Blue By Ninety - Blue By the Numbers: State of the Union

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

Brian and Tanner break down Michigan's season to this point.

All right, welcome back to Blue by the Numbers. I'm Tanner, joined by my co-host, Brian. Brian, it's been a couple weeks, man. How you been? It's been a minute. I've been really good, yeah. It's all good. Survived the hurricane down here.

Yeah. Life's good otherwise. Yeah, hurricane, well, was it Milton or? It was Milton, yeah. Helene at this point. I mean, we get so many hurricanes, but it caused some technical difficulties for us, but we're backing at it. We're backing at it, yeah.

Yeah, very excited. I'm being a little sarcastic. I'm being a bit of a smartass, Brian, to talk about this team. I've given my thoughts a lot on our normal Blue Bud 90 podcast, and so I'd like to give you just some time here to just air it out. Give me your grievances. I'm sure they're all very similar to the rest of us, but not been a fun year on the field for Michigan.

No, I mean, I think, you know, the bar and the expectations of this fan base and for you and for me are so high that it's so easy to get let down. And, you know, I always try to stay pretty level-headed and try to always be the voice of optimism, you know, even though in my head, I might be very frustrated and saying unkind words. But, you know, it's tough not to be really frustrated with where we're at, you know. And, you know, the fall off is, you know, following a national championship. I mean, we're looking at historic levels of fall off at this point. And I think there's time to still right the ship starting with this week.

And the optimist in me says that they can still do that, but there's certainly some glaring holes that are alarming. Yeah, I mean, you sent in, I don't know if you tweeted this, but Brian made a great graphic detailing Michigan's, you know, offensive and defensive stats in their Big Ten rank over the last decade plus, going all the way back to Brady Hoke's first season in 2011. And I think the thing that's really jarring is that offensively, at least for total yards per game, passing yards,

it is worse than any Brady Hoke offense. Points per game, it is.2 points better than the 2014 offense. Otherwise, it is substantially worse, by like 33% at least. So, indefensively, you know, rushing defense is pretty solid, but they're 14th in the Big Ten, giving up 22 points per game, which is not terrible, right? I mean, you know, they gave up 10 last year, 16 points per game, and 22 and 21.

You know, 22.1 is, you know, kind of right in line with a lot of the earlier Harbaugh-era teams, maybe a little bit more. And how much of that is because they can't get up, they can't keep the defense off the field. Talk about the Michigan offense, right? So defense has been not where we expected them to be. Maybe a little disappointing, but also not awful. But, man, when you put it, you just kind of put it all together. It's not a, does not paint a pretty picture uh for 2024

here's the thing is like you know i you listen to other podcasts listen to the rhetoric around uh the fan base and it's like doom and gloom the sky is falling and i'm in no position to say that's not the case but you know the notion that we should just blow the whole thing up and it's not just one thing it's a bunch of things i pose the question to some of my buddies and some of the groups that I'm in is, if you could change one thing, and I gave them some options of what those one things are. One, and you can only choose one, which one improves the team the most. One, bring Harbaugh back as head coach with the current staff. Replace Wink with Jesse Minter, right?

Everything else the same. Bring JJ back. Everything else the same. Bring back Zinter and Barnhart, pick two linemen. Bring them back. Bring back Mikey Sienerstow and Josh Wallace. Bring them back. If you can only choose one of those, what, five options

that would improve where this team sits today, is there one that's clear? I know immediately for me that one comes to mind quicker than the others. I mean, there's two for me that come to mind, and it's J.J. McCarthy and it's Jim Harbaugh. Yeah. I think with J.J. and this current team, they're 6 and one, right? Because I've had my grievances with the offensive play calling and some of the creativity or the lack thereof within the

offensive game plans. I think they're extremely limited. I don't know how good Kirk Campbell is. He was the quarterback coach last year. He called plays against ECU. It looked pretty good for the most part. We were pretty excited after that game, and I was excited about the prospects of him becoming the full-time offensive coordinator. So I think if you have J.J. McCarthy, I think if you have a replacement-level quarterback, I think you have Davis Warren without turnovers.

This team is 6-1, right? And so, yeah, I think the quarterback play has really killed this offense. It's tough to look good as an offensive line when teams are able to really stack the box and force you to try to take deep shots. That was kind of the running joke against JJ McCarthy, like, Oh stack the box and make him beat you deep. Well,

he was, you know, it wasn't the most accurate deep ball throw early in his career at Michigan, but you know, he was, you know, that intermediate 10 to 20 yards,

he was dangerous. So I think with JJ, this team is again, six and one, they probably still lose the Texas, probably a little bit more competitive. You keep the stadium into it for a little bit longer. But then Jim Harbaugh, I mean, that's one that's right up there

with J.J. McCarthy for me. And in that hypothetical, since we're talking about it, if Jim Harbaugh is still the coach, then does he have the ability to go and get a transfer quarterback? Yeah, but you can't change that variable for this exercise that we're doing. You can't change that variable. I mean, Wilton Spate was 14-3 as a starter at Michigan. But he's a lot better than probably these current guys.

