Andy & Ari On3 - Minnesota WINS the Little Brown Jug vs Michigan | What’s next for Kyle Whittingham, Bryce Underwood?

Episode Date: October 3, 2026

Over in Minneapolis, the Michigan Wolverines and Minnesota Golden Gophers played each other in a Big Ten match where the Gophers won the Little Brown Jug at home for the first time since 1977. What's next for both Minnesota and Michigan? Watch here as Andy & Ari react to this game.Our show is presented by Polymarket!New User Offer: Deposit $10, get $50 upon sign uphttps://app.polymarket.us/S8ac/ON3Trade on College Football games every week on Polymarket. Download the Polymarket App with code ON3 for a $20 bonus upon sign up.18+ only. Restrictions and eligibility requirement apply. Not available in all jurisdictions. Trading is risky. 100% loss can occur.Join On3 today! https://www.on3.com/joinSubscribe to On3!  ⬇️ youtube.com/on3sports/?sub_confirmati...Welcome to On3 | The best of college football and recruiting https://www.on3.com/Listen to Andy & Ari On3 on podcast!Spotify 🎧: https://open.spotify.com/show/5AhQ4d2m5TQu5Q2vkwtxjt?si=d9016221aa2a4427Apple 🍎: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/andy-staples-on3/id1695325427Follow Andy & Ari On3 on X! https://x.com/AndyAriOn3Follow Andy Staples on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Andy_StaplesFollow Andy Staples on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andy_staplesFollow Ari Wasserman on Twitter: https://x.com/AriWassermanFollow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/on3sportsFollow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/on3/Like/Follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/On3Sports/Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River BaileyInterested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to an instant reaction edition of Andy and Ari on three presented by Polymarket. The Little Brown Jug claimed it home in Minneapolis for the first time since 1977. Minnesota beats Michigan 20 to 14 and Ari. The Michigan fans are done. Changing ways. Put this in the chat. About eight minutes to go in the game. As a Michigan fan, I've just accepted this as a bad team and I've mentally moved on to next year.

Amy Fleming, the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Michigan has got to drop Underwood. Bubba, it's not just Underwood. The offensive scheme is ridiculous. They have absolutely no identity, but yes, try another QB. At this point, who cares? So they're doing great. So this week, Kyle Whittingham said that it feels like they're 0 and 4.

And like, I think I understood what he was saying. Obviously, Michigan with Bryce Underwood, being Michigan, who they are, expected to run. under the CFP, obviously after the first game of the season, regardless of whether you view it was a winner or a loss. That wasn't something that, you know, carried a lot of, you know, positive vibes heading into the season. Then obviously they lose last week and now they lose again. And the reason why is because Michigan is not what they paid for in Underwood.

And it didn't matter if they would have won this game 21 to 20 or lose 20 to 14. This is not the offense they paid for. This is not what they expected coming into the season. and obviously records are records, but we talk a lot on the show about how records sometimes are misleading. Records don't always tell the whole portion of the story, and clearly their record is who they are. And regardless of what it was after this week,

I still think the vibes would have been pretty down. So, you know, that's kind of where I'm at with this team. Like you watch this, and this isn't a case of Michigan playing down to its opponents. This is Michigan being a version of Iowa, that isn't good enough to win games the way that Iowa does, clearly. They just lost them last week in spectacular fashion. So, you know, that's not who Michigan wants to be. You know, I know they've been a hard-nosed, smash-mouth, run the ball, play good defense.

You know, Mason Graham, Kenneth Grant, those guys, you know, helped lead them to a championship. I know that's part of who they are as an identity. But I think that the hope was that their offense would be further advanced, that they would be a better throwing outfit and that they wouldn't have to rely on battering ram quarterback plays to move the ball up and down the field. but that's unfortunately who they are at this point, Andy. Their best offensive play was a Bryce Underwood run where he broke three tackles and made a first down. Like, you know what I thought during that was like, oh, he could make a Terrell prior type switched receiver in the NFL and be just fine. Yeah, and maybe, yeah.

