On the state of the program with its goals still ahead intact

Right now, we’re in the second quarter of the season. We broke it down in four quarters. You know, the first four games was the first. These next five before the next bye is the second. We got a three-game stretch that, as we know, ends in the most important game of the year to end the third quarter. Then the postseason is the fourth.

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On the team response coming out of the bye week

You know what, I thought they had great energy. You can tell in the locker room, you can tell in warm-ups that the energy was there that they want to, that the physicality was going to be there and as you got into the game, you know the first drive Wisconsin had a couple body blows right and what we saw on defense is that we just needed to finish on the ball carrier and that was really the biggest fix that we made and after that it was eight punts and a field goal and that was it — and an interception by Rod Moore which I’m sure we’ll hit but I thought it was a physical battle, especially defensively. They took it to them, and they played aggressive and then, offensively, started fast. We responded really well.

They went down and scored, and then we went down and scored. Hit a little sputter in between there, and as you look at the stat,s there’s 400 something yards of offense. When you get in the red zone, you got to score. You got to make those trips count, which we’ll continue to work on and continue to harp on, but you saw some more explosive plays down the field, which was good to see, and we got to be more consistent in things you do, and I think they gave us everything they had. I think they gave us their best shot, but we got to continue to get better, and we’ll continue to strive to do that.

On the play of the offensive line

I think to start the game, they came out fast. They came out swinging. They played with the juice and energy that they practiced with, and it felt like throughout the game that Wisconsin, their number one rush defense showed up throughout the middle of the game, and really they kept punching back, but what you saw is the O-line respond, which is ultimately what you want to see. You want to see the guys respond and for us to go down and score again, and then actually have an opportunity to score again at the end of the game, and we held up at the two- three-yard line, and people probably are not happy about that, but the football gods will pay us off later on that.

Now the score could be, oh, it could have been 31, now it’s 24. I’m like, don’t matter, we won, so I don’t really care. We ended the game with the ball, and we won, so it felt like they progressed throughout the game and really fought.

On what is going into longer runs by the running backs this season

I think it’s a really great job by Coach Lindsey calling the game and feeling out what things are working and what things are not. You have a game plan, and you hope every play that you prescribe and put on the game plan is going to work, but it doesn’t work like that. They’re good, they’re good coaches, they got good players too. There’s things that you have to adjust during a game to fix, and I thought he did a really good job and the staff did a really good job of figuring out what was working, what wasn’t and how we needed to fix it. But then the players responded, and I think they are doing a better job of attacking the second level and creating double teams.

There’s some things we got to fix on some single blocks that happened to eliminate the tackles in the backfield, and those are all eyes and hand fundamental things that are easily correctable. We corrected them during the game so that helped, but I think they’re really gaining the momentum, and hopefully we have Gio and Brady back this week to push those guys that are already playing.

On what he’s seeing from Chip Lindsey’s run calls

There’s just such great flow. He’s got complements to everything. The offense is built like that but what he’s brought in are different tweaks and different things that add to it and there’ll be more as we go through the season. There’ll be more in this game that are a little different that people haven’t seen and he’s just done a really good job and he stays calm, stays poised throughout the game, never panics, never flusters. He’s always got a calm head about him and just always forward-looking to the next piece of what we got to do to adjust, and does a really good job of communicating with the staff.

On adding more to the offensive playbook during the season with a freshman QB

I think they’re in place right now. It’s stuff that’s been installed that we’ve used, but you can only run so many plays in the game plan. Shoot, I think we ran 66 plays in that game, they had 59 total, so it wasn’t a game where you had the 70 or 80 plays. So there’s so many plays that you can call, so we’re at that place, offensively especially, with Bryce, where he is in his development and maturation. We’ll continue to implement those things we need to but do everything we can to win the game.

