Everything Michigan DC Wink Martindale said during his fall camp press conference

Opening Statement

Early, really early. Today’s the first day we’re actually wearing full pads. We’ll get to thud. That means when you say thud, you’re not taking anybody to the ground. Hey, that stuff, I think we’ve done a great job with our strength staff and Sherrone has done a nice job of starting to ramp up as we go. It’s not just, you go out there and you start playing football, you start ramping it up. The coaching staff, defensively, who you guys know I love and I think is the best in the world, they’ve done a great job initially just starting off. Every year you start off, you start off down at the foundation, you tear it down. Doesn’t matter what happened in the past or anything else, you take the defense and you start from the foundation and build it back up. That’s the same thing as a football player too. So what are we working on right now? Fundamentals from stance, start, technique, steps, tackling, takeaway drills, all those things that you see early probably in everybody’s camp. We’re taking our time as we do this. I told you all last spring about our depth. I think we have more depth and we’ll see where it all ends up here. I know the next time I’ll have more answers for you than what I’ll have now probably. But that will all put up with questions.

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On whether he has anyone locking down spots in the secondary

No, we’re still mixing and matching. Youth, experience, everything else. It’s a great competition. I love the talent of Lamar and Stokes, they’ve brought in. So there’s going to be great competition in that room. To be honest with you, we need to get some of these younger guys ready to go. It’s always exciting as a coach to just see where it all comes out. You know everybody’s got the same chance. We haven’t even posted the depth chart yet because you don’t need to. We divide them into maize and blue because of the bridge program and all that stuff. There’s going to be great competition really in every position, everywhere on the defense.

On whether Zeke Berry is playing cornerback and other competition at that spot

Yeah, I think he’s just fighting now. It could be one guy one day and then all of a sudden somebody that you’re thinking he might be a year away or six months away or two months away or whatever and all of a sudden he runs off four practices in a row. It’s just like I tell the players. I’ve never coached with anybody, an assistant coach that didn’t want to play the best players. That’s what training camp’s about. That’s what’s so exciting if you’re an old school football coach. That’s what’s exciting about training camp is just seeing these guys go. Nobody’s crowned to answer your question.

On the defense passing the ‘look test’ after not seeing them since sprinv

The biggest jump you see is when you go on vacation. I took my vacation. When you come back and see them, a guy like Cole Sullivan has completely changed his body just walking around. You can see him going through drills and doing all those things. There’s a lot of guys and I don’t want to stand here and list them all. I’m just using him as an example. When I first came here he was a 17-year-old kid that was supposed to go to his prom and graduation, but he was here playing in spring ball. You’ve seen him develop since.

On the depth on the DL and how playing in the Alabama game influenced their play

I think it builds confidence in all of them. As a coach, now you’re saying, don’t rest on that because that’s over with. I’m going to get a Maize & Blue hat and have a day. Like Coach Moore talked about the first meeting, our goals. We’re not talking about them anymore. Tomorrow’s not promised. Let’s have the best day we can have. I also like the show Bob Does Sports. Golf creators. All those guys. Grant and the Bryan brothers and all that. I saw those hats and I’m like really that’s what it’s about. Just having the best day you can have today. We have a long football day today with our walkthroughs and meetings and all those things of that nature. Then we finish it with a practice this evening. It’s been fun. It’s early. I’m glad I’m not here (in front of the media) next week. I probably won’t be as good of a mood as I am right now. Today we get to thud and actually play some footbal,l so I’m excited about that.

On how the transfers have been acclimating

It’s like they aren’t even transfers anymore. The players here and the kids here, it is a family atmosphere. They take in everybody that transfers. It’s fun to watch that part but there’s a thing that anywhere you go when you get a transfer in, if he’s a really good player, they bring him in a lot faster. It’s a lot of fun to see those guys and the way they handle these teammates.

On depth EDGE pieces he’s excited to see put pads on

Cam’s a bruiser. Really, you can mention TJ, D-Mo, and Cam as all starters. Just like a linebacker, you can say Ern, Jaishawn, and Jimmy. Cam, I know he’s gotten better. He looks better and he looked good last year. He’s just gonna keep getting better. Obviously, Dom, probably his stronger suit is pass rush and we’re still developing him as a run player. We have some other younger guys that are stepping up. What we’ll always do is we’ll play the best 11 when it comes to game day. Defensively, I think our best goal that we talked about and the players were talking about is that you shouldn’t be able to tell what 11’s on the field. That’s a goal that we’re striving for. We’re not there. We’re not even close to being there yet, but we will be.

On the emphasis on ramping of quicker with a marquee game at the beginning of the season

I think that’s a question for Sherrone. I don’t want to get on my soapbox about that, but there’s a lot of things that you look at. Everything you want to happen fast, but you just don’t know how fast it’s gonna happen. It becomes natural. We had six away games. When’s the last time we’ve had six away games? We can break a record. We went on the road, we can break a record. When’s the last time we didn’t have back-to-back home games? There’s challenges besides who’s playing where and how well they’re playing and everything else that you put into this. If you look at it realistically, the reality is it’s gonna be a tough road no matter who you’re playing. It’s exciting for the kids and young men and they’re willing and ready to accept the challenge.

