Steve Clinkscale urging defense to capitalize on turnover opportunities
It's something that is clearly frustrating Michigan co-defensive coordinator Steve Clinkscale.
The Wolverines lack of turnovers has been a sore spot for a defense that has performed well this season. It's not as if these opportunities haven't presented itself in games, though.
In fact, far from it.
U-M might be the de facto leader of missed interceptions in the entire country. While it's facetious to think so, thee desire to get more turnovers is constantly being hammered home by Clinkscale, and will continue to do so.
When discussing areas of improvement for this defense with reporters on Wednesday, Clinkscale stated the obvious for him.
"We’ve got to get more takeaways," Clinkscale sad. "They’ve been in plenty of positions to get the ball and take the ball away, and we’ve got to capitalize on it more. I think that’s the biggest area and then continue to grow. They’re still young, a lot of these guys are young, a lot of them out there, and we want those guys to continue to just be hungry and grow every week because we've got to continue to get better each battle so we can win our war which is trying to be national champions."
Getting turnovers isn't an exact science but it all comes down to being in the right spot to make a play.
While the Wolverines have done that on multiple occassions, the making the play part hasn't happened. When asked what the defense has to do to get more takeaways, Clinkscale went on an emotional tangent of what his defense can do better moving forward.
"Oh, my gosh, I mean, the defense, collectively, we all gotta get takeaways," Clinkscale said. "Every level, we’ve got to bat the ball down, we’ve got to strip the ball, we’ve got to tackle, be violent, we’ve got to go intercept the ball from the linebacker corps to the defensive back corps. We just continue to show them ways, you show them, you reinforce it with what we did this year, how we continue to get better, show NFL clips, you can do different drills to put them in that position and you try to make sure it’s more realistic than just a drill. Then when they get the opportunity in the game, really, a lot of times it’s about tips and overthrows, it’s about effort and hustle. There’s been plenty of times when that ball’s just floating in the air.
"If we just hustle a little harder, or we get that opportunity, we got to capitalize on it. So like I keep saying, it’s just the emphasis. It’s football, it’s defense. It’s not rocket science. Play your ass off, play hard, be physical. Find the ball, go make a play. Sorry, I got a little worked up."