Previously: Podcast 14.0A, 14.0B, 14.0C. The Story. Quarterback. Running Back. Wide Receiver. Tight End. Offensive Tackle. Interior OL. Defensive Interior. Edge. Linebacker. Cornerback. Safety. Special Teams. 5Q5A Offense.

1. Does losing Mike Macdonald matter?

Probably. Unlike Gattis, Macdonald did not make a lateral move, and his trajectory from nobody to position coach to college DC to NFL DC speaks volumes about what the Ravens organization thinks about him. It's no disrespect to Jesse Minter to say that Michigan would have been better off if Macdonald had set up shop in Ann Arbor for several years. (Schematically, anyway. Macdonald reportedly loathed recruiting with the fury of a thousand suns.)

HOWEVA, that does not necessarily mean this year's team is going to be hindered by the transition. Going from Don Brown's all-man all-the-time approach to the Raven's diverse collection of fronts and zones is jarring. A few different players had issues with the change—or in the case of the freshmen linebackers, with trying to absorb it fresh. Gemon Green was iffy in zones, and when I was going over DL clips I think I found several instances where one guy was running a stunt and the other guy wasn't. Brown used stunts, of course, but whenever you change your playbook and your terminology you lose all that familiarity and increase the chances you bust.

Losing a DC after one year re-imposes all those costs… unless it doesn't.

Jesse Minter is a branch of the Ravens coaching tree and he has seven years as a college DC under his belt. Sam Webb on the transition, or lack thereof:

The commonality in scheme with former defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald has been obvious and has allowed for exactly the kind of seamless transition Harbaugh hoped for when he made the hire. The familiarity for the players has made the install of new elements very smooth, especially when it comes to pressure.

The defensive nomenclature certainly hasn't changed from last year, with Harbaugh announcing a 3-4 style defensive depth chart just like last year's. Minter brings the best of both worlds: continuity from the Ravens and college experience.

What he does not bring is much of a track record. His single year at an abominable Vanderbilt program (2-10 last year, 122nd in SP+, 115th on D) is no data at all. He did do an encouraging job with Georgia State, which transitioned to D-1 in 2013, his first year with the program. After two years stuck near the bottom of FEI (119th and 128th, the latter dead last) on teams that went 1-23, GSU popped up to somewhat respectable (81st and 76th) in 2015 and 2016. Building a fresh-to-FBS program into a defense in the vicinity of 2016 MSU, Kentucky, Maryland, and Arizona State is something. And he moved up over time with the Ravens.

I'd rather have kept Macdonald, even with a recruiting gap, but Minter is a young up-and-comer who came through a good organization and has one build job in his past that looks encouraging. It'll probably be fine.

2. What are we gonna do without Hutchabo?

one for the road [Bryan Fuller]

One chart on the magnitude of the loss here:

AIDAN HUTCHINSON

Game	Plus	Minus	Tot	Notes
WMU	23	1	22	Did this on like 30 snaps. WMU just overmatched.
Washington	16.5	2	14.5	No friggin way this equals that?
NIU	10	1	9	In ~20 snaps while NIU was trying to avoid him.
Rutgers	24	1	23	5th overall pick? Sure. Didn't come off the field in the 2nd half.
Wisconsin	25	2	23	Gonna go out on a limb and say we missed him last year.
Nebraska	30.5	3.5	27	PFF's DPotW again so I'm not crazy.
Northwestern	17	2	15	The usual.
MSU	29	7.5	21.5	Had to do a lot more LB things. Big mitts in passing lanes.
Indiana	27	5	22	The usual plus a lot of coverage grades.
Penn State	22	5	17	Had PSU's snaps timed.
Maryland	25	1	24	"Oh wait, that's just McGregor!" —Me when when a play wasn't wrecked and I thought it was Hutchinson for a hot second.
OSU	40.5	1	39.5	The most outstanding player in college football.
Iowa	19	1	18	Iowa surrendered their entire offense to avoid this.
Georgia	15	4.5	10.5	UGA's gameplan avoided him entirely.

