When a team has a terrible season, the silver lining entering the next year is that, often, the only way to go is up.

For a select few fortunate teams, however, there's the flip side: For Michigan football, coming off an undefeated season and a national title, there's no room to improve, only the chance to defend its crown as the rest of the country aims to take it.

Although external projections of Team 145 aren't quite what they were last year when players such as Blake Corum proclaimed "natty or bust," nothing has changed for first-year head coach Sherrone Moore and Co. about the internal expectations as the team broke for fall camp Wednesday, one month before the Aug. 31 opener against Fresno State.

“There’s no time off. There’s no, ‘Let’s take a step back,’” Moore said in July at Big Ten media days in Indianapolis. “That’s not our goal. We know what we want to do. We know how we want to attack it. I’m hungrier than ever.”

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If possible, it's a mentality that goes double for new defensive coordinator Wink Martindale.

Not only is the 61-year-old coach joining the college ranks for the first time in two decades, but he takes over a unit that was already the best in the nation before he arrived. U-M led the country both in fewest points (10.4) and yards allowed (252) per game in 2023 and now has to deal with the bittersweet reality of losing multiple players — including seven starters — to the NFL on all three levels.

Still, unlike an offense which has to replace 10 of 11 starters, Martindale has the benefit of a handful of cornerstones coming back; projected top-five NFL draft pick Will Johnson at cornerback, and fellow expected first-round selections Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant, the headliners on the defensive line.

Combine them with the depth the Wolverines picked up in the secondary in the transfer portal, likely future NFL edges Derrick Moore and Josaiah Stewart and an athletic linebacker corps in Ernest Hausmann and Maryland transfer Jaishawn Barham, and it's easy to understand why Martindale is embracing the expectations.

"I think that there's no doubt where the bar is set, and there's no doubt where I'll set the bar, and that's for us to be the best in the country," he said Tuesday. "I'm not going to hide from that. I'm not going to run from that, and neither are we as a defense."

For the past three years, the Wolverines defense has been led by someone from the Ravens defensive coaching tree, starting in 2021 with Mike Macdonald (now head coach of the Seattle Seahawks), then moving to Jesse Minter (now DC for the Los Angeles Chargers) in 2022-23.

The two became known for what they described as their "amoeba defense," which can mix and match with four or five down linemen, operates with a nickel to prioritize speed and slot-coverage and is known for bringing an array of pressures from a variety of looks.

More than anything, it's centered on four pillars: block destruction, effort, ball disruption and communication.

“It’s a different delivery when it’s a different guy doing it and we had those same pillars in Baltimore and New York,” Martindale said. "I just think that you get what you emphasize, and that’s definitely one of the first things I’m going to talk to them about."

Those were the foundations MacDonald and Minter picked up in Baltimore when they were position coaches under Martindale and head coach John Harbaugh (2018-21). Though they came from his system, there's a difference between Martindale and U-M's two defensive play-callers who came before him.

“Am I an aggressive play-caller? Yes, I’m an aggressive play-caller," Martindale admitted this week, after his defenses led the NFL in blitz rate four of the past seven seasons. "When it doesn’t work, that’s when everybody comes down to, he’s always blitzing too much. Don’t hear that at all when you win. You hear but you just don’t listen to any of that.

"We’ll find that right mix of pressures, simulated. We’ll find the right mix — that’s what training camp’s for.”

As Martindale acknowledged, he is known for being aggressive, but what he took exception to earlier this offseason on "In the Trenches," Michigan's own podcast, was what he saw as a lazy comparison, when outsiders compared him to former U-M defensive coordinator Don Brown, nicknamed "Dr. Blitz."

Yes, the two are both in their 60s and like to send pressure — heck, they're both named Don — but the principals of their defense are not the same.

It's why Martindale could do without the comparisons — especially ones suggesting a potentially blitz-heavy scheme is going to leave the defense gashed in the same way Brown's was at the hands of OSU from 2016-19, the chief reason he was relieved of his duties after a dismal 2020.

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“It’s ridiculous, as I see it. It’s ridiculous,” Martindale said. “You have defenses that have ranked No. 1 in the NFL and in the top five three years in a row and then you come into a new system in New York, and you go into the playoffs, but what do they want to talk about?

"They want to talk about last year, the last year, and it’s just the way life is, where we’re at in today’s society."

Martindale comes to Ann Arbor off a recent rough stretch, spanning from the end of his time in Baltimore, where his team ranked 19th in yards per play in 2021, to two years in the Big Apple, where his Giants ranked 22nd in points allowed in 2022 (22.8 per game) and 26th (23.9) a season ago.

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There's no doubt it's an industry of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately, and in college football nobody has done as much lately as the Wolverines. Martindale is here to try and top an already elite unit and he has the talent to make it so.

“I think that you’re not worth a grain of salt if you don’t feel pressure as a coach every year, no matter where you’re at,” Martindale said. “Do you want to be better than that? Sure you do."

More hands on deck

The NCAA Division I Council approved a rule change earlier this summer which will allow analysts to serve in on-field coaching capacities during both practices and games.

Naturally, that switch has allowed for the Wolverines to move things around; below is the list of the moves (with the position coach listed in bold).

• Lou Esposito, LaTroy Lewis (defensive tackles), Kevin Wilkins and Pernell McPhee (edges),

• Brian Jean-Mary and Anthony Marciano (linebackers)

• LaMar Morgan, Lionel Stokes and Brad Hawkins (secondary)

"I love this group," Martindale said of his cohort in Schembechler Hall. "To start off, they're good people, and they're damn good coaches. And as I said before, if I haven't said it to you guys, I'll say it again: These guys inspire me with the way they work and their knowledge of the game."

Kirk Campbell, now offensive coordinator, got his start at Michigan as an analyst in 2022, before he got his break last year as quarterbacks coach. Now, he's in charge of the entire attack, and having experienced both sides first-hand, he said he has a true appreciation for how beneficial it truly is.

"I think it's outstanding," Campbell said. "The more eyes you can get on the field, it frees me up a bit. There will be some times maybe I can walk around individual practice instead of just having my fingers directly on the quarterbacks. We've had guys in specific roles before this happened as far as in the rooms, now their roles are just elevated on the practice field and in meeting rooms.

"We've trained them like we've trained the players so we're able to just turn key and get things going. Now the OG Freddy Jackson (running backs coach from 1992-2014 who was an assistant head coach for more than a decade under Lloyd Carr) is back in action, so that's exciting for everybody."

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Wink Martindale 'not going to run' from Michigan football's standards