Western Michigan controlled the ball for more than 40 minutes last weekend. For Michigan run game coordinator and defensive ends coach Lewis Powell, he sees the positives of more playing time and drawbacks of his guys not being as fresh from a defensive perspective — equating the situation to that of a bunch of firemen.
“Most of the time, they’re thinking, ‘Hey, awesome time for us to go out there like firemen,’” Powell started to explain to the media on Wednesday. “Especially when we’re getting the short
fields, everybody’s running out the building. We’re running into the building, trying to calm down the fire, right. And not only that, we get more reps. I feel like it was good for us to get all those reps. We needed it. But it’s part of being a team, and if we could have — I would have probably rotated more just to keep getting guys fresh, and we’ll probably see that moving forward.”
Out of the four edge rushers that played, Dom Nichols had 55 snaps, John Henry Daley had 43 snaps, Cam Brandt had 32 snaps and Nate Marshall had just eight snaps, per PFF. Moving forward, Powell would like to get “probably five, maybe six guys to rotate in the game.”
“I think you’ll see a little bit more rotation this week,” Powell said. “That was a good first game, but a lot to work on. (We’re) excited moving forward to next week. We kind of put away what we did last week, took what was good, and learned from what was bad.”
Out of the guys who did play, Nichols led the way with the most reps and proved exactly why he earned them by securing nine tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss and 1.5 sacks.
“Dom is a special player, and with just a good mix of speed and power and size,” Powell said. “I’m not sure if I’ve ever coached somebody like him. He’s a special player, and he’s one of our leaders in our room.”
Although 40 minutes of possession for Western Michigan meant more playing time for Nichols, he didn’t seem to care and was eager to take advantage of the opportunity to be out on the field.
“I’ve always wanted to play more, and that’s been one of my things,” Nichols told the media on Tuesday. “But like I had said prior to this, yeah, you got to waste your turn. I think in this era of college football, people kind of forget that, and if you sit there, people also forget about you. So it’s easy to get caught up in that stuff, but you can’t. It’s just part of the game.”
As Nichols and Daley got the majority of the snaps due to the Broncos coming out in heavier, 12-personnel sets, Powell expects Brandt to play a similar amount as a hybrid starter and Marshall to have more than eight snaps and “get a good amount this year.” Part of the reason Powell didn’t play more than four guys on the edge was also due to “nagging injuries.” Notably, freshman Carter Meadows has been out, but Powell is “hoping he can play this week.”
Benny Patterson III also didn’t play and could end up getting more time. And looking forward, Powell anticipates getting Meadows and another freshman, Tariq Boney, more playing time as both have embraced their roles with confidence.
“Really talented freshmen, not only that but they came with the best mindset I’ve seen in freshmen coming in,” Powell said. “Those guys are talented, they come in with the right mindset, and they came in not thinking that ‘Hey, we’re just their average freshmen,’ they came in thinking that, ‘We’re going to come in and take somebody’s playing time or position.’ So love both of those guys, and those guys showed a lot of promise.”
With Oklahoma on the docket for Saturday, Michigan is going to face an offensive line Powell deems to be “one of the best, if not the best” in the country. For Powell and the Wolverines, having the ability to rotate five or six players instead of four could be crucial, especially if they hope to avoid being on the field for 40 minutes again.
And if anyone is up for the challenge, it’s Nichols.
“It’s exciting, honestly, knowing that no matter what, you’re gonna be a factor in the game,” Nichols said when asked about Western Michigan testing the edges by going sideline to sideline and how Oklahoma will likely do the same. “When the plays come to you, you just gotta make them. And I feel like that’s just the mindset that everyone on this team needs to have.”
