Blue By Ninety - Army is what we thought they would be. Everyone calm down.

Episode Date: September 8, 2019

Bluebyninety podcast episode 3. Review of Michigan's week 2 game vs. Army. Michigan won in double overtime 24-21.

Welcome to Blue by 90, your Michigan football podcast. We are three dudes who talk Mason Blue. We are your hosts here. I'm Kalen, joined by Nate and Jack. And we just got done playing Army, and I think we got a lot of stuff to dissect here, guys. I hope everybody got their pacemakers checked because, oh my gosh, I was having a heart attack. Yeah.

What is our takeaway here, boys? Hold on to the football. Oh my gosh, we have Jack over here right now, and we've given him a football, and his job, his one goal for this podcast is to hold on to the football the entire time. That is exactly what I said. If all of these players are not on campus, in class, with a ball duct-taped to their arms, something's wrong. Dude, they should start doing that thing that they did in the Little Giants where they just start putting black paste on their hands and just holding on to it that way. It was absolutely disgusting.

It was that bad. I mean, I'm 100% on board. If there's one takeaway from this game yesterday, it is we need to secure the football. 100%. Through two games. We've already, I mean, the ball security has to secure the football. 100%. Through two games. We've already, I mean, the ball security has been the biggest thing. Right.

Yeah, it was bad. Yeah. There's no excuse. Game one, we could kind of go like, okay, game one, whatever, they can fix it. Game two, now it's like, did you guys even try to fix it? Because it looks like it got worse. It looked like it got worse. Yeah.

And the offense, to me, was not... I don't know what the deal was, but there was no speed and space. No. It felt like... I was promised speed and space, and it looked like they were playing football inside of a tiny house. It was ridiculous. They're running it up the middle. Half the place.

It looked just like it was like... Even last year might have been better with Pep Hamilton. What is going on? The fact that Zach Charbonnet got 33 carries as a freshman. What is going on? And honestly, it was 100 yards, right? This was like the first time where Jim

Harbaugh won a game where they rushed less than three yards, like average carry. It was insane. I was disappointed. The defense to me, I don't know what some of the scheme was, but it really ticked me off. Why do you have three down linemen, and then you have backers, right? It's like you need five defensive linemen.

Look, I've played against this type of offense before. You get your nose tackle, you get five D linemen, and you chop block them, and then you let your linebackers make the play. I saw it. It was like sometimes it was like third and two, and they have the A gap wide open. I'm like, what's going on here? It's almost like you want to play almost like a cover two,

but at least you want to have forefront. I don't know why we were playing like a 3-4. But, I mean, I don't know why we were playing like a 3-4. But I mean, I don't know. I also want to say though, I don't think the defense played as nearly as poorly as the offense. I don't think the defense was even a concerning thing. It was just the offense. Yeah, I think the defense

was put in some unfortunate situations because there's at least three times where the offense should have scored the ball and then we got an early call from the reps, which took away a defensive touchdown. So if the offense had produced and scored three touchdowns, and we had that defensive touchdown,

the score would have looked a lot different. So shoulda, coulda, woulda, you know, all that kind of stuff. But overall, offense definitely played poorly. I would give the offense a D-. Like we said, you've got to secure the football. I thought some of the play calling was like head scratcher. I don't know, too, if some of that is just because concerns about Shea throwing the ball. If you're going to throw the ball and just underperform, you're going to have to rely on your run.

I don't know if the coaching staff feels that way, but it felt like Shea was shaky. He did make some passes, but oh my gosh, man, his accuracy was not where it was. Fumbling the ball. The second overtime was pretty revealing of how bad he was playing. Yeah. Was it the, one of the, on first down, he threw a wobbly ball to Tariq. It was just a garbage throw.

No spiral at all. Actually, the first down, the first one he had was, he missed the touchdown, right? It was like, you know,

five yards past Nico. And he also had like a ball that was low. So he had three bad passes just back to back to back. I don't know. His play was really bad. It was bad. And I don't know what to say. Also him kind of like doing that read, and he's handing it off to Charbonnet every time.

I'm like, you've got to keep that sometimes. He's had multiple of those read plays where he could have kept it and had 10 yards. Right. And that's another thing where it goes back to, is he still hurt from the first game? I mean, is that why he's underperforming? And if he is, why is he even playing?

