Michigan Football: Don Brown is the heart of the defense

Defensive coordinator Don Brown is the heart of the Michigan football defense, and this defense may be legendary.

Michigan football‘s Jim Harbaugh is a great coach, maybe one of the most inspirational coaches in the sport today.  He’s a million volts of Michigan excitement wherever he goes and whenever he speaks.  His team loves him, and fans believe in him, but …

The most important man on the sidelines is Don Brown, a 63-year-old slightly  pudgy guy with a grey moustache,  a former running back at Vermont’s Norwich University, one time defensive coordinator and baseball coach at Yale, former head coach at Plymouth State, Northeastern, and UMass, survivor of uncertain times as defensive coordinator at Maryland, defensive coordinator at Connecticut, then celebrated defensive genius at Boston College.

At BC, Don Brown’s defense led the NCAA in eight categories: total defense, rushing defense, red-zone defense, first down defense, third-down defense, fourth down defense, and tackles for loss.  He came up second in pass defense and pass defense efficiency, but who’s complaining?

Harbaugh was a quarterback and is a quarterback whisperer (ask Andrew Luck and  Colin Kaepernick), but he has the soul of a defensive tackle and happily wallows in the mire with a tough defense.  Hiring Brown made all the sense in the world and has made a world of difference for Michigan football as a shaky offensive line and unremarkable quarterbacks gave the Blue inconsistent scoring and moments of real frustration.

In 2017, Brown’s second year at Michigan, the team ended up with a record of 5-4 in the Big Ten, 8-5 overall.  Not an impressive record by any stretch of the imagination, and yet, Michigan’s defense ranked third in the nation in total defense, ahead of Georgia, Clemson, and Wisconsin, first in passing defense, and ninth in team efficiency.

It is hard to remember that Brown started the 2017 season pleased by the success of the class of ’16’s NFL draft but looking at a defense hit hard; defensive ends, Taco Charlton (Cowboys) and Chris Wormley (Ravens),  versatile all-everything safety/linebacker Jabrill Peppers (Browns),  safety Delano Hill (Seahawks), speedy cornerback Jourdan Lewis (Cowboys),  cornerback Jeremy Clark (Jets), and linebacker Ben Gedeon (Vikings) had packed up and left Brown scrambling to pull together a defensive secondary with a batch of untested sophomores and freshmen.

So, presto-changeo, the makeshift secondary turned out more than ok.  Metellus, Hudson, Kinnel, Hill, and Long all ended up with Big Ten honors.  and the combination of Hill, Long, and Watson absolutely locked out passing touchdowns.

That was the ostensible weak point; the linebackers and defensive line were even more effective than expected.  Devin Bush and Khaleke Hudson who combined for 185 tackles and 13 sacks, Rashan Gary, projected top five first-round draft pick and experienced DE Chase Winovich are both back to rush from the outside.  Nine of eleven starters are back on defense, and there are plenty of talented freshmen, sophomores, and transfers waiting to fill in any holes that may develop.  This defense is deep.

Personnel means a lot, and recruiting has been highly effective, but the key to Michigan’s defensive success is the particular balance Don Brown has been able to bring to the wolverines.  He’s an extremely competent tactician, too quickly seen as simply blitzing the quarterback and forcing man coverage in the secondary.  Brown’s adherence to man coverage is based on his conviction that the best players play best when targeting a specific offensive player in a specific setting; in his experience, man coverage allows greater pressure.

As he put it in an interview with CBS NCAA Football’s Michigan Insider, “We played somewhere in the vicinity of about 400 snaps of man-to-man coverage with a high safety.  At the end of the day, we gave up twelve passes of thirty yards.  Only five teams were better than that, but that twelve’s gotta get cut in half.”  Don’t look for a switch to a zone defense any time soon; when it works, don’t fix it. He went on to say that while passing defense needed some fine tuning, the real challenge was in stopping explosive gains on the ground, and the key to containing both run and pass is in applying immediate pressure.

Looking at hurries, sacks, forced fumbles, interceptions, and QB knockdowns, Brown said, “We were number one in the nation in creating havoc.  Isn’t that a great fact?  Havoc!  Love havoc! ”

Other coaches may be as fond of wreaking havoc on opponents, but Brown pulls it off by sticking to a highly disciplined defensive model and by treating his players with respect and affection.  Yes, he’s demanding and yes, his schemes can be complicated, but he believes in his players, and they respond.  All he asks is that they go after the ball with single-minded passion. On every down.  That’s why Michigan defenses seem to swarm; they want to get at the ball and wreak a little havoc in the process.

Their coach loves havoc and his unit is addicted to it as well.

The elements of Brown’s defensive strategy are clear.  Swarm,  Force the play.  Let players in the box go full-bore by making sure there are “overhang: defenders ready to pick up a pass or run from a spread offense.  Brown expects his safeties to shift or spin as a play develops, moving to the ball rather than to a gap.  Despite the complexity of some schemes, particularly in blitzing, Brown’s players have been grounded in the fundamentals, and execution of contact is all about leverage and speed.  Havoc is as much about execution as it is passion.

Stopping explosive runs, improving slot coverage, maintaining constant havoc – Brown’s priorities are clear, and safety Josh Metellus sees his job with equal clarity.  In an interview with the Detroit Free Press he put it this way,  “We’re an aggressive defense and we like putting pressure on the quarterback. So there’s not a lot of changing we can do, unless we change the whole defense,” Metellus added. “So it’s either: You know it or you don’t play.”

As far as Don Brown is concerned, there’s not much to be said for abandoning a system that works.  Michigan’s defense is going to look a lot like last year’s, just a bit more experienced, slightly faster, plenty deep, and ready to run through a wall for their coach.  He’ll be on the sideline again, looking like the guy shooing kids off his lawn, mustache twitching, slapping helmets and backs as his men once again raise a little havoc.