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ANN ARBOR -- Michigan cornerback Leon Hall left the first few days of preseason camp a little dazed and confused.
Calling the offenses he faced "weird," "crazy" and "a fad," in no particular order, Hall said the defense got what it needed -- a steady diet of spread looks that foiled the Wolverines late last season and no doubt will be present this fall.
During camp, Michigan unveiled new offensive looks that caught some of the defenders off guard. That was precisely the point -- to get the defense prepared, not to mention add pizzazz to what is expected to be a high-scoring offense.
"It was just weird because I heard about it before camp that they were going to spread out the ball," said Hall, a junior who has started 12 games at cornerback. "We were like, 'All right, we'll see. Whatever. We'll go out and play our defense regardless.' It was definitely a shock because it was different from what I've been seeing and a little bit different than what was going on in the spring.
"The first couple of days were kind of surprising for me just because what they were doing on offense when they were scheming the defense and shifting and motioning and spreading the ball around. It was just kind of different."
Different in a positive way, of course.
Mobile quarterbacks and spread offenses took their toll on Michigan in three of the final four games last season. Clearly, defending against that has been a major objective as the fourth-ranked Wolverines prepares for their opener against run-oriented Northern Illinois on Saturday.
Hall said the defense spent 50 percent of its practice time during camp working against the spread.
"Really, all the time we're working on getting to the ball, which helps against the spread offense," Hall said. "But we'll have separate periods dedicated to the spread offense, and we'll have fast guys at quarterback, trying to emulate the spread quarterbacks. We've really been working hard on that."
It was nearly a 180-degree change from a year ago.
"I don't remember practicing against spread offenses as much as we did this past fall," Hall said. "It's (been) a lot more."
With so many options among the receivers, Michigan's offensive coaches devised a number of plays, Hall said, to take advantage of all the skill players. Admittedly, Hall said, the Michigan defenders had problems, at times, stopping their counterparts. But he expects the offense to be a consistent problem for opposing defenses.
"As a defense, you can't really say, 'OK, this formation, they're going to give it to this guy,' or that there are tendencies (when you know) they're going to give the ball to Jason (Avant) or give the ball to Steve (Breaston)," Hall said. "It's more spread out between (receivers) Adrian (Arrington), Mario (Manningham) and Doug (Dutch). They've just spread out the ball consistently throughout the camp."
As for the rest of the defense, Hall said he has seen a change in demeanor.
"They're playing like they've got a chip on their shoulder," he said.
When told of Hall's remarks, coach Lloyd Carr joked that he sees his players only when they have their pads on and could not detect any chips.
"Obviously, when you're part of a unit that has had as much criticism as the defense has had, I think it's a motivating factor," Carr said. "But what I look at it is the way they've worked, and the way they've trained, and the way they've practiced. We're much stronger up front than we were a year ago, and I think that was one of the problems, one of the big problems. We're stronger, we're bigger, we have better depth. I think that is going to make a difference."
You can reach Angelique S. Chengelis at angelique.chengelis@detnews.com.
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