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Paolo Uggetti, ESPN
LOS ANGELES — For two seasons in the NFL, Michigan defensive coordinator Jesse Minter had to face Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson in practice. As the former defensive backs coach in Baltimore, Minter is familiar with dealing with a dynamic quarterback and, while Michigan prepares to face Alabama in the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Rose Bowl, Minter knows the Wolverines will have their hands full defending the Tide’s own dynamic signal caller in Jalen Milroe.
“It’s like Reggie Bush running the ball,” Minter said Thursday of Milroe’s and Jackson’s ability to make the most of a broken play. “It’s not like a quarterback that’s scrambling, and he’s going to slide and [you] make sure you don’t hit him so you don’t get a penalty. This dude is going to run like a legit tailback or like a legit slot receiver once he’s in space.”
While Minter is wary of comparing Milroe to Jackson, he is aware of the challenge Milroe presents and the way he has improved as the season has progressed. The sophomore quarterback struggled to start the season, losing the starting job for the game against South Florida only to get it back and lead Alabama to an SEC title and a CFP berth while recording 3,186 all-purpose yards and 35 total touchdowns.
“I expect him to make explosive plays like he’s done all year,” Michigan defensive lineman Mason Graham said. “It’s going to be a battle.”
Minter described the Wolverines’ defensive approach to stopping Milroe as “11 on one,” noting that his defense will have to play fast to keep up with Milroe and the way he leads the Alabama offense.
“He’s capable of every play, not only having to defend the first play, but also what we call the second play,” Minter said. “So his ability when he drops back to one, scramble to throw the ball really, really far downfield, or to dump the ball off to the speed guys and also his ability to take the ball himself.”
When asked what it’s been like to prepare for Milroe, several Michigan players compared him to having to defend Maryland quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa, the brother of former Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.
“His athletic ability and movements in the pocket are similar,” linebacker Michael Barrett said. “But I feel like he’s a different kind of quarterback than we’ve seen.”
In the lead-up to the game, Minter said Michigan has been using sophomore quarterback Alex Orjii as a stand-in for Milroe during practice to simulate Milroe’s skillset and tendencies as much as possible.
“It’s hard to simulate a guy like Jalen Milroe,” Minter said. “Alex has a unique skillset that we can try to simulate him, but to say that we can simulate him to a T is probably not fair to him and how well he’s played this year, but Alex has done a great job trying to give it the best look.”
As Minter explains, one of the things Milroe excels at is throwing the ball downfield. During practice, Orji has been used to replicate some of those long throws in order to allow the Wolverines defense to get used to such plays and being able to track the ball down in the air.
Milroe, for his part, knows he’ll meet his match when going up against a Michigan defense with a stout front and an ability to put pressure on the quarterback.
“Their interior D-line play is really hard, physical” Milroe said. “They do a lot of stunts, do a lot of picks up front, which is something that we are trying to prepare as much as possible for that circumstance because they do a really good job of making [the quarterback] throw the ball.”