... and more. He touched on...
• Playing at Northwestern: "Out of the Big Ten — and I played before we got Maryland and Rutgers involved, and I never got an opportunity to play at Nebraska — Northwestern's Stadium is probably the least impressive venue by comparison to those other stadiums you mentioned [Beaver Stadium, Ohio Stadium, Spartan Stadium, for ferocity]. When you play there for Michigan, it's actually a little nice.
"It's probably going to be the most friendly away game you're going to play. There are quite a few Michigan alums in and around the Chicago/Evanston area. There will be a lot of maize and blue supporters for the game Saturday, I know that.
"[The stadium] can kind of mess with your mentality, if you allow it to. It's a little underwhelming, in comparison to what it's like on a game day at The Big House. If you let that infiltrate your mindset, it could ease you into a false sense of security. You maybe don't get turned up to the level you do at The Big House.
"You can't let that happen. Northwestern, regardless of record, they always play hard. Pat Fitzgerald does a really good job with those guys, and they're willing to run through walls for him. Michigan, in their stadium, is going to be an exciting game for them. Michigan's got to turn up the intensity, because it can kind of lull you a little bit."
• Avoiding a mental letdown: "It may sound kind of cheesy, but I think it comes down to leadership, and your seniors and leaders that are pushing the team to be better than what it is. We talked last week before the Nebraska game, that we wondered if they remembered the comments made by Scott Frost that they got 'outhit' or whatever.
"In the press conferences following the game, they talked about yeah, we were jacked up because of that. Well, it's great that they got jacked up because of that, but that's now the standard. That's something they internally need to enforce. If you can turn up for a game, that means you can also go into a game neutral or even below neutral, and that's not something you can do if you want to be a dominant program.
"College football is a very unique sport in that one game, two games, lost throughout that season will drastically affect the success of that season. You go into Northwestern, screw around and end up tight with them at the end of the game, it's only going to be because you didn't come with the intensity that you needed to be there with.
"You have the personnel. You have everything you need to come away from that stadium with a win. If we don't, it's going to be 100 percent on mindset, focus, things that should be controlled, day-in and day-out."
• The next step for the Michigan defense this week: "I'd really like to emphasize turnovers. We have had some turnovers, but I don't think we've had many balls that we have taken away. I want to see guys raking at the ball. You've got new ball carriers in there. We should be all over them, in regard to pressure.
"We should up in the game. We should be looking to take the ball away from them. Our defense has done a good job to this point with a lot of different things, but considering the opposition we've played, aside from Notre Dame, we haven't really dominated in a game and created more than three, four turnovers in a game.
"I realize that's a high ask, or a high expectation, but if you want to be elite, and you want to have a high turnover average, you've got to have games where you have five. I would like to see some more turnovers created, fumbles specifically, but I'll take them any way we can get them.
"From the last game, I thought we got good pressure. I wouldn't say we need more pressure on the quarterback. I felt we were finally where we needed to be. But no big plays, which we didn't give up last game. Nothing over 30 yards. Not giving up first downs, which we didn't do last game. Not giving up conversions on third downs, where we did well last game.
"It's hitting those marks again, to show that we can consistently do it, would be a big relief for me and a lot of people who wondered how this defense is actually going to be this year."
Here is the full podcast: https://michigan.rivals.com/news/michigan-wolverines-football-pre-game-podcast-ryan-van-bergen-2
• Playing at Northwestern: "Out of the Big Ten — and I played before we got Maryland and Rutgers involved, and I never got an opportunity to play at Nebraska — Northwestern's Stadium is probably the least impressive venue by comparison to those other stadiums you mentioned [Beaver Stadium, Ohio Stadium, Spartan Stadium, for ferocity]. When you play there for Michigan, it's actually a little nice.
"It's probably going to be the most friendly away game you're going to play. There are quite a few Michigan alums in and around the Chicago/Evanston area. There will be a lot of maize and blue supporters for the game Saturday, I know that.
"[The stadium] can kind of mess with your mentality, if you allow it to. It's a little underwhelming, in comparison to what it's like on a game day at The Big House. If you let that infiltrate your mindset, it could ease you into a false sense of security. You maybe don't get turned up to the level you do at The Big House.
"You can't let that happen. Northwestern, regardless of record, they always play hard. Pat Fitzgerald does a really good job with those guys, and they're willing to run through walls for him. Michigan, in their stadium, is going to be an exciting game for them. Michigan's got to turn up the intensity, because it can kind of lull you a little bit."
• Avoiding a mental letdown: "It may sound kind of cheesy, but I think it comes down to leadership, and your seniors and leaders that are pushing the team to be better than what it is. We talked last week before the Nebraska game, that we wondered if they remembered the comments made by Scott Frost that they got 'outhit' or whatever.
"In the press conferences following the game, they talked about yeah, we were jacked up because of that. Well, it's great that they got jacked up because of that, but that's now the standard. That's something they internally need to enforce. If you can turn up for a game, that means you can also go into a game neutral or even below neutral, and that's not something you can do if you want to be a dominant program.
"College football is a very unique sport in that one game, two games, lost throughout that season will drastically affect the success of that season. You go into Northwestern, screw around and end up tight with them at the end of the game, it's only going to be because you didn't come with the intensity that you needed to be there with.
"You have the personnel. You have everything you need to come away from that stadium with a win. If we don't, it's going to be 100 percent on mindset, focus, things that should be controlled, day-in and day-out."
• The next step for the Michigan defense this week: "I'd really like to emphasize turnovers. We have had some turnovers, but I don't think we've had many balls that we have taken away. I want to see guys raking at the ball. You've got new ball carriers in there. We should be all over them, in regard to pressure.
"We should up in the game. We should be looking to take the ball away from them. Our defense has done a good job to this point with a lot of different things, but considering the opposition we've played, aside from Notre Dame, we haven't really dominated in a game and created more than three, four turnovers in a game.
"I realize that's a high ask, or a high expectation, but if you want to be elite, and you want to have a high turnover average, you've got to have games where you have five. I would like to see some more turnovers created, fumbles specifically, but I'll take them any way we can get them.
"From the last game, I thought we got good pressure. I wouldn't say we need more pressure on the quarterback. I felt we were finally where we needed to be. But no big plays, which we didn't give up last game. Nothing over 30 yards. Not giving up first downs, which we didn't do last game. Not giving up conversions on third downs, where we did well last game.
"It's hitting those marks again, to show that we can consistently do it, would be a big relief for me and a lot of people who wondered how this defense is actually going to be this year."
Here is the full podcast: https://michigan.rivals.com/news/michigan-wolverines-football-pre-game-podcast-ryan-van-bergen-2
