DTs. As Urban said, that UM 2016 defense was the best he ever faced due to Mo Hurst and Co.
It's a shame that Speight got hurt vs Iowa and they didn't have a legit back-up to him. It's a shame Speight was was even their starter in the first place actually. I really think had they been able to keep Rudock in 2016, they probably beat Iowa and Ohio State and go 12-0 in the regular season. I mean they lost to Iowa by 1 point on a last second FG
after Speight got broken in half during that game. They were in command of that OSU game until Speight basically gave OSU 14 points and took 7 away from Michigan. Don't want to make it sound like I'm taking away credit from OSU. Speight was ass in that game though. Michigan is probably up 24-0 late in the 3rd QTR if not for Wilt the Stilt coughing up a snap with 1 yard to score a TD, throwing a pick 6 the series before buttfingers muffed said goal-line snap, and then throwing another INT that got returned all the way to the goal-line after a penalty was called on Michigan on the OSU INT return. That's a 21 point swing. Jake Rudock doesn't make those mistakes imo.
That 2016 defense may have been the best I've ever seen at Michigan. They just put the clamps down on everyone. My only nit-pick is they should've started Devin Bush at MIKE and moved Gedeon to WILL and had McCray come off the bench to back-up both spots.
Two Deep DL was:
DE:
Taco Charlton (1st rd pick), Chase Winovich (2nd rd pick)
DE:
Chris Wormley (3rd rd pick), Rashan Gary (1st rd pick)
NT:
Bryan Mone (UFA), Matt Godin (he was OK as a back-up, the weakest link)
DT:
Ryan Glasgow (4th rd pick), Mo Hurst (5th rd pick- still ridiculous to me- he was a 1st rd talent)
Their DE talent was insane and their DT's were so underrated. Glasgow and Hurst were so fricken good and Mone was an immovable 340 pound force in the middle. Their top 6 guys on the DL were insane, Mone was really good too, and Godin kinda stunk but he was no worse than Carlo Kemp. Carlo Kemp is THE #1 guy for this years Michigan teams DT's. Godin was 4th best DT by far on that 2016 team. Kemp might've never gotten on the field for that 2016 team. Kind of goes to show you how far they've fallen. And it's pretty damning that this new staff has struggled to develop Chris Hinton and Mazi Smith. I know they are still young and DT's take time to develop, but Hinton was a 5* DT and Mazi Smith was a top 100 player in the nation. They need those guys to grow up in a hurry.
Who built and developed that DL in 2016? Greg Mattison. Boy are they are missing him badly right now.