The Michigan Wolverines football program is off to its second 5-0 start of the Jim Harbaugh era with the latest victory coming in the form of a 38-17 blowout at Wisconsin. The win in Madison, the program's first since 2001, helped them match the 2016 squad's undefeated stretch to start the season.

Michigan is playing complementary football in all three phases of the game, but it is the defense that is drawing the most praise coming off of another stifling performance. The 17 points allowed at Wisconsin on Saturday are a season-high for the Wolverines, yet the 210 total yards of offense allowed was its second-best mark of the year. They held Northern Illinois to 207 yards in a 63-10 win in Week 3.

There is still plenty of work to do and a lot of football to play, but the progress in first-year coordinator Mike Macdonald's scheme has happened much faster than anticipated.

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Michigan currently ranks 12th in the country in total defense, allowing 285.8 yards per game. They have allowed 12.8 points per game allowed through five weeks, which is good for sixth in all of college football.

That trend holding for the Wolverines would put them in company with the two defenses that most consider the best of the Harbaugh era. The 2015 squad finished the season seventh in scoring defense (16.4 ppg), while the 2016 edition was the peak at second in the country (14.1 ppg).

Michigan's total defense currently ranks 12th in the nation at 285.8 yards per game but is a far cry from last season's output. The bottom fell out for the 2020 Wolverines, as they finished 87th in the country in total defense (437.8 yards per game) and 95th in scoring defense.

The performance from last season is a major outlier but was the culmination of a lot of tiny papercuts that were ripped open during the pandemic-altered campaign. It looks easy to write off on paper, but the dropoff was stunning enough to necessitate a complete overhaul of the defensive scheme.

So how does it stack up with the five-game starts from previous Harbaugh defenses? Let's take a closer look.

Harbaugh's first Michigan team had its work cut out for it in a road debut against Utah, which saw them fight hard but lose 24-17 and give up 337 total yards. What followed was a dominant stretch of games that saw the Wolverines outscore their opponents (Oregon State, UNLV, BYU, Maryland) 122-14. Michigan pitched shutouts in the last two games of that stretch and would take on a third the following week against Northwestern (38-0). Water would find its level a bit later in the year, but Michigan finished fourth in the country in total defense and 7th in scoring defense en route to a 10-3 record and the only bowl win of the Harbaugh era to this point. This was DJ Durkin's lone season at the helm of Michigan's defense before leaving for the Maryland head coaching job.

This unit was essentially an extension of the 2015 defense, as nearly all of its key players returned to a team with Big Ten title and College Football Playoff aspirations. There were a few outlier performances here (275 rushing yards allowed vs UCF, 261 passing yards vs. Colorado), but the group defensive coordinator Don Brown had in his first season was spectacular. Michigan racked up wins over Hawaii, UCF, Colorado, Penn State, and Wisconsin in that stretch and would start the season 9-0. This was the defensive peak of Harbaugh's time in Ann Arbor so far as they finished tied for first in total defense with Alabama and were second in the nation in scoring defense. The Wolverines ended 2016 with a 10-3 record after losses at Iowa and Ohio State and in the Orange Bowl against Florida State.

It would have been hard to top what the 2015 squad did in the first five games of the season, but this is a stretch of football that did its best to come close. Brown had his group playing extremely well despite needing to replace most of the starters that had either graduated or went to the NFL. The Wolverines did not allow more than 17 points in a game in this run of opponents. A 14-10 loss to Michigan State overshadowed what would have been a perfect start to the season. There would be a violent regression at Penn State (42-13 L) a few weeks later, but Michigan finished 2017 ranked third in total defense and 13th in scoring defense. Offensive woes put a lot of pressure on this group and the team finished with an 8-5 record.

The Wolverines suffered a loss in the first game of the season at Notre Dame but were able to find themselves quickly after that. Wins over Western Michigan, SMU, Nebraska, and Northwestern helped them put the opening-week loss behind them. They would go on to win six additional games in a row after that without surrendering more than 21 points in a game. That stretch could have put them in the conversation with some of the elite defenses in Michigan history, but things went south in a bad way the final two weeks of the year. Ohio State dropped 62 on the Wolverines in The Game and Florida tacked on an additional 41 points in a Peach Bowl loss. Michigan finished the season 10-3 and was second in total defense and 16th in scoring defense.

While still a talented unit overall, this feels like a point where Brown's defense started to show some cracks. Part of that may have had to do with scheduling relative to other years, but the numbers are what they are. Games against Army and Wisconsin had a lot to do with allowing 48.2 more rushing yards per game than the five-game start in 2018, and that includes allowing only a single yard on the ground against Iowa. The pass defense was also tested more, as Middle Tennessee State and Iowa were able to throw for 234 and 260 yards, respectively. Michigan was able to get out of this stretch with a 4-1 record and the defense got better as the season went on, but the result was more of the same. OSU put up 56 points in Ann Arbor and Alabama was able to score 35 in the Citrus Bowl. The Wolverines finished 9-4 and were 11th in total defense and 25th in scoring defense.

If the way the previous two seasons ended did not show there were some warts developing with the Michigan defense, the pandemic season made sure to make that extremely clear. The numbers are skewed by that and the fact that the Wolverines played a conference-only schedule. However, bad is bad. The offense did this group no favors and left them on the field a ton, but there was not a single thing this group did well. Injuries to Aidan Hutchinson and Kwity Paye, among others, did not help either. This group looked slow, confused and lacked the confidence and swagger of previous Michigan defenses. The bottom completely fell out and cost Brown his job, setting in motion the events that got us to the 2021 season.

Michigan is not quite back to 2015-16 levels on defense, but the fact that they have managed to develop this quickly with most of the same pieces from last year speaks to the coaching they are getting. Macdonald is currently helming a defense that is multiple in its fronts and coverages on top of getting guys to play fast and loose. There have been busts here and there, which is always bound to happen during a scheme change. Saturday's performance at Wisconsin might have been Michigan's best on the road in years, allowing 210 yards of total offense. The Badgers are far from their usual selves, but allowing 43 rush yards to a team that builds its identity around that is impressive. Michigan is 12th in total defense and sixth in scoring through five games this season.

Michigan's defense was always going to improve from last year because it could not get a whole lot worse. They had too much talent for that and a scheme change felt like it was needed. Continued improvement on that side of the ball could put them in the conversation for meaningful November football, and that is all anyone can ask for in this rebooted portion of the Harbaugh era.

The task ahead does not get any easier with another road trip coming on Saturday, this time in the form of a much-improved Nebraska team. The Wolverine defense gets to prove itself under the lights before a national audience for the second time this year. It feels like a spotlight they are ready for.

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