Everything Lou Esposito said during his spring press conference

On Rayshaun Benny's status

He's still injured. When you say available, not available to play but he's done an unbelievable job this spring coaching guys and helping guys out. You watch him at every practice, he's grabbing guys. That's the one thing I talked to him about. How do you keep guys involved when they're not able to physically go out there? He's done an unbelievable job. He meets with me twice a week, we watch his plays from last year. When we're out on the field, he becomes another coach for some of those guys we're trying to build depth with. He's done a great job with that.

On whether Benny will be back for fall camp

Yeah, he should be back for camp. He'll be ready to rock.

On the offseason for defensive line coaches at Michigan

I've been at Western Michigan for the last six years as the defensive coordinator there. Then I took a new job at Memphis, my alma mater, in January. Kind of been a whirlwind. I was there for a couple of months and then coach gave me a call and I had the opportunity to come back and I jumped at it. It's been awesome for me.

On coming into a loaded defensive line room

The biggest thing I told them is that we're not trying to reinvent the wheel, I'm just trying to get you better. Anything I can do to get guys better. It's like anything else. When you see a movie, right, you watch a movie a couple times, you see different things. For me, just hearing the same message in a different way triggers something for the guys. At the end of the day, if I can do that for them, which I think I've been doing, it'll help their game out tremendously and I think that's what the good thing is about that room. We have guys that want to work, guys that are trying to do things the right way, they do exactly what coach asks them to do and it's been a special group in the short time I've been here.

On the priority of recruiting in-state kids at Michigan

I think we're at a place where you recruit the best players. If you have guys that are the same, you take the in-state guys for sure. Our footprint at Michigan has been, we're gonna go get the best players. I think that's important for us. Michigan always comes first, you always recruit your backyard first.

On other players who are stepping on the interior

I think Ike (Iwunnah) has done a great job this spring for us. He's played a lot of snaps. Enow (Etta), we've had the ability to move him from outside to inside and inside to outside. He's a 6'4, 292-pound kid that ran an 11.3 100 out of high school. He's a really, really good athlete. It's just that he has to learn as you get closer to the ball, the hand combat becomes quicker. It gets on you faster. The further away from the ball, it kinds of takes a little bit of time and you can use your athletic ability out there. I think the biggest thing for him is getting some of those inside reps has really helped him on the edge. Now when you put him on the edge, some of the weaknesses that he had, he doesn't have anymore in the physicality part. He's been extremely physical all spring and he's a big part of what we're gonna do moving forward.

On his recruiting philosophy and how he's able to develop

I think the biggest thing, I've had an opportunity to coach a lot of guys that have played in the NFL. Guys who have played in the NFL all have one trait that is the same. Different heights, different weights but the trait that they all have is that they want to work. They're like sponges. You don't have to stay on those guys because the one thing that doesn't change with guys who play at that next level is their work ethic. Those guys all have that. That's the first thing, is the guy gonna work? Are they self-starters? I think that's the big thing. Obviously, there's traits that you want like ankle flexibility, the ability to bend, the ability to carry weight at a high velocity with disregarding your body. All those traits that those guys have that play at the next level, all the guys we've developed have had that. I think the next thing is do they fit in your puzzle. Every body has a different puzzle but can they fit in our system? I felt like the guys that are gonna get their names called have all done that. Fiske can fit anywhere. He's a kid from Northern Indiana that went to Florida State and became a captain. Marshawn Kneeland is an unbelievable athlete. The other thing I'll tell you about both of those guys are they were severely under-recruited. We were their only offers. Meeting the kid, working the kid out, meeting their family, seeing their work ethics, all those things happened. The work ethic is, to me, the number one thing you gotta have. If they're willing to do it, you make them special.

On whether the coaching staff have discussed the NCAA penalties

Honestly, I've been here two-and-a-half weeks, I haven't discussed any of that. I've tried to hit the ground running. Learning our players, learning the scheme, learning about what's here. I have no comment on that right now.

On whether the NCAA investigations were part of his thought process when taking the job

I didn't talk about that. I don't think it's something I thought about moving forward with this. Michigan just won the national championship, they're the best team in the country. I didn't really think about that too much.

On working with Steve Casula

Coach Casula has an unbelievable knack of connecting with players is the first thing. He connects with guys, he gets the most out of guys. The second thing was is that he's a tireless recruiter and he works at it all the time. He has an unbelievable knack of remembering guys. We would be in recruiting meetings and he was a GA and he would say, hey, coach, play 56, the guy really dipped his shoulder and dipped around the edge there and made a tackle. I'd be like, how did you know that? We just watched 10,000 clips. He would just regurgitate all that information. I knew right then. He's a better person than he is a coach. His family, I'm actually staying at his place now. I just told him that I'm the best house guest he's ever had. I won't tell his parents that because they're pretty good, too. He's a better person. The guy would literally give you the shirt off his back. That's why I knew from the jump that I want to surround myself with as many good people as I can.