Yeah. McCaffrey. Exactly. What are you doing? 100%. And then you're still putting in McCaffrey on all these running plays. What if he gets hurt? Like, what is going on?

The play calling, just that whole situation. I mean, I feel like Shea has to be injured in some sort of capacity if he's making these throws that are very out of character. He's not taking the reads on plays where he normally would. I mean, he can read

a defensive end and run a read option. There's a times where... There's a lot of characters these first two games where it's like, what is even going on? Right. And if you're the QB, you've got to keep it sometimes just to keep the defense honest,

just to let them know that we might do this, right? So you've got to, you know, you can't just be stacking the box and coming right at us. We're just going to run right at you. Even if he's not keeping it every time, as long as he's making the right read and we're getting yardage out of it, who cares? Right.

But he's not even making the right read. Exactly. Where he should be, it's obvious, like, I should be keeping the ball. It was so easy, man. When the D lineman, when he comes down, right, you're taking the ball and you're going. Exactly. It was so easy and he messed up on that. He messed up on the reads, messed up on ball security, his passes were mediocre, couldn't

throw the deep ball. I mean, I like Shea, but if you're Dylan McCaffrey, how could you not be upset? Like going, okay, why am I not playing? 1A and 1B. Yeah. He's not performing. Yeah. Put somebody else in.

Right. Put somebody else in. That's the whole, I mean, look at it. It's just, I don't know. He's got multiple QBs. Just, yeah. I don't know if there's the stubbornness with some of the coaching. Yeah.

But there was, they had a chance to go up by three, and it was fourth and two. The previous fourth and two they had, they didn't make. Yep. Right? I don't know if there's just some sort of, like, cockiness or some, I don't know what the thought process was. Why are we going for it? But the whole game was saying

to you take the three points exactly right you take the three points you put army all the way back at the 20 25 yard line and then guess what is it's they have two or three minutes left in the game their offense is not set up to run to go down the field in two to three minutes right exactly it was ridiculous. Just poor coaching, poor decisions. I was upset, man. Upset. Let's try to look at it glass half full. Because there still were some positive things on offense that we can look at.

Charbonnet getting those 100 yards like we were saying. Charbonnet also was still blocking pretty well in that game. For a freshman, I'm really, really high on this kid. I'm saying if this team can actually put it together, then this kid should have an amazing year. So I don't want to get too bogged down on the negative. I still think there's a couple positive things. That fake punt with Dax Hill.

It's pretty cool. That was almost like shades at Michigan State where I was going like, whoa, what is going on here, right? The fact that Ronnie Bell is getting a lot of catches too shows that we do have a really good fourth wide receiver. Right. I would like to see them spread the ball out a little bit more. Other guys getting a little bit more touches.

Yes, that was another thing, though, because we were lining up heavy on one side. We had three wide receivers on one side. I'm going like, why aren't we spreading the field here? See, I don't know. Maybe it's just they're looking at Shea the way he's passing that day and just going like, I mean, the thing is, too, when you don't have the deep threat, well, now everything else, it's a different ballgame. Yeah, yeah.

No, yeah. I mean, you're totally right. A positive I would like to say, though, I was really happy to see LaVert Hill make that catch for that interception. Yep. He would have lost the game if he didn't do that. He would have lost the game, and it was just great to see him. I think it's going to give him some good confidence going forward, right?

It puts the first game behind him, and now he can move on and he can make the plays that we're used to seeing. In terms of the defense, I think there's some good things on defense that we saw. Jordan Glasgow was all over the place. Another good game. I was kind of like, wow. I was not feeling very good about Kalik, mostly because I was pissed off about him lining up offsides.

That's a boneheaded mistake. That was a dumb mental mistake. You're looking. He was straddling the line. Right. You can clearly see your offsides. They're not going to miss that. Yeah.

But I had my hot take ready to go. I was going to go off on Kalik Hudson. And then I look and I was like, well, he had 12 tackles in the game. That's a lot. It's hard to talk smack about him after he has a pretty solid game. But still, the expectations for him being a senior and being a leader on that team.

Is he captain? Captain, yeah. Make a mistake like that, he's got to fix it. There was another big third or fourth down play where I think they called LaVert Hill for holding. They had one passing play and the play, and they, like, ended up – the guy wouldn't have caught the ball anyway, but they got called for holding, and actually Kalik was holding on on play two.

