Michigan’s defense is talented … there’s no denying it. But it appears to be really deep, too, starting up front on the defensive line.
Defensive line coach Greg Mattison has abundance of great players to work with once again, and he’s excited to see what they can do Saturday night at Notre Dame.
“This group understands,” Mattison said. “They’ve played a lot of football. Whenever you’ve played a lot of football, the bar gets higher and higher every year. They all have very high goals. This is the first game entertaining those goals.
“When you work as hard as this group has worked this summer, had the experience they had last year, this is the next step. Now we’re here … let’s see what you have.”
And there are a lot of them. Like two years ago, Mattison said, they might have eight starters, giving them the ability to ‘tag themselves out’ when they’re tired.
“When you have that, then when you’re out on that field, there is no time to take a play off. There is no time to not go 100 percent,” he said. “If you’re going to be out there playing and your buddy wants to be playing and earned the right to play, don’t you dare go out and not play hard. That’s what had two years ago, and we’re working toward that.”
On the inside, fifth-year seniors Bryan Mone and Lawrence Marshall, redshirt sophomore Michael Dwumfour, sophomore Aubrey Solomon and junior Carlo Kemp are five guys who earned the right in spring and now fall that they’re trusted to do what’s asked of them on the field, Mattison said. Kemp came up to the coaches in spring and asked to move inside after having played the anchor position, adding 15 pounds.
“He’s one of the strongest players on the team,” Mattison said. “He gives you a really unique player in that he’s very intelligent. He understands football. He wanted to move inside because there’s less running … now you have a guy who can fit inside, but if anything happened he could play outside.”
On the edge, junior Rashan Gary is ready to play, Mattison said with a grin. There were rumblings that he’d been banged up in practice last week.
“I’ll let you tell me after the game if he was ready to play,” he said.
“Carlo has been there some [behind Gary], [sophomore] Kwity Paye, who has had a really good camp, has shown the ability to play anchor and end. Aidan Hutchison, too, who has shown really good things as a freshman.”
Paye is also working behind fifth-year senior Chase Winovich.
“We’ve also got Reuben Jones, a junior that has played some football here before,” Mattison said. “All are guys that have worked really, really hard, so if you ask for a starting lineup … I don’t know. That’s why you have Tuesday, today. We’ll find out now.
“All are starters, it’s just who is going to take the first snap. That’s what we’ve talked about … if you’ve earned the right to rotate, you’re all starters. In four plays may be another guy in there that may be playing just as important a role.”
NOTES
• Redshirt freshman Luiji Vilain is banged up but working hard coming off last year’s season ending knee injury.
“Luiji is fine, got a little bump and bruise, has been out for a little bit,” Mattison said. “He was doing really, really well. He had a little bit of a setback, nothing real serious but it slowed him up a little bit.”
• Mattison said he was impressed with both U-M’s line and Notre Dame’s on film.
“I’m really impressed. We’ve had a very physical camp, and they’ve shown some really good things,” he said of Michigan’s group. “I’m excited about our offensive line.
“Notre Dame has three guys who are very experienced and played a lot of football. They have backups who were heavily recruited, obviously. They’re going to be a good offensive line. They have a good offense, and any time you have a quarterback that can move his feet, that’s another dimension. We’re excited about playing them.”
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