Michigan's defense held the vaunted Air Force triple option attack in check during Saturday's 29-13 victory.
Granted, they gave up 168 yards on the ground, but it came on 49 rushing attempts, equating out to a 3.4 average.
Redshirt junior defensive end Chase Winovich was a big part of Michigan's defensive success.
He explained how the triple option offense was a big part of his youth.
“It’s assignment football," he said. "This is how football began for me when I was seven years old — it was that classic wing, triple option offense. Today was getting back to my roots. It was a hard-fought football game, and I had a heck of a lot of fun out there.”
Before the season, many in the national media thought Michigan's defense would take a step back because of how much youth was on it, but Winovich said he doesn't look at it that way. In fact, he doesn't see any of the guys as "young" at all.
“There are no young guys," he insisted. "We’re a defense, we’re one identity, and there’s no rallying cry. It's never like, 'oh, shoot, something didn’t go right.’
"It hurts when certain things don’t happen or the offense goes three-and-out — we’re resilient, though, and we're tough."
Winovich insisted that being resilient is another big part of why the Wolverines never get too down on themselves when things don't go right.
“We definitely know how to handle adversity," he explained. "If you’ve ever been on a football field and one side might not be going right, it’s easy to point fingers, but great teams don’t do that. Even if things aren’t going good, you have a job to do and you go out and do it.”
Despite Michigan not playing its best at times today, Winovich didn't want to go into details on what's not working right.
“I don’t want to go into specifics on what's not clicking," the redshirt junior said. "Everyone has to do their job, and we have to figure out the little details. We’re so close to being such a great team, and Coach Harbaugh talks about how this defense could be special — we’re on our way.”
Michigan is now 3-0, and has clearly not played its best football so far this year. That's why Winovich — and so many others — are so excited to see what this team will look like once it does.
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