After major personnel losses and an injury to a marquee starter, can Wink Martindale maintain Michigan's standard on defense?
Wink Martindale is the self-described “O.G.” of the famed Baltimore Ravens defensive scheme that Michigan utilized during its renaissance run of three straight Big Ten Championships and the 2023 national title.
The longtime NFL assistant mentored former Wolverines defensive coordinators Mike MacDonald and Jesse Minter, both of whom instituted and adapted the system to great success in Ann Arbor (Top-5 nationally in scoring all three years).
But while so much has changed around the Wolverines’ program this offseason, Martindale is confident Michigan’s defense will maintain the standard set by his star pupils.
“In all humility, I’m the OG of the system,” Martindale said last week.
“We’re gonna be just fine.”
We’ll see about that.
First-year Wolverines’ head coach Sherrone Moore made an audacious hire tabbing the veteran NFL assistant to run Michigan’s defense amid the program’s transition out of the Jim Harbaugh era. Michigan’s new defensive coordinator is reportedly the highest-paid assistant in the sport now with a base salary of $2.3 million this fall.
That’s a lot of cheddar for an assistant who hasn’t coached in college football in 20 years, but if the Wolverines have any hopes of staying atop the Big Ten or making the College Football Playoff in 2024, it’ll be up to Martindale to deliver the cheese.
Mum’s the word on Martindale’s system tweaks
When Martindale was hired, the expectation was that Michigan’s defense wouldn’t look all that differently schematically. The system — with amoeba fronts, lots of zone coverage and various formations — would mostly stay the same.
Roughly a week through spring practice, that seems to remain true. Sort of.
While the basic terminology and overall concepts haven’t changed much, Martindale does plan to implement his own tweaks to the defense.
“The system works,” he said.
“It’s proven that it works. Both Mike and Jesse did a tremendous job here at Michigan. It’s fun for me to watch the tape because you do become the proud parent if you will.”
Michigan was not a heavy-pressure team under MacDonald and Minter — mostly rushing four just from various looks — but Martindale, whose affinity for blitzing is well-known, is likely to bring extra rushers more often next season.
In his last six seasons as an NFL DC, Martindale’s defenses ranked first or second in blitz rate in five of the six years. However, he wouldn’t tip his hand on how aggressively he planned to call Michigan’s defense in the fall.
“I’m not going to tell Ryan Day or Sark (Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian) what we’re gonna do,” he said.
“I have confidence in these players that they’re going to execute at a high level. I am more aggressive than Jesse. The proof is in the pudding with Jesse and Mike. We’ll see how it works. If we can get to the quarterback rushing three, we’ll rush three. That’s the way football is, you just got to see how it changes because people are adjusting to us, too.”
Martindale noted that was he forced to blitz so much last season with the New York Giants because of the personnel he had, and he’s could run into similar issues with the Wolverines this fall.
Can Michigan’s defense overcome personnel losses, major injury in spring practice?
Take a peep at FanDuel’s early 2024 college football betting odds, and Michigan isn’t among the early favorites to win the new-look conference — much less repeat as national champions. Ole Miss, which has never finished higher than No. 2 in the SEC West, has better national title odds this fall.
With all the turnover in Ann Arbor, it’s not a surprise that Michigan is expected to take a step back in 2024.
The Wolverines, which sent a record with 18 players to the NFL Combine last month, lost their legendary head coach, nearly every valuable contributor on offense (sans Donovan Edwards and Colston Loveland) and eight defensive starters. Michigan ranks No. 128th in returning production for next season — second-worst among all Power Conference teams.
Michigan’s offense will undoubtedly experience some growing pains breaking in a new play-caller, starting quarterback and an entire starting offensive line.
Still, the defense does return some real studs that could plausibly maintain the unit’s recent success.
Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant might be the best defensive tackle duo in the country. Will Johnson is a potential All-American cornerback. Edge rushers Josaiah Stewart and Derrick Moore are future NFL players.
But Monday’s news out of Ann Arbor makes Wink Martindale’s job that much harder.
All-Big Ten safety Rod Moore reportedly tore his ACL in practice, a huge blow for an already-thin secondary that saw fellow safety Keon Sabb transfer to Alabama this offseason. Moore was a three-year starter who had the game-sealing interception to beat Ohio State last season.
Just a week into spring practice, Martindale had already identified Moore as the team’s defensive leader and potential helmet-coms player, too. He compared Moore’s football IQ to former All-Pro safety Eric Weddle.
“Rod Moore, he’s the safety that, and I’m not talking about play-wise or anything else. Smart-wise, football knowledge-wise, all that. He reminds me of Eric Weddle,” Martindale said last week.
“He was one of the smartest safeties I’ve ever coached. I called Weddle and told him about it.
“That’s exciting to me, because there’s a lot of checks that have to be made on the field and it’s like, well, the headpieces, the ear pieces coming in now, — which is great because that’s what I’m used to — there’s still signals going to be going on. Rod is like, if they go hurry up, what should we do? Call the defense. You can’t be wrong. He’s that smart.”
The Wolverines do return a pair of senior safeties in Makari Paige and Quinten Johnson, but without Moore, they’re now down three of their top four players (Josh Wallace and Mike Sainristil are off to the NFL) in the secondary (which ranked No. 2 nationally in pass defense) from last year’s national championship team.
As it stands, the Wolverines will enter next season with a first-time head coach, new coordinators on offense, defense and special teams, and a roster that’s undergone a jarring amount of turnover. The program’s best hopes to remain a championship contender likely lean on the defense leading the way once again.
So while Martindale may be the originator of Michigan’s system, his predecessors set an elite standard he must now maintain.