Michigan Wolverines defensive coordinator Don Brown sat down with host Jon Jansen on this week's In The Trenches podcast. Brown discussed U-M's defense and what has allowed it to bounce back from the Wisconsin game and be so effective in recent weeks. He also talked about preparation for Ohio State, and more. RELATED: Michigan A Top School For Rivals 250 DE Kechaun Bennett RELATED: Michigan Checks In At No. 14 In First CFP Rankings

Michigan Wolverines defensive coordinator Don Brown has his defense playing at a high level late in the season. (USA Today Sports Images)

Brown talked about how enjoyable it is to coach this year's U-M defense. "It’s a great group," he said. "This is a lot of fun. You’ve got athleticism at all 11 positions. We’ve got some guys that we can plug in there in our sub packages that are just exciting to watch. "The nice thing is, we’ve got a very intelligent group that you can throw scheme at them, you can throw concept at them and they have a tremendous understanding of what we’re trying to do so it’s not a frustrating thing during the practice week where you’re fighting for your life trying to get the guys right. After Tuesday, going into Wednesday, our guys got it figured out." The Wolverines defense has shown the ability to showcase their speed when running and pursuing the football. "There’s a theory that I’ve fooled around with," Brown said. "People call it pursuit and so forth. But, I’m calling it ‘converge.’ And the reason I call it converge is this reason — if your defense is coming to the ball and let’s say the ball was run to the right, and for example, there’s three guys coming, you don’t have have enough guys converging to the football. We’re looking for the box to have four guys, two high, two low, two from the inside, two from the outside and then, all of a sudden, the converge piece is the guys that aren’t supposed to get there, but they better get there, and they understand it. "They take great pride in it. They all want to be in the picture at the end of the play and we’re getting a lot of that type of play from our guys, and they’re excited when we show those plays on Sunday and Monday. The only highlights we show are converge and run to the ball highlights."

Following the Wisconsin game, the run defense has tightened up and has become a force to be reckoned with. "I just think it’s the players, their attention to detail," Brown said. "We had some missed fits, we were a little loose with our fits in the Wisconsin game, especially in the first half. Our guys said that ‘That’s not going to happen again.’ They’ve taken it to heart and without question, that’s probably our biggest area of improvement as a defense, is the ability for guys to trust where their help is coming from." Brown admitted that the 35-14 loss at Wisconsin was a tough pill to swallow, but he's proud of his team's response. "You’re going to take that game and two things are going to happen: 1) [Your guys] are going to sink into mediocrity or 2) they’re going to utilize that as energy, emotion and just the improvement necessary to move forward," Brown said. "These are Michigan football players. They’re going to move forward. They have no choice. And, I'm proud of the way we’ve performed over the last six weeks. I think we’ve played three top-20 teams, so it’s not like it’s chopped liver. All we can do is play the schedule, who’s in front of us. I’m just happy with our response, our energy, our effort and our laser focus at practice." The pass rush has been no slouch either. U-M is tied for 15th in the country with 29.0 total sacks as a team. "The great thing is we function out of the four-down scheme and we function out of the three-down scheme and then we function out of what we call the ‘exotics,'" Brown said, raving about his team's versatility. "We put guys on the field in places where we know they’re going to have a chance to be effective. When you can come through those three avenues, you can get pretty complex by week five, six, seven, because your guys can build. We’ve stayed within our philosophy and our concepts, so there’s definite building blocks for the guys so they can learn and function at a high level." U-M is currently on a bye week and has Michigan State, Indiana and Ohio State remaining on the regular season schedule. The Wolverines fell 62-39 to OSU last season, and Brown was asked what his defense needs to do to compete with the Buckeyes come Nov. 30. "I think we just need to stay true to form," Brown said. "I think we’ve done a good job of giving our guys stuff on a week to week basis where they’re probably wondering, ‘Why are we practicing this play? Why are we practicing that play?’ So, we’ve done a good job of keeping their hands in it without really telling them their hands are in it. But, they know. "It’s another year, it’s a different group. They better be careful now because we’re hitting our stride too. This is a two-way street, and I know our guys will be ready in three weeks."

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