I mean, he's a great athlete. I mean, the reason why he got, you know, the money that he got and the ranking that he got in high school is because he's a tremendously amazing looking asset in terms of, you know, his physical skill set. He's big, he's strong, he's fast. I think that he's got a big arm, although accuracy might be a question after watching that. Obviously, the decision making at the end of the game, he basically threw the last play of the game away with the game on the line. There are things that you could be nitpicky of, but I guess the question I'll throw back to you is like, obviously the quarterback is going to get the blame. That's part of this. But how much of this do you think is Bryce Underwood not reaching a ceiling and how much of this do you think is dysfunction?

No offensive identity, trying to be something that you're not, all these things. Like, because even though they are basically Iowa and Minnesota, I feel like they still try offensively at times to do elements of high throwing offense and they're just incapable of doing it. They can't block. So there's that. And you saw they had an offensive line injury late in the game, had to put somebody in a 70 jersey to come in.

Like they were thin on the offensive line. Anyway, we talked about this on Thursday where they got basically good news with Blake Frazier that he could play. but they still couldn't block today. I mean, it's not like when Bryce Underwood got sacked today, he got buried, just buried. Like it was four Minnesota defenders jumping on top of him, just collapsing on top of him. Like they did not protect him very well, but there's also that you can call a game if you're confident of your quarterback. If you have a good throwing quarterback who can catch the ball and throw it, get the ball out on time,

then you can scheme around that a little bit, but I don't think they have that confidence in Bryce Underwood. Yeah. And I think that there was this suspension of belief that, you know, after they got away with the Western Michigan win, after they beat Oklahoma, that they would be playing very good defense. And frankly speaking, holding anybody to 20 points,

I think it's a successful defensive day, but that they could play Michigan football to nine or 10 wins contend for the championship within an app's offense. But now we've gotten to the point with two losses, which could have been three, you know, had one, one second call been changed. You know, you're past the point of no return in terms of like who you are. Now it's kind of like wallowing in, you know, trying to figure it out and trying to view like what to do for the future. Because like, Andy, they lost to Minnesota. You made the comment before the show and it's absolutely true.

They've played all, they haven't scored 17 points or more than 17 points in any game against a power opponent. they haven't scored 17 points to get anybody other than UTAP. But they're also playing teams like Oklahoma, funny enough, who wants to play like Iowa. They played Iowa who wants to play like Iowa. They scored 19 last week. They scored 19. Oh, they did 19.

Okay, so change the stat to 19. It's still bad. It's bad. It's bad. But they keep playing teams that want to play like Minnesota. Like I was joking during the game, like the pits of hell of playing Iowa one week, losing on a desperation back shoulder throw in the end zone, and then having to play Iowa on the road the following week is a hell I wouldn't want to wish on anybody.

But guess what? They're playing Penn State next week, and you're probably going to be playing in a 14 to 13 type game in the fourth quarter in that one, too. So, like, that's just not what they were supposed to be this year. I mean, I don't know that that was the plan. No. So I don't know what it's going to look like because they keep playing teams that look like old Big Ten West teams, but what's it going to look like, as you pointed out before the show,

when they play a team that doesn't want to play like that. Yeah, when they play Indiana and Oregon, they don't want to play like that. They want to ram the ball, you know, They want to score on you in many, many different ways. And UCLA kind of looks like one of those teams, too. And obviously, Ohio State is Ohio State. So 10 of 21, 101 passing yards, two interceptions for Bryce Underwood. Michigan's rushing 28 carries, 79 yards, one touchdown.

That is, it's just not good enough. They probably have to try something different quarterback because what they're doing isn't working. and you can't afford to just give away games like this. You can't. You have to try something new. It's not going to get any better if you keep doing this. So meanwhile, on the other side, we had PJ Fleck on the show this week. He seemed very confident.

