ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Rich Rodriguez has climbed up the ranks of college football because his spread offense has been tough to stop at every level.

At Michigan, though, his defense has stunted his chance to have success.

Rodriguez insisted on Monday that he's sticking with his defensive staff -- led by coordinator Greg Robinson -- and plans to try and spend more time than usual with assistants on that side of the ball.

"I'm not going to be able to wave a magic wand myself and fix some of the issues," Rodriguez said. "Some of the problems are not going to get fixed overnight. We have a lot of inexperienced players playing defensively."