I still – you know, it's funny. I had this conversation. I think the worst thing to happen to this team was Davis Warren throwing three interceptions. I think he's probably, as the coaches decided coming out of fall camp, the most capable guy on the roster roster has a lot more room to grow than a seventh-year quarterback who's 25 years old. Yeah, he made some mistakes early.

I feel like you – I don't know. It's really tough because of the optics surrounding it, but everybody already has everything that they've had to say about this program at this point. So why not go back to Davis Warren? What do you think they should do? That's a good segue. What do you think they should do with the quarterback position?

Because you've already gone through three and the third option doesn't look any better than the second option. The first option is looking a little bit more enticing, even with the turnover issues. Based on what we've seen, what we've seen,

Davis Warren looks like the best quarterback to me. But you can't take away the interceptions. Interceptions are so critical. Absolutely. Can he fix it? Can he fix it? And so you have to trust, you know, regardless of what degree of competency you think Sharon Moore

and Kurt Campbell have, you have to trust that they're seeing them, you know, for four or five days practicing. Who's more comfortable? Who's moving the chains, who's making good decisions. You have to trust that they're going to make the right decision, you know, and we're not there. We can't see that. You know, I mean, we've heard from, you know, Tyler Morris did an interview this week. We've heard from several players that the versions of these quarterbacks that they're seeing in practice don't resemble the quarterbacks that they see on game day. So, you know, I'm torn. I like Davis Warren.

I think he throws the best ball. I think he's most accurate, but you can't take away the interceptions. Part of me thinks, you know, I tweeted out and sent to you earlier in that Illinois game, like, stop being cute. Just line up, give the ball to Claire Mullings, and let's just see what happens, right? Like, let's just see what happens. Run on the throat.

We put our defense in better situations because we have more ball control. So part of me thinks that the – not that the best quarterback, but the best thing for this team was for them to roll out Alex Orji and just not even try to pretend to do – take deep shots. Just line up. We'll run it. And if we have to punt eight, nine times, so be it. You know?

But I don't know. As it pertains to this week and the quarterback decision, I'm going to rely on the guys at CM four or five days in practice. Yeah, I'm with you. And, yeah, it's easy to go back and look with hindsight. But, you know, what does it look like if Davis Warren is given the opportunity to make mistakes and grow, right? Because the prospect of putting in Alex Orji comes with the idea that you're going to build the offense or at least build a game plan with

a few plays that are centered around his strength, which is being an in-between the tackle runner because he's 230 pounds and he runs like a 4-5-40 and he's a big athletic kid. And they just never really did that. And so it was kind of the same offense with a guy who couldn't throw the ball now to his credit I don't think he turned it over right so but at the same time you have no threat of a downfield passing attack and in the Illinois game and in the Washington game I thought there were times that guys got open right How many times was Colson Loveland open and Tuttle missed him? And Amarion Walker might have been able to score in that first play if he puts the ball in front of him, right? He beats his guy off the line. I mean, you got to place a really good ball there kind of on his outside shoulder and let him run under it.

But these guys are getting open. And, you know, I initially thought, man, these receivers just maybe aren't that good. I think it's just a's a combination of everything right because you know in this game against illinois i thought the offensive line held up a lot better i thought tuttle held onto the ball forever could have made mistakes he's got he was very fortunate that there was a defensive holding on the other side of the field that was completely unrelated to the interception that he threw um you know the one to colston at the end, I mean, just absolutely brutal. Just kills any chance you have of trying to get into that game.

You know, the fumble issues, that's two fumbles in, you know, six quarters of action. And so, you know, if you're going to have these turnovers, I'd rather let the young kid rip it, right? And you talk about Davis Warren. He's a fourth-year guy, yes, but he's very young in his football age because he did not get to play his senior year due to COVID. He has not had a ton of game reps at Michigan after being benched.

