As far as debuts go, things couldn't have gone better for Michigan's new defensive coordinator Jesse Minter during the Wolverines' 51-7 rout of Colorado State on Saturday.

With all the questions that were hanging over the heads of the defense heading into the season, the group passed the week one test with flying colors forcing turnovers, accumulating 7 sacks and also registering 11 tackles for loss.

All in all, a solid day's work for Minter's crew.

Meeting with the media on Monday, U-M head coach Jim Harbaugh was asked for his thoughts on Minter's debut. He didn't hesitate to give his defensive coordinator high marks coming out of the weekend.

"Really good," Harbaugh said of Minter. "The headsets were clean, smooth. The operations were clean, and smooth in all three phases. Thought it was really good. He's a calm, cool and collected guy. Just the whole operation. Signaling and communication was A-plus-plus from what I saw."

As for his thoughts on the entire defensive unit, Harbaugh spent quite some time giving his thoughts on how the defense played on Saturday.

To say that he was overall pleased with what he saw would be an understatement.

"I saw a lot of good things from a lot of people," Harbaugh said. "I'll start defensively. Mike Sainristil was all over the field. He was everywhere. Pretty much what I loved was how many winged helmets were showing up in the picture frame of every clip. Just great pursuit, great running to the football. Jaylen Harrell had a phenomenal game. Had four tackles, a sack. Rod Moore, an interception, four tackles, a sack. Also, super pleased with Makari Paige, he was running and hitting. Just how far he's come since his freshmen days, slender and a very good athlete. Now, he comes up and hits. Really, really excited about that."

Adding:

"Mike Barrett, that's another one. I'm going to take a deep, long, bow on that one. When we were recruiting him as a quarterback out of Georgia, people were saying there was no position he could play. He's going to be a safety, he's going to be a linebacker. He's going to be one of the two. You can't see that? To watch him, he's made his mark on special teams. The linebacker position these days, especially as much nickel as we play and all teams play in football, he's just out there running, getting tackles. What did he have, six tackles? A sack and doing a great job on special teams. There's a real football player right there. Super happy with how he's handling it.

"I guess the days of the middle linebacker went with the days of the down safety in cover three. You gotta be able to run from sideline to sideline and tackle and play. I'm just really happy with Mike. He's developing. He'll be playing this game for a long time."