On his thoughts on potentially playing in Germany next season

It doesn’t matter what I think about that. I used to back 20 years ago think that I’d have the answer to that, but I’m not in any of those meetings and I don’t know what’s happening, so it doesn’t matter what I think.

On how different training camp looks this year with another year of continuity with the staff

We enjoyed ourselves last year. This is a great group to be around as far as coaches. All the assistants that are helping out as well. It’s just we’ve known each other for a year now. When you go back to high school and you hang out with your buddies again, it’s fun. That’s the way it is when you come to work.

On what Rod Moore has been able to do so far in camp

I could give you the BS answers. He’s right on schedule. You know what I mean? Matter of fact, he’s right on schedule. What’s the schedule? I don’t know. No, but he’s looking like he should because of the way he’s been working. He’s been working his tail off. When he’s ready, I talked to him the other day. I don’t want to do it too soon. I want to make sure you’re ready. Whether it’s putting him in bits and pieces whenever he’s ready to go or go right now, you just don’t know. He looked good today in the walkthrough.

On whether he would be in favor of some sort of preseason game in CFB

Well, are you talking about what Deion was talking about in the spring, where you go against another team? In the spring, I just don’t know where this game is going to go. You know what I mean? You like them when you’re in the NFL and you play 17 games on top of it. That’s just to give them wide reps against somebody different. That’s the biggest thing is you have to evaluate your own players right now in practice. It’s also who they’re going against. Our guys do a great job of that. Coaches do, of giving them reps. If you’ve got a younger guy that’s whipping third-team tackles butt, let’s get him against the second team. Then let’s get him against the first team. That takes time with that. If you had a preseason game or two, that would be fun as well. I’m not in those meetings.

On his relationship with Chip Lindsey

Chip’s great too. He’s a great guy. We get along. We play golf together.

On the importance of an offensive and defensive coordinator spending time together

I think it’s very important. It’s most important to the players because they see it. You know what I mean? It’s not just me and Chip. It’s the entire staff defensively and offensively. It goes under the complementary football file, if you will. I think that for us to have a successful season, we’re going to have to play complementary football. It’s going to take all three phases for us to have success because of the youth that we have and everything else. That’s the exciting part about getting ready for the first game. We’ll see where we’re at.

On his expectations for Derrick Moore

I think Derrick, I don’t think he gets enough credit for what he does and the work that he puts in and the value to the team. He does a lot of the hard stuff. He and Cam both, they do the dirty work, if you will. He’s healthy and he looks good and we’ll keep him that way.

On what he’s seen so far to make him believe the secondary and the defense is being tested through the air

It’s way too early. You’ve got a really good quarterback and you’ve got some other guys that are battling for it. That’s different. It’s not schematically anything that we haven’t seen. It’s good stuff. I’m not evaluating the offense. I’m evaluating our stuff. It’s good stuff. We work together. He says, hey, I need to see this. I’ll call it. The same thing, he’ll do the vice versa for me. Right now, we’re scripting practices and I just want to know the down distance personnel and ash we have at it. There might be a period that he wants… Right now, we’re doing the fundamental four. We did five in the spring, if you all remember, where we just did front and coverage. Four-man rush and coverage. We’re doing that for four practices and then we’ll start using our pressures and different things and get more into the stuff that we do all the time. This is great for us, though, because it gets back to what I was telling you. We’re teaching tackling and takeaways and all that stuff right now. It’ll be fun as it goes.

On a specific area of improvement he’d like to see the defense make

You want to improve on everything. You’re playing a lot of different teams. You know what I’m saying? Like I said, it takes complementary football to help you improve. One of the things wherever I’ve been, we’ve played good defense. You know one thing we’ve had that no one’s going to talk about? We had a damn good punter. Baltimore, we had Sam Cooke. To play good defense, you need a good punter. To pin them back, to flip the field and all that, for example, that’s complementary football. I’m saying we’re all working together. We’ve got time for a few more.

On what he’s seen from TJ Metcalf

I think he’s going to be really good. He is versatile. We’ll probably play more personnels, different types of things this fall. He’s like he’s been here for two years. When you see the kid, I know you guys have already interviewed him. You’re impressed with his maturity and so am I. I think he’s going to do a lot of things that are going to be fun to watch.

On the importance of having a player with Ernest Hausmann’s leadership returning

I think it’s about most important. I can’t describe how big it is. You develop relationships with players. As a defensive coordinator, it’s like an offensive coordinator does with his quarterback. I think that he understands what I’m calling and why I’m calling it because we have those conversations. If you ever just want to do a story on somebody, do it on Ernest. He’s a fascinating young man that’s seen a lot and done a lot outside of football. I tell him wait until it gets boring in training camp and I want to find out about his trips. These different trips that he did this summer because it’s just crazy. He told me from the last time he was over there.

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