Mailbag question: To late to switch to 4-3

Mailbag question: To late to switch to 4-3

Is it too late to move back to the 4-3? Would that even help? Week after week it appears that our LB’s are performing poorly. Would we be better off adding Sag/Big Will to the line and keeping Roh, Brown, and Ezeh at LB? I suppose switching the primary D package mid-year would be difficult but we are hardly getting any QB pressure and we can't stop the run.

Randy S.

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Thanks for the question.

Changing defenses in mid season would be a disaster in our opinion. Remember what happened last season when Michigan switched schemes in the season as an “experiment” and essentially gave away the Purdue game last year).

We would like to see Michigan play the two big defensive tackles at the same time in some packages. Quarterback pressure has been a big concern since the spring and it will likely continue to be a problem the entire season. UM has not been able to get much pressure on the quarterback and not even force pressure on the quarterback hurry his throws.

The bottom line to us at this time is Michigan does not have the super athletes needed to play against today's high-powered offenses. Michigan State 's wide receivers were flat out better than Michigan 's defensive backs, with the exception of D. Warren.

Until Michigan gets the athletes/players, no system will make a huge difference. Recruiting is the life-blood of a successful program and until recruiting on the defensive side of the ball is addressed Michigan will continue to struggle against good offensive teams. There will be no secrets there will be no magic. Every opponent has a literal trove of treasured tidbits on how to successfully attack Michigan; regardless of the other teams strengths and tendencies.

Indeed, we have been harping on this for quite some time and some may choose to discount the viewpoint, but until the defensive side of the ball is being recruited as hard or harder than the offense side of the ball, Michigan will continue to have problems. The depth and quality of players on the defensive side of the ball is really scary and we have been pointing this out since 2008 spring practices. It just seems that now people are REALLY starting to take notice. As was stated by Doc last year in an article about spring practice: the question of whom to blame is really academic and meaningless, the real question is what is UM going to do about the remedy?

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Written by CoachBt, Doc4blu and ErocWolverine