ANN ARBOR, Mich. — We now know more about what Jay Hill’s defensive scheme for Michigan football will be like (he claimed on Thursday it’s awfully similar to what Jesse Minter ran in Ann Arbor in 2023), but why is it that it’s his scheme of choice?
Not many run as complicated of a system, especially in college. Though the previous scheme that the Wolverines had run was spearheaded by Wink Martindale — initially installed by Mike Macdonald in 2021, perfected by Minter in 2022-23, and run by Martindale himself the previous two years, a similar schematic identity has been a part of the Utah Utes going back to Fred ‘Mad Dog’ Whittingham’s tenure as defensive coordinator back in 1992-94. His final year leading the Utes defense was his son, Kyle’s, first, and the younger Whittingham took over the Utah defense the following year.
Advertisement
So when Jay Hill was hired to oversee the BYU defense after his near-decade-long stint as the Weber State head coach, the former Ute player and coach brought it with him.
“So, this is the crazy thing. I actually played in this defense,” Hill said. “This is way back in the late 90s when I got recruited to the University of Utah. Coach Whittingham and his dad were both coaches at the University of Utah, and it’s something that they had developed back when Coach Whitt’s dad was an NFL defensive coordinator. And I’m one of the very few people that’s actually seen Coach Whittingham and how he called it. And I can tell you this, he was the best defensive coordinator of the best defensive mind I’ve seen.
“So, we haven’t tried to change it too much. Now, there’s always tweaks and things that we’re doing as college football evolves. I think we’ve evolved some things. But the roots and the bare bones of the defense go all the way back to those guys.”
Not only has the scheme worked, but Hill, being a former offensive coach — overseeing tight ends and running backs for five years at Utah — has a pretty good idea of what opposing offensive coaches are looking to do. That informs a big part of how he deploys the system and scheme, and he spends a lot of time ensuring that his version of the defense confounds and confuses opposing offenses.
Advertisement
“Everything we do is sound. We’re not guessing. I’m not just throwing, ‘Hey, this front looks like something cool that we drew up on a napkin.’ We’re not doing that stuff,” Hill said. “This stuff is sound. It’s balanced as far as we’re not putting six guys to the field and one to the boundary and just hoping it hits. Like we’re not doing that stuff. It’s sound. It’s evenly spaced. But it’s coming from different directions. And it’s tough to pick up.
“One of the blessings I had when I was an assistant coach, I got to coach six years on offense, and I got to know how we protected things, and I got to know how we tried to beat certain coverages or certain defenses. I know how we slid protections to pick up blitzes. Well, now I can take the flip of that and just try to beat the offensive mind on the other side of the ball. That has been a huge thing in my career is just knowing the offensive side of the ball and trying to create havoc.”
The Wolverines have completed two practices in spring ball, with 12 more before the final practice being the annual spring game at The Big House.
This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Michigan football’s Jay Hill explains defensive scheme origin, plan
