‘A lot of chess pieces’ on the Michigan defense for Jesse Minter, including one important one

The 2023 Michigan defense has a ridiculous amount of talent and not many weaknesses. Even the question marks (the “other” corner) have potential and very viable solutions.

ESPN FPI gives Michigan football title odds, game-by-game projections

Michigan defensive coordinator Jesse Minter spent much of spring moving parts around seeing what worked best. The good news — all of them resulted in at least some success. The secondary will be a work in progress with sophomore Amorion Walker battling several others for the right to start.

But keep an eye on Michigan grad student Mike Sainristil, too. He could play some corner, moving Rod Moore or someone else to nickel.

“There are a lot of chess pieces on this defense right now and different guys that can be successful doing different things,” Minter said on the In the Trenches podcast with Jon Jansen. “Sometimes, even if there’s one position — like right now, everybody’s like, ‘hey, who’s the other corner?’ — well, Mikey Sainristil is really, really good, so there might be times we put somebody else on the field to allow us to use Mikey in certain areas.

“I think we have the pieces and the complementary pieces to be able to do that, and I’m really excited about the options there.”

In big games, Minter continued, they might go with experience over someone like Walker … or any of the other young guys, for that matter.

“Mikey had played in a lot of big moments on offense, so even just the understanding of what it takes to be successful at this level, as a player — that’s probably the biggest thing that Amorion hasn’t quite experienced,” the Michigan D.C. said. “And he played a few snaps maybe throughout the year on offense but hasn’t been that guy and counted on in big moments. That’s a bigger adjustment … so, Mikey can be a huge resource for him throughout the process of changing.

“But truth be told, you’re going to have to go out there and do it in front of 110,000 people. Early in the season, there are going to be good moments, and there are probably going to be some moments that are very teachable and learnable.”

Just as it was with Michigan corner Will Johnson last year. The freshman wasn’t killing it immediately. In fact, he had a touchdown thrown over his head in game one.

But he learned from it, and Minter is confident Walker will, too.

“You need those growable, learnable moments. Amorion had that experience in the spring game,” Minter said. “It will probably happen again when the real live bullets start flying, but I’m confident that as we go, as we progress — middle of the season, late in the season — he’ll be capable of doing the things we need him to do.”

Until he’s there 100 percent, however, expect even more from Sainristil on the Michigan defense.

The post ‘A lot of chess pieces’ on the Michigan defense for Jesse Minter, including one important one appeared first on On3.