Why Michigan football's defensive front played with something to prove in Week 1

It may be true that a team can only play who's in front of them. But in Michigan football's opener against Colorado State, the Rams’ offensive line wasn’t in front of U-M’s defensive line much at all.

The Wolverines lived in Colorado State’s backfield — both against the rush and the pass. While it's too early to say whether the defense can thoroughly replace the production of defensive ends Aidan Hutchinson and David Ojabo, it's hard to be much better than the Wolverines were on Saturday.

Michigan recorded seven sacks in the first 33 minutes of the game, including the final one by Mike Morris which caused a fumble that led to a 45-yard return for a touchdown by DJ Turner in the third quarter.

It was the exclamation point on an overwhelming 51-7 victory to open its Big Ten title defense.

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“As a D-line we put a chip on our shoulder because (with Hutchinson and Ojabo’s) absence, everybody thought we weren’t going to be as good,” Morris said. “I feel like that fell on the coaches and the players. I feel like people didn’t have faith in the coaches recruiting and didn’t have faith in the coaches development of us and didn’t have faith in our development.

“People come and go out of every school all the time but now it’s like ‘does Michigan have a guy?’ No, we have multiple. Anybody in that edge room can play winning football and start on this defense.”

Colorado State lost seven offensive linemen with playing experience from a season ago and had 54 new players on its roster. Its left tackle, Brian Crespo-Jaquez, made his first career start and left the game mid-way through the third quarter with an injury. Rams quarterback Clay Millen, was also making his first career start.

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But U-M had some new parts on its defense, starting with defensive coordinator Jesse Minter.

Nine different Wolverines had at least half of a sack.

“We have so many edges and so many different guys at D-line that can do great things for this football team,” said Morris. “We just switched it up as much as possible to give everybody a break. We had I think eight guys rotating at one point and everybody ate.

“So yeah, I think we bring a lot of versatility and depth to every game.”

Some of the sacks came on well disguised blitzes — like converted wide receiver Mike Sainristil, who got in the backfield on Colorado State’s first third-down play and dropped Millen.

And the Wolverines' pass rush forced an errant throw that Rod Moore easily intercepted and returned down to the Rams’ 13.

Transfer defensive end, former five-star prospect Eyabi Anoma bull rushed through the right side of Colorado State’s line in his first snap as a Wolverine and put Millen on the ground.

“He showed us what he can do,” Morris said.

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As the Rams tried to put together a late drive in the first half, getting into Michigan territory for the first time in the game, the Wolverines put together sacks on second down (Michael Barrett) and fourth down (RJ Moten) to end the threat.

The second half opened up much the same way, with Kris Jenkins getting in on the action for a sack on the third play from scrimmage before Turner’s scoop and score on the Morris sack.

Millen would get sacked on each of his next two drives — first by true freshman Mason Graham and Rod Moore, then by Mazi Smith and Jaylen Harrell on fourth down.

“I thought the defense played extremely well,” Harbaugh said. “(In camp) we were feeling the front just getting better and better.”

The pass rush was so effective, largely because the Rams simply couldn’t get anything going on the ground, rushing for 77 yards on 38 carries.

The Wolverines had 11 tackles for loss, with Morris (two) and Mazi Smith (1.5) leading the way.

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Harbaugh indicated at Big Ten media days that sometimes when there’s no superstar, it creates an aura of a team knowing it has to work together to make its total success greater than the sum of its parts.

“Nothing you could really point to where guys didn’t seem like they knew what we were doing or didn’t know what their assignment was,” Harbaugh said. “Really good, especially for a first game, the way they took care of their business.”

Contact Tony Garcia at apgarcia@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @realtonygarcia.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan's defense played with something to prove in Week 1 win.