On being animated in practice and his coaching style

To me, I think at the end of the day, it's always feedback, right? All I can be is who I am. I am not anybody different. My father and my mom raised me, be who you are. I do think different kids respond differently. It's like being a teacher. You have some you've got to put your arm around, some people you can hoot and holler at, some people you gotta show, some people you walk through, you put it on video. I just think, for me, I'm always going to be the first person they look at because I'm their position coach so they're going to feed off my energy. I'm a big believer, you put positive out, you get positive back. I'm going to be positive. I am the luckiest person in the world. I've got four great kids, I've got a great wife, I'm coaching at the best school in America. I am the luckiest person in the world. For me, I'm going to portray that to our players so there will be a time where they get 8 plays in a row and it's fourth and 1 and they just converted and now we gotta put our back against the wall a little bit. When they see that positive attitude from me, now all of a sudden, I hope it makes it a little easier for them. Again, positive feeds off positive, that's what I try to be as much as I can. Not all the gestures are positive, I promise you that. It's all coming from a good place, all in my heart.

On conversations he's had with the players about the transfer portal

I think the biggest thing for me is that they love this place. Michigan, for me, is unlike anywhere else in the country. I truly believe that and they believe it. I feel like that's something that speaks for itself. As far as the open conversations, I'm a big body so if anyone wants to talk to them, they gotta get around me.

On adjusting to a new defensive scheme

Football, the fundamentals are the same. Tackling, getting off blocks, running to the football, it's all the same. As far as the scheme, it's new to me. I haven't coached in a scheme like this. There's calls where it will be, oh, that's like the call that I did. There's a game or a twist, that's what it is. I'm trying to learn as we go. Coach Wink and the defensive staff have been awesome with me. I truly believe this, they're the best coaches in the game. There's a reason why they're here. The way Coach Wink sets everything and what we do and how we communicate to the players makes it super easy. I'm learning on the fly, too, because I went from running my own scheme for a long time, then I go to Memphis and learn a scheme and then now I'm here learning a scheme and I'm learning the players and everything else. I just think Coach Wink's philosophy, make it easy so they can play fast. That's what we do. It's been great. I think when you surround yourself with great players and you surround yourself with great coaches, it makes me learning way easier. It has to be the same way with the kids.

On Michigan's EDGE success

We have some special guys there. Between Stewart, D-Mo and Guy and some of those young kids that have come along. Brandt. There's some special players there. Then you get the inside kids mixed in there. What it does, when you have a good defensive front, you can't just scheme one guy. They can't say we are going to scheme to Mason. We're going to go slide to D-Mo, we're going to slide to Stewart. There's so many guys out there so it opens everybody else up. That's the key to having a deep front. One of the biggest reasons we won the national championship here last year was because of the depth up front and I think that's what we have to keep building. Keep building, keep building.

On Trey Pierce

He's done a great job. I got to come here, he's practiced a couple times, he got dinged up a little bit. He's come back and got dinged back up. He's really progressing. I think the biggest thing for Trey is just realizing what he can do. I feel like, for me, I constantly talk to him and meet with him about the things he does really, really well. Let's keep doing those things really well and work on the things we need, maybe, to be a little bit better in. He's been great. He's a sponge. He's been around almost two or three times a week with me one-on-one so he's done a great job. I expect him to have a good fall and we need him to have a good fall. We've got to build that depth.

On whether Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant are the best DL duo in the country

I haven't watched everybody else but if there's two d-tackles better than them, I would love to see them playing as a group. I think they each do something different which makes each better if that makes sense. KG is a huge person that has unbelievable feet, unbelievable quickness but can beat you with power at any moment. You have to be prepared for that as an offensive lineman. Mason is a guy where you can see he was a high school wrestler. He plays with great leverage, he understands the transfer of weight and he understands his hands and he's just getting better and better and better. I've challenged those guys every day, you ask them, they get challenged every day. It doesn't matter what you did last year, what matters is what you do today. I think both those guys have bought into it and have done a great job. They're great leaders of the defense, great leaders of the team.

On whether he envisions both Grant and Graham on the field at the same time

As many plays as we can. Again, I don't know as much going into it. Every gameplan is different. You want your best players on the field as much as you can. The interior d-lineman, the reps, you don't want to get their reps too high because their level of play comes down. You want them playing at a high level and it's back to what I said before, the reason why we were so good up front was because they were so deep, they could just roll bodies in and bodies in and not skip a beat and that's what we're trying to get to right now.

On balancing his time between coaching and the transfer portal

I think it just goes into recruiting. It just opened up today and it's like anything else. We have really good players here and we're fortunate in that way but you're always looking to upgrade the roster. In recruiting at any level, whether it's a high school kid or a transfer kid. If you feel like he's going to help you win and there's room for them, you want to upgrade your roster as much as we can. Coach does a great job, we have defensive meeting times, we have position meeting times, we have recruiting times and our recruiting staff is 24/7 working. I'll walk back here after this thing and they'll be like, hey, you see this kid? Did you see this kid? Nah, I didn't get to see them yet. You try to do as much as you can and we do a great job of organizing recruiting and times we get to physically sit down and watch it. If there's a kid that can help us win, we're going to try and grab them.

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