I think he knew his defense was going to be able to control Michigan. They tried to give the game away. Drake Lindsay gifted Michigan both of its touchdown. There was a just throw it up interception that was not the pick six, but they throw it up interception that put Michigan in really good position and then Michigan scores. And then the pick six where Drake Lindsay makes a business decision and doesn't even try to make the tackle.

But it's a business decision. Yep. Then Minnesota's defense gets them the ball a couple times. And Drake Lindsay looks pretty good for a while. Yeah. Well, Michigan gifted them red zone trips and their defense had a really good job of stopping Minnesota. I think Minnesota had two drives inside the 10 before they finally broke through. We're fuel goals, yeah. We're fuel goals. So, you know, the Michigan's defense kept

them in the game, but, you know, I think that this is the type of environment, the type of game that Minnesota wants to bring you into at home. You know, the thing that PJ Fleck has done throughout his entire tenure in Minnesota is run the ball and play good, good line play, right? And I think that their line play was clearly better than Michigan's today. So, you know, obviously turnovers aren't part of the equation. Both teams had them. They kind of cancel each other out and Minnesota was the tougher, more agile team with the game on the line. And it's just like weird to me because when Michigan got the ball back at their own 15 with a minute and 45 seconds left, like, didn't it feel like there was no way they,

like you felt about Michigan the way that a lot of people probably felt about Iowa last week when Iowa got the ball back weight, which is there's no way they're going all the way down the field and scoring. Now, unfortunately for Michigan, they were on the wrong side of both of those games. Iowa did go down the field and score touchdown after some pretty fortunate breaks along the way. and Michigan did. They got a huge break. It kind of felt like Iowa for a minute there

because they threw an interception, but the time out before the play erased the interception. Then they got almost, they got to the air midfield. Here's the thing. That would have been a free play if there's no time out. So Michigan, the interception was never going to count.

Oh, there was off the off the field. Yeah. No, there's 12 in on the field. That's right. Yeah. You're right about that.

Yeah. Yeah. But still, didn't, didn't feel like that we're going to do it and they didn't. Well, what do we think is next? Like,

Minnesota, I feel like they have an identity that they're not going to score a ton of points against most people, but they play Purdue next. They should go beat Purdue. Then Iowa in a game that is a Spider-Man meme. Like, let's look at Minnesota's schedule. Indiana, UCLA, Northwestern, and Wisconsin look like the trap, you know, not traps, but the really tough games. The tough games, yeah. Yeah.

The back half of their schedule is very hard. hard. But they're going to go probably into it five and one. We could be looking at an eight, nine win team here. Yeah. I think we are. Yeah, we'll see what Northwestern is too, because Northwestern look pretty good. They have a tough back half. Wisconsin's doing very well so far in big team play. So Wisconsin's only loss is to Notre Dame. Right. But I would be very excited. You know, I know that Minnesota's season started off with kind of a bummer. And we're probably going to go live here in a minute to talk about the Bama game. But I'm very curious what you think, like Minnesota got blown out by Mississippi State,

which then just got blown out by Bama, which is a topic for the next video. But that was a pretty, I mean, Minnesota is a pretty good team that that happened to. But they bounced out really well. They bounced back. They could have, you know, fumbled the bag for the rest of the year. And they did. Now they're in the heat of a big 10 race and defeated in conference play. Meanwhile, Michigan, by week next week, they play Penn State at home

in two weeks. Well, Bryce Underwood will be starting for Michigan when they play Penn State at home in two weeks. I think that's a very, very interesting question. Let's see what Kyle Whittingham says. Maybe he comes out and he's like,

he's our guy, but he didn't say that for game one. Yeah. He said something very different after game five. Yeah. So. All right. We'll find out.

We got two weeks till they play again. Ari. Let's tell everybody where they can find us next. We will be on live. Again, in about, oh, I don't know, two minutes talking Keelan Russell, who might be the best player in college football right now. We'll talk to you very soon.