Ye gods. How on earth is Michigan going to replace that? With six different guys. These are the guys:

• MIKE MORRIS: holds down his end of the deal as a run defender. There is every reason to believe he can approach Hutchinson's ability in this department. Match? No. But get close enough that people still don't want to run at Michigan's SDE.
• MAZI SMITH and KRIS JENKINS: go from occasional pass rush contributors to unblockable problems.
• JUNIOR COLSON: operates as Devin Bush missile now that Michigan ramps up its fire zone game.
• RANDOM EDGE ATHLETE: Eyabi Anoma, Derrick Moore, or Braiden McGregor steps in to be a passing-down threat.
• JESSE MINTER: unleashes all the stunts and blitzes.

Michigan's sack numbers did not leap up last year and they will not collapse this year. It's not going to look the same, but Michigan will be able to patch the holes and fill the shoes, even if it takes six guys to do so.

Scheme is going to be the most important component here. As mentioned in the edge post, when you have lots of guys who can push the pocket stunting becomes an extremely profitable way to get after the QB. Add in a guy like Colson blitzing to that confusion and you can have a lot of rabid squirrel moments. Minter seems well-positioned to take advantage of the pieces he has. Olu Oluwatimi has been around the block and seen a lot of stuff and he said he was struggling against Minter just a week or so ago:

“They’re very good at disguising coverage, disguising blitzes and things of that nature. So it puts a stress on what I’m trying to point out, who’s coming, or protection or different things."

I'm not entirely sure how much credence to lend offseason chatter that Minter is the "defense's top star," as Webb asserted in an Inside The Sub post. Talk that directly addresses a perceived hole is often dodgy, but FWIW:

Multiple sources pointed out how he’s kept an explosive offense off balance at times with looks that they just weren’t expecting. When I asked around about who was standing out from a pass rush standpoint the response I got back was “it’s hard to say because (Minter) brings pressure from everywhere.”

This will put more pressure on players not to bust. Most fire zones will have one fewer guy in them, and when you're bringing pressure from everywhere you're putting guys in unusual positions on the back end. Last year the edge rushers allowed Michigan to avoid most of the crazy Ravens stuff, and sometimes cover for guys who made a mistake. This year we're likely to see more busts.

3. For the love of God are we ever going to get competent defending tempo?

This was the one thing that seemed to get worse under Macdonald. Michigan has never been a particularly good tempo team on either side of the ball under Jim Harbaugh, but it never seemed quite as bad as it did last year. Things were at their nadir against Michigan State, when substitution attempts like this saw Michigan pick up multiple too many men on the field penalties:

Michigan tried to work on this midseason and had some success against Penn State…

Are we still the worst tempo team in the country?

Not against PSU. They certainly tried it—I’ve never seen a Franklin team get to the line so fast or snap so many plays with 30+ seconds on the clock. Penn State averaged 3.85 yards and –0.22 expected points added per play when they went tempo, versus 3.65 yards and –0.18 EPA/play when they did not. They did mess with the linebackers, especially Colson, but Michigan was so well prepared for it that I ended up clipping half of those tempo plays.

…but issues recurred against Ohio State:

There was also a swing pass in that game where Michigan was looking to the sideline when the ball was snapped. The play above and the swing pass were some of the only easy yards OSU got in that game. They are chunks—even if this isn't happening a ton it's a major problem.

This wasn't just a "coach 'em up" situation. The NFL has a much more lackadaisical approach to getting the ball set, which gives you time to get in calls from the sideline. In college sometimes you just need to have automatic checks:

One thing you see in Don Brown's 2017 playbook: his Day 1 base calls + checks account for almost everything you can imagine seeing circa 2017. He has a quads unbalanced check. Whoever has Mac's playbook let me know (for real for real) but I'll bet that wasn't how they did it.