And it just kept their drive going when it would have been, you know, a punt or whatever, maybe a field goal attempt or whatever it was, and I think it kept the play going. I believe they scored on that possession, but it's just – Yeah, Brad Hawkins. Bonehead plays, I mean, fumbles with ball security, friggin'... Yeah, Brad Hawkins also had a good game.

He was making plays. He even instigated that one unsupportive conduct, too, which was a little... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, kind of outside the lines in terms of play, but he's, you know but he benefits our team. So I was like, hey, there you go. Got to be careful with that stuff.

But still, Brad Hawkins, I was kind of like, hey, he's making plays and helping the team. So some stuff on defense, at least, to be like, hey, you know what? Our defense, I'm not feeling terrible about. Not yet. Offense needs to put it together. It really does, yeah.

So what do you think needs to be done on offense? I feel like we just need to know what's going on. Is Shea injured? If he is injured, put McCaffrey in. If he's not injured, then put McCaffrey in. Either way, McCaffrey should have been in for that last game. That's 100% my belief. I thought he should have started the second half.

After seeing what happened in the first half, I'm so frustrated. I was telling you guys I couldn't even watch a replay of the game. I was trying to watch replays to be able to speak on a lot of things when we get on this podcast. Right after I saw the first possession, I was like, I just have to turn this off. I can't even stand to watch it. Yeah, personally, I think they need to put McCaffrey in, and they need to start spreading the ball out. Right.

I mean, I like the fact that Charbonnet can take it a load. Right? Like, he can take 33 carries. Right. But that's not your guys, right? Your guys are Nico, Tariq, and I know DPJ's hurt, but the fact that Ronnie Bell's getting so many targets, right? What about Nico?

What about Tariq? Yeah. But Tariq was out there too, balling a little bit, right? Yeah, but it's just like those are the main guys, right? Those are the main guys. You know, and maybe we'll see something different from Dylan and I think he's shown that he is pretty good and he's pretty poised in the pocket right you have to put him in after that performance I'm sorry yeah yeah 100% now do you think going forward here if you're Josh Gaddis

are you going back to the drawing board or are you doubling down and you're saying hey you know what because I'm looking at it going like it's you and you're saying, hey, you know what? Because I'm looking at it going like you're too late in the game to kind of go like, oh, this isn't working. I've got to start from square one. 100% no. Keep doing what they're doing. Keep doing what? Keep the offense. But just open up the playbook more.

Yeah. Right? They set themselves up so many times with third and longs. Right? What's wrong with doing a first down where you pass for three yards? You get, you have to, it's, you know, you have to put it in different areas, right? You have to be unpredictable. Yeah.

First down run, second down, missed in completion, third and ten. Yeah. That was one big thing in this past game. We were third and long. Like, I want to say 75% of the plays we ran was third and long. I'm like, you're putting yourself in the hole here, and it's not helpful. So we've got to come out, and we've got to be explosive. And I'm not seeing that from this team right now.

Yeah, you see from every team that's up there in the top five. Yeah, and that's pretty much exactly where I want to just rant for a second. This team wants to talk about how they're going to be in the college football playoff. Our goal is to win a national championship and play in the college football playoff. You cannot do that if you do not secure the football. I even wrote this down. Right now his team has too many errors. Army is good, but national championship worthy teams need to dominate

opponents that they're better than. 100%. You cannot be letting teams that you are leagues better than play you into overtime. I know that happened to Oklahoma last year, but they got Kyler Murray.

We don't got Kyler Murray. It's as simple as that. We just watched Kyler Murray almost beat the Lions tonight. So you think Shea's going to be almost beating the Lions next year? Hell no. So this team, if they actually want to play for the college football playoff, they need to clean it up. And if we can't stop Army's running back,

why should we be able to stop Jonathan Taylor? I think looking at the Big Ten East, they don't look like the favorite. And they don't even look like the fourth. Dude, I think Maryland looks better than them. I think Michigan State looks better than them. I think Ohio State looks better than them. Penn State, I think they look better than them. I think Michigan State looks better than them. I think Ohio State looks better than them. Penn State, I think they look better than them too, and they got to play that road game. Honestly, they could lose six games this year. That's scary to think. I really think that that is possible, especially next in two weeks when they've got to play Wisconsin, right? Jonathan Taylor is a man cow. He is enormous.

