“Play more zone” was the battle cry for a portion of the fan base after Ohio State hammered Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan Wolverines football team last year. Defensive coordinator Don Brown isn’t reliving last season’s bad moments, but he has made adjustments heading into the 2019 season.

We tackle some of Brown’s comments in News & Views format.

NEWS: Michigan’s defense shined for most of last season with the exception of the first part of the year and the last. For 10 games it was as good as any in the country, but a bad start at Notre Dame cost them a shot at a win and a mistake-filled game made the OSU contest a laugher.

BROWN: “If you look at our season, regular season, the first 19 minutes of the regular season were not very good for Michigan defense. The next 10-game stretch was pretty damn good … then we got the last 19 minutes left in the Ohio State game and it’s a seven- or eight-point game, and the last 17 weren’t very good.

“If we had just squeezed out the first 19 or the last 19, which is probably the result of the things we could control — five drives — it might have been a historic year. But it wasn’t. So what are you going to about it? You’ve got to squeeze out the first 19, squeeze out the last 19, so that means mentally you’ve got to be tougher. That means from a preparation standpoint we’ve got to be better. That means from mystandpoint we’ve got to be better. That’s really the challenge.”

VIEWS: First things first ... scheduling the Notre Dame game on the road (after having played there last) and in the first game of the season was … well, not smart, especially since those first 19 minutes could have come in a 'warm-up game.' Michigan might well have beaten the Irish in the third game of the year, for example.

“We had a guy [Josh Metellus] thrown out of the Notre Dame game early. We had three penalties and gave up 17 points. At the eight- minute mark of the second quarter through the end of game we ended up giving up seven points and 62 yards. Obviously, adjustments were made, guys were settling in and then adjusting to the speed of the game and so forth. We gave ourselves a chance, because at one point it was 17-0, I believe.

“That’s what you’re searching for, that kind of performance from a Michigan defense.”