— Manuel Excel (@colintj) August 24, 2022

Michigan's approach under Macdonald was fundamentally vulnerable to tempo.

Minter has been around the block in college and hopefully ran across some small schools who drank from the #chaosteam-era Indiana firehose. History under Harbaugh suggests Michigan isn't suddenly going to be super-competent here, but they should be better. This is something to keep an eye on during the nonconference schedule, assuming any of Michigan's opponents are competent enough to run tempo.

4. Is Ben Herbert that dude?

ready to go [Patrick Barron]

It is a long tradition for Michigan fans to either loathe or lionize their strength coach. I think we're overdue for a lionization period.

To wit: DJ Turner was not a slug in high school. He finished 20th in that year's testing at the Opening*. But his recruiting profile notes that "even that top 20 SPARQ at the Opening didn't see Turner get out of the 4.6s in his 40" and compared him to Brandon Watson. Fast forward four years and Turner's in the Freaks article and running stride for stride with Roman Wilson.

Or take Mazi Smith, a guy who couldn't string two snaps together as a freshman. His recruiting profile is littered with references to inconsistent effort levels borne of a lack of conditioning:

…nice blend of size, quickness and agility, but the initial key for him will be improving his consistency in all areas. He possesses the physical tools you look for in a player at the position but shows them in flashes. He needs to maximize his abilities and execute his technique from play-to-play.

Now he's the #1 freak in the country.

It does appear that when Feldman calls for his annual article that Michigan rolls out the red carpet. They're one of very few schools to provide video to Feldman. That helps. But the consistency with which Michigan is dumping guys at the very top of those rankings is something. Mazi is one thing—he was always a bear in a human suit who just needed to get his endurance up. Nobody was projecting Kwity Paye and Aidan Hutchinson to be the most athletic guys in the country.

Then consider Michigan's injury situation. The injuries they suffered last year were things generally understood to be outside the realm of strength and conditioning: Bell's torn ACL, Zinter's broken hand, Corum's sprained ankle. Overtraining injuries are almost nonexistent. There is no Drake Harris on this team with a perpetually pulled hamstring.

Michigan's recruiting has been good; their player development is what got them to the Big Ten title a year ago. They ran out a ton of guys who blew past their recruiting rankings. That's part scouting, part coaching, and part Ben Herbert.

*[For what it's worth the strike rate from that year's top twenty is insane. It includes Nolan Smith, Owen Pappoe, Nakobe Dean, Derek Stingley, Zach Harrison, Dax Hill, Kayvon Thibodeaux, Trent McDuffie, and Turner. Also… Giles Jackson.]

5. Well?

There are many reasons for optimism despite the three elite guys the NFL scooped up. Michigan has an established AA-level corner and should be able to bookend him with a 6'2" five star by midseason. Both DTs are progressing like they will blow up, and you can solve a multitude of sins with impact DTs. There's enough bodies at DE to hope that someone will break through, and there's continuity despite the DC switch.

Unlike the offense, though, there are a number of players who are indispensable. That includes both inside linebackers, one of whom is already dinged up and will miss the CSU game, probably both defensive tackles, Mike Morris, and probably DJ Turner. You could ship any two offensive players to Kazakhstan and unless you hit both RBs or both QBs you'd be fine. Things are much hairier on defense.

As far as problems go this is minor (unless it's major). Michigan has experience across the defensive front. I count seven likely-to-surefire draft picks in the starting lineup if you assume Will Johnson enters it midseason (Johnson, Turner, Morris, Smith, Jenkins, Colson, Moten). There are only a couple of peripheral spots where they're rolling with a freshman or a position switch starter.

With average injury luck this should be a quality unit, and one capable of big things opposite the offense.