And he's shifty and fast and has breakaway speed. It seems like it's – my whole thing was look at it. If they can't barely beat Army, and honestly, they had trouble stopping the run. Three yards, four yards, five yards, boom. It's just like that's going to be the same thing to a point that they're going to see, right? With better talent, that offensive line that Wisconsin has is good? I'm scared. I'm scared.

Let's look forward here to Wisconsin next week. I mean, we are going to have a couple weeks here to kind of install more pieces of the offense, really focus up on securing the football. Let Don Brown get his game plan scheduled here. So we've got some time to plan a little bit for Wisconsin. I mean, you were kind of alluding to it that you were expecting a loss there. But, I mean, a little more in-depth here. What do we think?

Lost by two touchdowns. You think so? Yeah, the defense to me is eh. Okay. So, I mean, a little more in-depth here. What do we think? I think lost by two touchdowns. You think so? Yeah, the defense to me is eh. Okay. Jack, give me a pick-me-up here. I'm about to cry. I'm so far off of... I mean, the whole reason we've looked so bad is we've played sloppy.

That's true. I get what you guys are saying. I 100% agree with you. If we want to say we're going to be in the Big Ten Championship, we're going to make the college football playoff, we've got to clean it up. Yeah. I think we're still a very good team. We're just playing sloppy as hell right now.

I don't know what's going on. I'm very confused. The whole, just everything that has to do with the offense, I'm just very, very confused by. Right. And I think, I mean, if we clean, I mean, so many fumbles. If we get DPJ back, I'm. I don't think that makes.

Well, we'll have DPJ. I think it does. And we'll have John Runyon back. So if DPJ comes back, we're just not going to fumble the ball anymore? Well, I mean. That's what I'm saying. I know what you're saying. It's not like one person's going to make the, I just think if we're not making mistakes,

we're fine. We don't need, it doesn't matter if DPJ's in there or not. I guess, like, we're just making mistakes and it's just, you know, Chase not hitting, like, I just – I think we'll be – I don't think we're going to lose by a couple – I mean, if we play the way we did, I'm with you. We'll lose by a couple touchdowns. Right.

But they're going to make a change. I mean, they have to be so damn hard-headed not to make a change. If we lose to Wisconsin and we play sloppy, we could lose six games this year. That's exactly where I'm at. I'm lost. This Wisconsin game is going to be massively telling for the rest of our season. If we show up to Wisconsin and we go to double overtime again and lose on some, you know, whatever, then I'm not going to be as mad as if we just lose by two touchdowns straight away.

I mean, as long as we lose a competitive good game, like, even if, like, if we played... With zero turnovers. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. So, like, even if, like, that game against Army, final score was the same, but we didn't turn the ball over, completely different story. Completely different outlook. I guess I just have more respect for Army at that point,

where clearly from that game, it wasn't that they were anywhere near as good as we were. They're just more disciplined. And we just were making mistakes, and they were capitalizing on them. Right. If we're going to compete with Wisconsin, we can't make mistakes. Right. We can't make, if we're going to compete with Wisconsin, we can't make mistakes. Right. I think our defense will at least show up ready to play.

They'll keep us in the game. And keep us in the game. It doesn't matter if the offense will even. Can the offense keep up? Yeah. And that's kind of been the story for years now. Our offense can't keep up with our defense. So if we can come up, if we can show up to Wisconsin and our offense does not turn the ball over and can actually put some points on the board, we should be

in the game. And I would say at this point, 50% chance we pull out the W. So that's what we're rooting for. I know this sounds like we're a bunch of haters right now. I think we're all in dark places right now. Dude, this is every Michigan fan right now. This is every... My mom's angry. My mom's angry. I'm so upset.

It makes this beer taste good. Let's try to hit a lighter note here. Nate, I know you brought us some beer here. What's this? It's from Petoskey Brewing Company. I was up there this weekend. It's a blueberry waffle cone cream ale. Ooh, sounds sweet.

You guys know that I like fruity kind of drinks. It's kind of my taste. It's your forte. Very nice. It's my forte. I'm not a huge fruity like this fruity. The cream stuff usually isn't my thing. I'm not going to lie. It's got a good flavor. But for a beer, I just feel like I'm not a huge fruity, like this fruity. The cream stuff usually isn't my thing. I'm not going to lie.

