor, and Minter has said it’s “year two” of this Michigan defensive system even though it’s his first year on the staff.

It being largely the same defense has paved the way for Minter going under the radar. In some ways — a lot of them, really — it’s not a bad thing for a coordinator to stay out of the limelight at Michigan.

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Now, though, seven games in, it’s time to discuss the man, who, along with co-defensive coordinator and secondary coach Steve Clinkscale, is engineering a unit that ranks fourth nationally in total defense (250 yards allowed per game) and fifth in scoring defense (12.1 points per game).

Michigan also checks in first in the nation in stop rate, a metric created by The Athletic that reflects the percentage of a defense’s drives that end in punts, turnovers or a turnover on downs. The Wolverines have a 82.7 mark and are allowing only 0.96 points per drive.

STOP RATE

The best defenses in college football at getting stops and preventing points. We have a new No. 1 this week.

Full FBS standings: https://t.co/DPFO9f6wzG pic.twitter.com/6F5CGJYk11

— Max Olson (@max_olson) October 19, 2022

The Wolverines have high-level talent at each position, including a pair of linemen in senior EDGE Mike Morris (second team) and senior tackle Mazi Smith (first team) who were named midseason All-Americans by The Athletic and a cornerback in senior DJ Turner who CBS Sports considers a projected first-round pick. But there’s no No. 2 overall NFL Draft pick like Aidan Hutchinson, or a first-round talent on the opposite side of the line in David Ojabo, or a first-round nickel in Dax Hill.

More so than a season ago, Michigan’s defensive coordinator and his staff have had to get creative to create an effective pass rush. It was a struggle early on in the season, when after the fourth game against Maryland, the Wolverines ranked 90th nationally with a 27.6-percent pressure rate, including a 21.9-percent mark with four or less rushers (111th in the country). Minter was sending frequent blitzes, which helped manufacture a rush, but it also left the Maize and Blue more vulnerable with less men in coverage.

And then, things changed. At Iowa, Michigan sealed a 27-14 victory with 4 second-half sacks. The next week at Indiana, Michigan had 7 sacks from seven different players. And this past weekend versus Penn State, despite blitzing just seven times, the Wolverines had a pair of sacks and got in the face of Nittany Lions quarterback Sean Clifford.

“The pass rush has become like the closer in baseball,” Michigan radio play-by-play commentator Doug Karsch said. “If you have a lead, and Michigan’s defense can pin their ears back, they are tough to stop.”

A big reason for the jump in production has been an increase in creativity from Minter, defensive line coach Mike Elston and the rest of the staff. The Wolverines have used more stunts, games and twists up front, freeing up their pass rushers. They’ve simulated blitzes without actually having to bring extra rushers.

Players are also refining their moves, working hard to get to opposing quarterbacks.

“We’ve done some things in terms of line movements and stunts, but there have been a lot of really good one on one wins, and that’s been great to see,” Elston pointed out.

During Big Ten play, Michigan has totaled 16 sacks in four games. For context, Macdonald’s crew averaged 2.4 sacks per outing for the season in 2021.

In conference play, Michigan has created pressure on 37.3 percent of opponents’ drop-backs without blitzing, the third-best mark in the country during that span.

Michigan has also been an elite run defense, allowing just 85.9 yards per game. The last three opponents — Iowa, Indiana and Penn State — have ran for 35, 19 and 111 rushing yards, respectively. No team has gone over 140 rushing yards against the Wolverines.

Penn State, then ranked No. 10 in the country, was held to 10 offensive points in a 41-17 Michigan domination last weekend. Outside of a 62-yard run from Clifford, the Nittany Lions accumulated only 206 yards of offense. The PSU signal-caller completed only 36.8 percent of his passes, the worst mark of his career in a game in which he’s attempted 10 or more throws.

“It was a statement game,” head coach Jim Harbaugh said Monday on the Inside Michigan Football radio show. “Really was. I was looking for the defense to become dominant. Been a really good defense and they want to take it over the top. I thought they did that, really.”

For a second straight week, Minter was named the Big Ten’s Coordinator of the Week by On3’s Matt Zenitz.

There’s a lot to like about the Michigan defense through seven weeks, and it’s still building.

“We can get better, too,” Harbaugh added.