BETTER

• Breakout versions of Mazi and Jenkins >> Last year versions
• Non-freshman versions of Colson and NHG >> freshman versions
• Full time, fully weaponized DJ Turner > Half-season Turner
• Gemon Green + Will Johnson > Gemon Green + Vincent Gray
• RJ Moten > younger Moten

SAME

• Michael Barrett == Michael Barrett
• Mason Graham, Cam Goode, other backup DTs == Hinton, give or take
• Functional Makari Paige == Rod Moore as third safety

WORSE

• Mike Morris <<< Aidan Hutchinson
• Large Variety Of WDE Types << David Ojabo
• Cobbled together nickel << Dax Hill
• Rod Moore < Ancient All-Seeing Brad Hawkins
• Questionable Linebacker depth << Josh Ross

LAST YEAR'S STUPID PREDICTIONS

These were Seth's:

Hutchinson draws a ton of offensive attention or they run away from him. We are banging on the table for him to be an All-American, and feel only somewhat vindicated when he’s a first round pick.

Insufficiently optimistic; Hutchinson was a consensus All-American, Heisman finalist, and #2 overall pick. Half point.

Safety blitzes are back for the first time since Kovacs, and Dax Hill finally gets to do some cool stuff. He finishes the season with 4+ sacks.

Safety blitzes did occur but not frequently enough to declare them back. Dax Hill had half a sack because who needed Dax Hill to sack anyone last year? No points.

DJ Turner II isn’t the answer either, and Vincent Gray reclaims a starting job at some point in the season. CB remains a trouble spot all year; Ja’Den McBurrows sees the field before the 2020 freshmen.

DJ Turner was the answer, but to the question "who starts next to Vincent Gray." McBurrows got hurt, so incomplete. CB was not a trouble spot. One third of a point.

Jess Speight plays almost as much as Jeter and Hinton, and this is because Speight can play. All three grade out well in UFR.

Speight was a bit player. No points.

Backup nose is a problem, and a pretty big one because Mazi Smith needs to rotate. They try a lot of guys there. Jordan Whittley is not the answer, but he’s part of the goal line unit and is an absolute unit. It ends up being one of the DTs and this is not ideal.

Michigan's starting DT pair was a far sight better than their backups and it was frustrating that they rotated so much for most of the season. Whittley was a not-very-useful absolute unit. One point.

Michigan uses a lot of weird personnel packages. One has lots of linebackers and we name it. They spend more time in a nickel than their 5-2.

The rush unit was 4 DEs and did get named racecar. Personnel packages were decidedly un-weird. The nickel thing is so much of a slam dunk that I am not evaluating it. One third of a point.

They use multiple coverages but base out of two-high (Cov2/Quarters).

One point.

Nikhai Hill-Green sticks at WLB and figures into our future plans. Junior Colson is rotating with the starters by the end of the year, but has some major freshman moments.

Colson started immediately but otherwise accurate. One point.

Michigan is significantly better but not good, finishing around 40th in SP+. This includes a much improved performance against Wisconsin. Ohio State scores fewer than 100.

Michigan rebounded all the way to 10th in SP+, throttled Wisconsin, and Ohio State did not score 100. Quarter point.

THIS YEAR'S STUPID PREDICTIONS

• DJ Turner is All Big Ten and a first round pick. He doesn't get Thorpe chatter because he's avoided.
• Michigan's sack count goes up from last year's 34, but no individual picks up more than 6.
• Mazi Smith is 0.8 Mo Hursts and is a second-round pick.
• Linebacker remains a trouble spot all year, with regular mistakes from the still-youthful starters and injury issues bringing patently unready players onto the field.
• Mike Sainristil holds the nickel corner job all year and is draftable as a DB.
• Mason Graham is the best freshman DT since MGoBlog started tracking things.
• Derrick Moore emerges midseason into a Josh Uche-like rush threat and everyone is hyped about him going in to next year.
• Ditto Will Johnson, although this may qualify as a layup.
• Michigan backslides in SP+, but only slightly to 15th.