It's got a good flavor. But for a beer, I just feel like I'm going to spend a lot of time on it. This is like drinking the blueberry crumble Halo Top. Yeah. I've never had it. I like Halo Top. It sounds great to me. I like that one.

It's pretty good. I'm a Ben and Jerry's guy myself. The birthday cake, Halo Top. That's good, man. The cookie dough. that's my jam. 390 calories for a pint? Maybe 390. Something like that.

It's like 280 for one of them. I don't know. These beers, though, it's a little different, but I'm out here trying it. Give it a shot. Anybody seen, you saw It Chapter 2 today, huh? Yeah. What did you think? I thought it was alright. I kind, you saw It Chapter 2 today, huh? Yeah. What do you think? I thought it was all right.

I kind of like the first one better, to be honest. I'm with you. I like the first one better. I was telling... Man, I didn't see it yet. All right. We'll leave it at that. We'll leave it right there.

We're talking Michigan football, not clowns. I thought you didn't look... Well, I mean, it doesn't say baseball. I don't know. Jim Harbaugh and that emoji are looking pretty similar these days. Might have been Facebook right now. I don't know. Jim Harbaugh and that emoji are looking pretty similar these days. Might have been haunted by something. I don't know. We are not Michigan haters.

We are just very, very upset right now. I know. We just want them to win. We just want them to win so bad. We just want clean play and everything else to fall into place. Well, I'll tell you right now, I was reading some article, and oh, my God, people, everyone's out there with the hot takes right now i was reading some article and oh my god people everyone's out there with the hot takes right now right someone was out here saying that they should fire jim harbaugh and hire urban

meyer i was like okay one urban will not work here he hates michigan yeah it's just like people go like well bo was at ohio state it's like like, that was different. That was before the internet. Like, nobody cares. But, like, but also. Did you see the smirk on Urban Meyer's face when they went to halftime? Oh, yeah. He was loving it, dude. Oh, man.

But I'm also thinking, like, for everything we say about Jim Harbaugh, his whole tenure at Michigan has been incident-free for the most part. He's won games. Well, there's not been any, like, issues. He doesn't beat Ohio State, but he's won games. Keep your hands on that football, Jack. I got it. Well, Urban has had that whole thing with the, like, Smith guy

and, like, the whole fiasco there Smith guy and the whole fiasco there. He had the whole fiasco at Florida, right? And that's where Jim Harbaugh was like, wherever Urban goes, controversy follows. He's going to go to USC next year. No question. It's a perfect spot. Well, and I'm just saying, for anything you say about Jim Harbaugh, not really a lot of controversy following him. Yeah, but not a lot of wins against the Pumps.

Not a lot of wins against rivals. Yeah. Well, yeah. Win some, you lose some. Yeah. We're winning the moral battle. Just trying to look at the positives. He's got to win this year.

He does have to win this year. But if we play like this, there's no way. It's not going to happen. And that's... We just got to clean up. It's just execution. That comes down to the players. I mean, there is a point where play calling is like, what is going on?

And I think we all can agree, like, why are we running the ball at the guy? Is this last year? Like you were saying, where's the whole speed and space? Why is this not happening? Why are you not spreading the ball around? It doesn't look like anything we were told was going to be coming in. It's the tiny house offense. That's what it is.

THL. Oh, well. It sounds negative, but we just wanted to win. I mean, you can't be positive after that win. You can be like, we won. It's a W, but. You've got to look at things to, you know, you've got to look hard to find something positive from that. I mean, they won.

They won. They still won. We're still 2-0. Yeah, at the end of the day, 2-0. Yeah, a win's a win. Vert Hill. That was my positive note. It's still 1. We're still 2-0. Yeah, at the end of the day, 2-0. Yeah, a win's a win. LaVert Hill. That was my positive note. LaVert Hill, yeah.

You guys got anything else to share here? You got anything, Jack? I'm just very upset. I'm very upset. Well, just hold on to that football for a couple weeks, and we'll come out against Wisconsin, hopefully kicking ass and taking names. So, all right. Well, otherwise, you know, follow us on Instagram and find us on Facebook. We're on Spotify.

We're working on getting on iTunes. So, Blue by 90 podcast. Blue by 90. Go Blue. Go Blue. See you next week.