On how the offense can be more effective on third down

I think first thing is short yardage. We got to be better there and that starts, same thing we’ve talked about is it’s footwork, it’s pad level, it’s the little things that make those big things. It’s nothing extraordinary that you need to do to solve those problems and then continuing to put guys in different positions to make sure that we can be successful, whether that’s moving pieces around like we started to do the last game and just continue to do that, and format the personnel people and execute. There’s plays there that are being made, we got to go make those plays.

On the explanation he received on the fourth down run being called back

Didn’t really get an answer on exactly where the ball was, they just said the play’s reversed and I said why, we think he didn’t make the line to gain, and I was just like okay, well, I don’t think that’s true but I guess I got to go with your answer, but that’s what was said.

On being vocal to the team on the sidelines

I mean I’m pretty vocal, it’s just kind of my nature, especially when it comes to the run game and making sure that we can consistently move the ball on the ground. I think we’re doing a much better job in the passing game, obviously developing what we’ve done and the receivers making plays. Donaven and Andrew Marsh had career games, so that was good to see. But the captains are taking hold of those times and the players got to continue to do that.

On the passing game being vital to the offense

Yeah, it’s vital, you have to have that balance. You can’t be one-dimensional run or pass in this game and you have to have the threat of it all. You have to be able to do it all, and our players have to continue to invest in all those pieces and and they are, and they’re doing it at a really high level. We’ll continue to implement, put the playmakers in place to go do what they do.

On Donaven McCulley’s success making other receivers want to recreate it

I think it just challenges everybody, right? There’s a competitive nature to everything we do and even when it’s your boy and you’re happy for him, you want to go do it too, so I think you saw Donaven do it and then all of a sudden Andrew Marsh does it, so I think it’s infectious and you just want to go do it. It starts in practice, like you got to do those things in practice, and both those guys did it at a high level in practice.

On how special Justice Haynes’ start to the season has been

That’s super special. Been here for, this is eight years, and had some really good running backs in the room and, obviously, the history of Michigan and the running backs that they’ve had here. To never have a running back do that for five games straight is pretty remarkable and he’s a guy that should be getting Heisman hype. He should in those conversations because I know Blake in ’22 had as good of a year as I’ve been around as a running back, and this is starting to go right up there with it, so he’s a guy that should be in the talks as well.

On how he’s seen Jordan Marshall handle his role

He’s a great teammate. He’s a great player, obviously, has all the ability in the world but it doesn’t faze him. He just wants to win and he can do anything he can to win. When his number is called, he goes and attacks and that’s what he does. Jordan’s a really good player that’s going to play a long time for us. He’s going to go get a chance to play in the NFL, and he just does his job, he does his 1/11th every single time and does it to the best of his god-given ability.

On Bryce Underwood’s growth during games

He just has complete confidence in what he’s doing, how he’s doing it and as you go quarter by quarter, he gets even more comfortable and it’s not to say he’s not comfortable when the game starts, but you just see it open up and see it even more. It’s going to be special as he continues to grow and he continues to do what he does.

On the adjustments Wink Martindale made defensively against Wisconsin

The biggest one I remember, and Wink said at first, well that was a long drive but got to get him down just got to get him down because it wasn’t like it was a whole bunch of explosives. It was one or two yards here, one yard here, even their first or second third and one they got it got it barely by an inch, so it was it was a tough 75 yards. They got 75 yards which we never want but it was a tough one so those were the big adjustments. Schematically, there wasn’t much, it was just more making sure guys played their technique and not looking for the ball or trying to figure out — they had the game plan, was 9 or 18 in the game and then 15 came in the game so we’re trying to figure out what is 15 going to do for them and making those adjustments. Once they settled in, it was what it was. Eight punts, an interception, and a field goal.

On Trey Pierce’s play to start the season

Trey is probably playing as good, if not the best, of all of them and he’s a guy that’s a young guy who’s played ball here, but he’s making a real impact inside. Every single game he does things, every single game playing at a high level. So, so much credit to him and what he’s done and how he changed his body, his mindset of how he attacks, preparation, but, yeah, that whole defensive tackle group, that interior room, they’re playing at a great level, and they’re all splitting snaps, playing about the same. They’re all playing fresh, they’re all playing physical, they’re all doing their job. They don’t get a lot of credit, a lot of love, because there’s not a lot of stats, but when the ball hits the middle of the line, it’s not going very many places because it’s making a bounce, so they’re doing a really good job.

