Michigan's defense was the star of the show in the team's 51-7 win over Colorado State on Saturday.

By most people's standards, a defensive performance that included seven sacks, 11 tackles for loss, a pick-six, and a scoop-and-score, is as pristine as it gets.

U-M defensive line coach Mike Elston is in his first year on the staff after spending over a decade at Notre Dame.

While the defensive line wasn't responsible for all of the production, it still tallied half of the team's sack total and seven of its 11 TFLs. Plus, defensive end Mike Morris forced a fumble that led to a scoop-and-score, recovered by cornerback DJ Turner.

Elston's debut went as well as anyone imagined it could after coming in his first year, forced to replace the meteoric production of Aidan Hutchinson & David Ojabo.

Still, in his first time speaking to the media since Saturday, Elston showed no complacency in the defensive line's efforts.

"We played hard, ran to the football, played very physical up front. Did a really good job of block destruction across the board. Substitutions, we rotated a lot of guys in. You do that a lot of times on game one, you can have some mistakes -- 10 guys, 12 guys on the field -- our guys handled that really, really well. We had some drives that extended a little bit, and we were able to rally four guys in, five guys in," Elston said. "I love doing that. I think that keeps guys fresh. I think production goes up for guys that are able to go out there and know they're going to play four or five plays, and if the drive extends, we can get them out. I feel like we had a great push in the pocket for the most part."

Elston continued, unprompted, in his opening statement.

"There are areas of improvement that we're gonna work on that we're working on this week. It was a very clean game. No penalties up front. Sometimes, in game one, you get guys who are excited, and they jump offsides. There were a lot of hard counts in the game, and I think our guys handled that very, very well. Areas we can improve: An even better effort running to the football. We can improve there. Even though we did a great job in game 1, we can make a huge stride in game 2. More consistent block destruction. Better get-offs -- I feel like as the game went on, we got more concerned trying to see what they were doing and reading blocks instead of just coming off the football and knocking guys back. Would love to see improvement in that area, across the front."

Ironically enough, the Wolverines lead the nation in sacks after Week 1, tied with Michigan State at the top of the leaderboard.

Seven sacks later, Elston thinks his defensive line has only scratched the surface of its potential.

"Overall, I think we can more disruptive in the pass rush. We left a lot of production on the field. We need to finish a couple of moves or a couple of movements. We fell off the quarterback. You got to be able to wrap the quarterback and get on his throwing arm and take him down. We left some production on the field."

What did the first-year assistant find out about his new group on Saturday?

"We got a lot of guys that can play winning football. We can rotate a lot of guys in. The next step in Week 2 is that we're trying to build guys who can play championship-level football. And when you go on the football field, you're going to be expected to do that," he said. "Early on, you're seeing what guys can do, and a lot of guys played very, very well. But our goal is to play championship-level football as we get into the rest of the season."

The former Wolverine is back in Ann Arbor, and any first-game jitters are gone as if there were any.

Heading into Week 2, it's all business for Elston, who sees what his group can become if it continues to ascend without feeling comfortable about its current success.

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