Everything Lou Esposito said on Inside Michigan Football pre-Nebraska

On what he’s learned about his group three games into the season

I think we got a bunch of guys that love to battle, that want to play, that practice hard, and I think they got a — they’re kind of like a blue-collar group that brings their lunch pail every day, no matter whether it is the practice, the game, the meeting rooms, and they just keep getting better, which is good. That’s what we need to be successful as we turn the page and get into the Big Ten.

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On what the ‘superpower’ is of this current DL group

I think strength in numbers. Like, we’ll play a bunch of guys, so no one should be in a situation where they’re gassed at all, and I think as the season goes on, you see as guys play in games and they get in their groove, those guys get a little bit more playing time and it’ll go vice versa. Kind of like you’re just playing the hot hand, really. I think the couple guys that have stood out have been Payne, Benny and Trey Pierce. Those guys have been pretty solid and getting better every week, and the other guys are getting better, too, but those guys are just a little notch above what we have going on right now.

On whether he was surprised with Damon Payne’s level of play to start the season

I don’t think he surprised me because you’ve seen it in practice, right? It’s flashes, and he plays a position like when you play D-tackle here, I mean, you’re eating double teams, you’re getting hands-on, we’re not a gap in attack, we’re not running up the field, we play with our hands, we want to be square, and he’s done all that stuff in practice. What he really turns on in the games, you watch him, he’s starting to get off blocks, he’s starting to get skinny and make plays, and those are the things that I’m more excited about, and every week he’s made a couple more of those plays in every single game, and that just feeds everybody else because now everyone else starts doing it, and it’s been really, really good to see.

On whether players willing to take on double-teams is a mindset you have to find in players coming out of the portal or high school

I don’t think so, because if you flip the TV on Sundays, that’s what a lot of guys are doing. I mean, there’s almost a third of the defenses that have either run totally the same system we do or have a lot of pieces of what we run, and I think that’s a big thing. If you want to play on Sundays, this is the defensive style that you’re going to have to do, and I think when guys hear that and they see that, it makes it easy to recruit them. Now, you got to be unselfish, right? It’s totally selfless. You’re 1/11th. You’re a piece of the machine. The defense is the machine. We’re going to throw hands. We’re going to be square. We’re going to be strong. We’re going to play with knockback, and I think those are the things that make it exciting to play D-line inside here.

On what has stood out about Trey Pierce’s play

I mean, he has just since the end of the season last year, since the bowl game, his whole mindset, I’m so proud of him. His whole mindset has changed, and he just keeps getting better, keeps getting better, keeps working. He’s not a guy that’s going to be rah-rah and yelling and screaming, but you watch his play, and he’s steady getting better all the time. He’s got a great understanding of leverage. He does a great job with his hands, and I think the biggest thing for him is keeping his feet in the right spot, and I think that’s the one thing we’ve been talking about with all of our guys. When we have a good base underneath us, we’re really, really strong. When those feet come together, you’re playing on one leg. You’re half as strong as you normally are, and he’s done a great job of trying to get better and trying to play with hands.

On how valuable the bowl game against Alabama was for his group this season

It was awesome because a lot of the guys have played. You have Enow and Trey and Ike. All those dudes were there, and they made some good plays, and I think the other thing that Wink does is he’s a mastermind of packages. He’s going to put guys in situations to be successful that’s going to help the defense for that game, and you might see one package one game and not see it for another six weeks, or you might see one package one game and then saw it for three or four plays, and then the next game you see it for 25 plays, and I think that’s what you saw this weekend. We’re getting a couple packages, and we stay in and it’s working, and that’s what’s going to work for us, so being able to see those guys actually execute in-game situations reassures those guys’ ability for us.

On the importance of Rayshaun Benny’s offseason for his development

Yeah, it was awesome. This is like a first time in a long time he’s had a full offseason to lift, train, run with everybody else, and I think as you watch him, if you watch him every game, he’s gotten a little bit better. Like he’s getting more and more comfortable in what we’re doing, and I think with that, if he plays at the level that he played the last week, we’re gonna be pretty good and just keep getting a little bit better every week. I think the biggest thing that you watch him, he’s got a great knack of getting his hands and getting off blocks, and that’s what he did last week for us, and we’re gonna need it this week versus Nebraska.

On how fun it would be for a guy who can stand up like a linebacker but still play defensive line like Benny did against CMU

Right, I mean, you know it like anybody else. Every D-lineman thinks he can play linebacker. Every offensive tackle thinks he can play tight end. So it was fun for him, and I think when Wink brought that up and showed it to him, like those guys were super excited. So he had an opportunity to do it, Enow had an opportunity to do it. If we would have played longer, all those guys would have had opportunities to do it. So it was fun in practice, and if you get more interest, guys sometimes practice a little bit harder. They’re more involved in it, and I think that’s what happened last week. And Rayshaun had his best week according to GPS numbers, and he’s had his whole career here. You know, as far as max speeds, max contacts, and he played better. So I think that’s something that we got to keep talking about every week for him, and he’s been really, really good with it. It’s been awesome.

On whether a guy like Benny takes recorded numbers from practice to know what to replicate

I think that’s what you have to do, right? You want to use every resource that you have, and I think that’s a resource that we have here at Michigan that’s huge for him. And I had a good conversation with him last night, and you know that’s something that he’s gonna work for every week. Those guys took a bunch of reps because of the packages we were playing and the type of offense we were gonna see at Central, so it’ll be a huge challenge for us this week with different packages and doing different things for trying to stop different stuff that Nebraska does.

