Michigan's Blitz Tape vs. Alabama
The Wolverines, again, attacked the Bama offensive line en route to another post-season victory against the Tide.
The Michigan Wolverines and the Baltimore Ravens have had symbiotic relationships since hiring current LA Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh. After moving on from former UMass head coach Don Brown in 2020, the two organizations have shared defensive coaches.
First, it was the current Seattle Seahawks head coach, Mike Macdonald. The young coach, who helped streamline the Ravens’ defense as an assistant, pushed the Wolverines’ defense back into elite status. John Harbaugh would come calling for Macdonald after moving on from Wink Martindale, who the Giants would quickly pick up.
Following Macdonald’s departure, Jim hired Jesse Minter, who had worked with the Ravens from 2017 to 2020 before taking the defensive coordinator role at Vanderbilt in ‘21. Minter arguably raised the bar even higher in his two years as the defensive playcaller in Ann Arbor, helping Michigan go undefeated in 2023 en route to a National Championship.
When Jim moved to LA to take over the Chargers, he quickly tabbed Minter to call his defense. So far, the Chargers’ defense has performed much better than the previous year. They are just outside the top ten, eleventh in DVOA (FTN). LA is fifth overall in EPA/rush and at the top of the league in dropback pass success rate (Field Vision). Minter’s defensive acumen traveled with him out west.
Michigan brass wanted to keep the hire in-house, so they turned to Sherrone Moore, Harbaugh’s offensive coordinator. Moore had been at Michigan since 2018 and the OC since ‘21. Following the trend of former Ravens assistants as DCs, Moore turned to Wink Martindale, whom the Giants had recently fired.
Martindale and Macdonald mark an epoch shift in Baltimore's philosophy. John Harbaugh felt a change in direction was needed after his defensive unit started to trend downwards. 2021 would be the last straw when the unit finished 31st in DVOA. Baltimore's defenses had quickly fallen off a cliff. In 2020, the unit finished 15th in weighted DVOA, down from 2019, when it was the #2 team in weighted DVOA.
In New York, Martindale didn’t fare much better. His defense was still in the bottom third of the NFL, and unlike Macdonald and Minter, he had not evolved in the current landscape. The Giants in ‘22 and ‘23 were still blitz-centric and closed-post heavy, with DVOAs of 30th and 21st, respectively. Martindale didn't adopt the variability that is a hallmark of Macdonald’s and Minter’s systems (Ravens 2.0).
The playbook for Martindale, Macdonald, and Minter is the same, but the latter utilized it much differently when pegged as the central playcaller. After the Michigan Spring Game, I remarked, ‘Martindale has an opportunity to showcase that he has evolved after being let go in two spots.’ The Spring Game, in particular, was an old-school showcase, with the offense aligning in 21 and 22 personnel on almost every play. To match, Martindale had his signature 3-4 blitz-centric style.
Many pundits, including myself, wondered how Martindale would adjust to the college game. The Spring Game didn’t help, with both units playing ‘neanderthal ball,’ a clever way to avoid giving anything away. Once the season started, it was evident that Martindale had evolved a bit to match his new level and style of play.
Martindale wasn’t shy about his play-calling ability during the lead-up of the season either. With Macdonald and Minter in the NFL and Martindale now at Ann Arbor, he made it clear to the players, in his own words, that he was the ‘OG’ of the system and that ‘everything was going to be just fine.’ There were struggles against the high-powered offenses in Texas and Oregon, but the culminating win of the year was the most important, a 13-10 victory over hated rival Ohio State.
To beat Ohio State, Martindale took a similar blueprint laid out by Minter from the previous year. In ‘23, Minter used ‘targeted coverage’ to counter Marvin Harrison Jr. and non-traditional Tampas (NTTs) to keep the quarterback guessing. Martindale would have to face similar issues with freshman phenom Jeremiah Smith and a better quarterback in Will Howard.
Looking post-op, it appears Martindale has adjusted and evolved his scheme. Other than more reliance on Quarters, the coverage matrices of Martindale and Minter (below) are very similar. This Michigan team blitzed less than last year by almost four percentage points! Against the Tide in this year’s bowl game, Martindale would again take a page from Minter, garnering five sacks and another post-season victory against the Tide.
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