On the depth at defensive tackle not putting stress on the unit physically late in games

Yeah, 100%, I think when you’re able to sustain drives on offense and the defense gets off the field, it’s going to allow those guys that are bigger by nature — it was a hot one out there. For those guys to be able to consistently play fast, physical and be fresh, it’s only going to help them not only for the game, but for the longevity of the season. As we know, as big boys, man, when it starts to get hot you get a little more tired a little faster regardless of how hydrated you are and how fueled you are. That is the nature of the beast of being a large human being, so they’re conditioned well and they’re ready to go, I thought just an unbelievable job by those guys inside.

On Rod Moore’s play and the impact he made on blowing up the reverse

He was like a missile. I mean, all of a sudden, I saw the reverse developing and from the offense perspective, I could kind of see they go back, the guy’s in the slot, he hands it to this guy and you see a guy go back. I’m like, oh, it’s a reverse and then you can see Zeke and one of the DBs pointing back to the other side to alert the other side, and we’re bringing pressure, and we were rolling. We were about to hit the quarterback, and someone lost the contain, but the safety comes down. All of a sudden, you see this bolt of lightning just tackle the guy and stopped the play and it was Rod. One thing I know as an offensive coach, when you run a reverse or something, you’re expecting like a 50-yard gain or explosive so you get a four-yard gain on a reverse, that’s not as fun as I thought it was gonna be. You might as well just run a regular play, so it was awesome to see. So proud of him and his journey and what he’s done already and continues to do. It doesn’t always show up in the stat line in regards to that was his only solo tackle of the game.

On the impact Rod Moore has on the field

He’s a coach on the field. The communication with him on the field is just flawless, he makes every check, he corrects anything he sees and they all know when Rod says it, it’s right, because he knows everything about the defense, how to adjust the defense, what to do. He played incredible, he was one of the players of the game and just just happy that he’s back and rolling and feeling full strength.

On the short-yardage field goal miss

The snap was low, and Huddy did a great job of getting the snap down. People that don’t know about special teams and kicking, when the snap is off, it affects the rhythm of the kicker. The ball got down so you still got to make the kick, so those two things have to get cleaned up and we’ll continue to harp on those because those are things that’ll bite you in big game. Dom, like i’ve said before, I don’t have great coaching points for kickers and I know that could be a stigma and that could be something that goes on in your head so we gotta be very careful how we handle him. I know he’s working his tail off to get that corrected.

On what the program is doing differently to combat the West Coast timezone

We’re going to travel out there Thursday. We didn’t do that last year, it felt like that kind of got us a little groggy, so talking to people that have done it, obviously having Wink here and being in the NFL, we’re going to travel out there Thursday and get there Thursday night. Allow the boys Friday to be in the hotel, actually get a chance to go travel and practice at The Bolt, the Chargers’ facility with coach. I know they’re away, so i’ll talk to him again this week and I won’t talk long because after a loss he’s not the best to have a conversation with. Hopefully it’ll be a happy voice for him, to keep him calm. But we’ll practice there and then play the game on Saturday.

On his early thoughts on USC

A really good football team. Offensively, as explosive as anybody we’ve played. Quarterback, really good player. More more mobile than you would think, can get out of plays, got great touch on the ball. The offensive line is big. Strong running backs. One is dynamic, two is like their thumper. The receivers are super explosive, I know everybody watched the game with illinois and the Lemon kid is as dangerous as any receiver in the country. The other kid, Jacoby Lane, number eight, he’s a really great player so that’s gonna be a big challenge for our defense and their tight ends are really good with the ball in their hands. On defense, big, strong, fast, so we got a great plan to go attack both sides of the ball and special teams as well.