On Jaishawn Barham on the edge and what it allows the defense to do

Well, I think the biggest thing is like what I’ve talked about before, Wink putting guys in situations to be successful, and then him being on the edge is a mismatch. There’s certain things that he does athletically and God-given ability that comes natural to him. How he bends, how he rushes, the way he plays with violence, the way he physically sets the edge, all those things are big, and he does it really, really well. And it lets other guys play other positions to be successful. I think in that Wolf stuff, you saw the flex nose a little bit. You saw some different guys at linebacker. So for him, it gives us a guy on the edge that can be physical at the point of attack and get after the passer when we need it.

On the collaboration with Brian Jean-Mary when Barham plays on the edge

I think we do a great job managing it, and I think Phee is involved in that, and BJ’s involved with that, and Wink. We talk about it as a staff. We set it up in Indy. He’s gonna be here for this point. He’s gonna be here for that point. It’s pretty clean. And then the calls that we do, I mean, it’s a package that you kind of grow as the season will go on, and I think we do a great job with it. And you make it where you never want to put a guy in a situation where you slow him down and take away what he has. So we’re gonna put him in as many of those situations where he could just play fast. That’s what we want to do as the whole defense. So we’re excited about that, and it’ll be fun for us.

On playing Barham at the edge for the majority of the snaps was scheme-specific, which meant TJ Guy didn’t play

Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, for us, we played that one package with Jaishawn 94% of the game. So if we had gotten into, because Central Michigan played so many big sets, they got into so many different personnel deals. If you watch them, they’re subbing guys in and out. They’re double-subbing. So Coach went, we’re just gonna play this and go with it. And if we had gotten in a bunch of situations where it was a pass game or we were getting into our normal sub defense, you would have saw a lot more of them. It was just one of those games where we’re playing this package, so that’s how it shook out.

On playing Barham at the edge opens up opportunities for the rest of the edge group

Oh, for sure. I mean, at the end of the day, we’re gonna attack where the offense is weak. So if we get a beat, which you would think going into the game, they’re gonna have to game plan a little bit differently because of what we did. We’re gonna attack that protection. We’re gonna dictate that protection the way we want in order to get to the quarterback, which will be great because now those guys get one-on-ones.

On Cam Brandt’s growth

He’s just so physical at the point of attack. No matter what he plays, we talked about packages. You know, we’re playing Oklahoma, he’s playing some three technique. We’re playing, he’s a rush, he’s a big end. He can do everything for us. He’s dropping into coverage, he’s setting the edge. He is so physical and strong and twitchy that you literally, he’s like a coach’s dream because he could play anywhere along the line, and he’s done that for us in the last couple years. So we’re so excited about him, and he’s another one who just puts his head down and works, puts his head down and works, and he’s gotten so much better, and it’s exciting to be around him. I’m excited for him, and he’s just another guy that just keeps getting better, and you know this because you’ve been on great teams and been around great teams. The teams that get better every week are the teams that normally, at the end of the year, are looking back and feeling pretty good where they are.

On guys like Derrick Moore and Brandt dropping back in pass protection and the difficulty to learn it

I think the biggest, well, the reason is, one, it’s our scheme, right? You try to create mismatches and force the offensive line where to slide, where to protect, and you make a dropper, a guy that normally is a guy rushing, so now the offensive lineman is standing in limbo, and you’re bringing somebody else from somewhere else, and that guy’s a free runner, right? To get those guys to be able to drop, I mean, Coach Phee does a great job with getting those guys into coverage, working their hips, and understanding where they have to be, when they have to be there, and I think that’s the biggest thing for us. We just keep on, if you recruit big athletes, you let them do big athletic things.

On what Derrick Moore brings to the defense

Just all-out toughness, like he’s the guy that gets everybody going. I think him being named captain, a kid from Baltimore being named captain at the University of Michigan is pretty cool, and he’s embraced it, and he knows this is his year, and he’s done a great job with that. He’s physical at the point of attack, and I think the biggest thing that you watch when he plays with power, he’s really, really good, and it opens everything else up. Like as a former offensive lineman, you know if a guy has power, okay, now I got to sit, now I got to be able to withstand this brute force coming at me, and then all of a sudden, he hits you with something quick, and you’re like, oh, he just ran by me. So again, for him, he’s been really, really good for us.

On things his group needs to do well in order to be successful against Nebraska

We have to be physical at the point of attack. They’re extremely physical up front. They’re big. They’ve played a lot of football. They brought in a couple kids. They’ve got some kids coming back. They moved the guard to center, and they play to the echo of the whistle. It’s gonna be a good, old-fashioned, blue-collar, knockout, drag-out type of game for us. As you’re watching them and getting into them, you appreciate their toughness, and you want to make sure you match their energy with our energy, their violence with our violence, and I think that’s going to be a big, big part of this week’s game.

On how to prevent a dual-threat QB like Dylan Raiola from making plays

I think the biggest thing is you got to take your shots when they present themselves. If there’s an opportunity to go get them, you get them. If there’s an opportunity to show one thing and do something else, you do it. I think the greatest thing about Wink is he has an unbelievable Rolodex of calls that he’s seen guys like this before. I just know for us, we have to make sure that we do a great job of keeping him contained, and keeping him contained isn’t all the time just, hey, we’re gonna make him do this and throw from here. It’s making him go places that he doesn’t want to go, and that’s what we’re gonna have to do to kind of contain him because he’s a great quarterback. He’s a great arm. He’s got a great group of receivers, great group of running backs. It’ll be a good challenge for us.