After major personnel losses and an injury to a marquee starter, can Wink Martindale maintain Michigan’s standard on defense?
Wink Martindale is the self-described “O.G.” of the famed Baltimore Ravens defensive scheme that Michigan utilized during its renaissance run of three straight Big Ten Championships and the 2023 national title.
The longtime NFL assistant mentored former Wolverines defensive coordinators Mike MacDonald and Jesse Minter, both of whom instituted and adapted the system to great success in Ann Arbor (Top-5 nationally in scoring all three years).
But while so much has changed around the Wolverines’ program this offseason, Martindale is confident Michigan’s defense will maintain the standard set by his star pupils.
First-year Wolverines’ head coach Sherrone Moore made an audacious hire tabbing the veteran NFL assistant to run Michigan’s defense amid the program’s transition out of the Jim Harbaugh era. Michigan’s new defensive coordinator is reportedly the highest-paid assistant in the sport now with a base salary of $2.3 million this fall.
That’s a lot of cheddar for an assistant who hasn’t coached in college football in 20 years, but if the Wolverines have any hopes of staying atop the Big Ten or making the College Football Playoff in 2024, it’ll be up to Martindale to deliver the cheese