And, again, we're biased here. We've had Davis on the show. I've met Davis. He's a fantastic young man. He's a really good kid. And you see him on the sideline man he's still out there he's you know he's a leader right on this team and he's still out there you know get excited when the team make a good you know makes a good play and so you know i think it might be a might be a little bit easier to go back to a kid like that who's faced a lot of adversity and lets it kind of fall off his back and brushes off

his shoulder and says whatever let's keep it moving. But, yeah, it's not a great look all around for all the kind of shuffling that Michigan is doing, not only just at the quarterback. There's a lot of movement on the offensive line. Obviously, Hinton was hurt, and so maybe that adjusted some things they're thinking at least for the offensive line. But I don't know, man. I mean, we used to come on this show and just be like, hey, look at Blake Gorham with a 99 rating pff and so and be really critical of the one guy that had

a tough exactly and it was nitpicky as hell and now it's coming in here and it's like i can maybe point to a few guys that are playing really good football but otherwise it's pretty mediocre and maybe mediocrity is a kind way to put it unfortunately so well i think I think, you know, we go back to the Davis-Warren thing because the quarterback issues appears to be the biggest issue. And the question I asked earlier is that JJ's and Harbaugh's other scenarios, and I would be a JJ advocate because I think quarterback would solve a lot of issues. But, you know, the scenario of the quarterback changing really begs the question is if Harbaugh was there, you know, he sticks with his guys.

And so would he have had such a quick trigger? You know, Harbaugh's always had a ton of faith in himself to fix those issues. And so if Harbaugh's here and Warren throws those three picks, is he as quick to go to orgy? I don't think he is. I think he believes in his own evaluation, trusts him with his eyes and everything he saw in him, and not be so quick to respond to the mob of, you know,

because I think a lot of fan bases are like, let's go to Orgy because all we heard in practice is that, you know, shades of Joe Milton days, like that he's got this great arm and he's all of a sudden turned into, I don't know, whatever version of a good passer he could be. And I think if Harbaugh's still here, Davis Warren probably runs the string out. You know what I mean? Like I think, you know, and who knows what happens but um yeah yeah no i think i the one thing i would just you

know is again being the optimist i think there's been a lot of guys playing some really good football it just gets lost and all the frustration of all the bad stuff you know um well certainly i think defensively there's a lot more guys that are playing well i think offensively you know colel you know has had moments and has been a really good player for Michigan. Maybe he doesn't have the opportunity to shine all the time because defenses are able to have 10 guys within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. Colson Loveland, obviously, is making plays. He had that huge catch on a long fourth down.

And, you know, he's open on that corner route that Tuttle misses on. And Amarion Walker has gotten open. And, you know, Samaj has made some plays. But, you know, I think defensively is probably where you're going to find more of those guys. I think Josiah Stewart is really continuing to shoot up the draft board. I mean, he's maybe my favorite guy on this team to watch. Very, very deserving guy to wear number zero.

I was thinking the same thing, yeah. You know, Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant, I think we maybe take them for granted a little bit as far as how good they are. And none of these issues are on the defensive line, in my opinion. I think they're playing the best. I think you're seeing development from a guy like TJ Guy, who I think is kind of turning some heads. I think he's going to be a productive football player at Michigan next year, continue to make some plays this year. I'm still excited. I mean, they make some mistakes, but I'm excited from what I see from Trey Pierce and some of these younger guys.

You know, Cameron Brandt can be a ball player for Michigan. You know, it's like Jekyll and Hyde in the secondary, though, Brian. I mean, Jair Hill looks like an all-pro one play, and then it's, you know, back to the basics the other, and it's a struggle. But you can see the potential with a lot of these guys on this team so you know they're gonna need that because they're gonna lose their best player like whatever number of their best players i don't know what it would be top five top seven they're all gone yeah yeah so it's like you want to see some improvement from these sophomores um from some of

these freshmen that are getting into the game that They're guys that are potentially going to come back and be here next year. But, yeah, I don't know, man. And then, you know, just thinking about it kind of, you know, all over the place with this podcast. But special teams, I just, you know, Zavada has been really good, but it's like how much is a special teams coach impacting that? Doman hasn't been great, but, again, how much is the special teams coach, you know Doman hasn't been great, but again, how much is the special teams coach, you know, does he have to do with that?

Doman's been terrible. Yeah, which last year watching him, I mean, the ball would go, you know, 100 yards into the air and it would go 70 yards downfield. I was like, this guy's amazing. I don't know what happened there, but, you know, the – They have like four punters on the roster. Like I watch that game and I think, how do you keep letting this guy punt? Like he's, you know.

Why does this always happen? But he's been bad all year. Why does this happen? These guys start off. They have Samah. Like they have other guys there. Like give someone else a shot. I feel like we've talked about this because, and we love Brad Robbins.

I thought Brad towards the end of his career was not as good as early in his career. I don't know why. And then same thing with Tommy. I don't know what's going on um i don't i don't know it's it's interesting because this is like the second time in a row that this has happened um but yeah i mean for a team that is what is michigan 15th out of 18 teams in the big 10 in scoring uh you need to play field position you can't right you cannot flip have teams flip the field on you. And then you cannot, when you get off the field, give up 40 yards on a fake punt to a guy who runs a 4-8-40. That was maybe the most mad I've been this season, Brian. There's no situational awareness in that moment for whatever

reason. Maybe it just comes with being a first-time head coach. But when you have a fully dedicated special teams coach who does nothing else, you know, a little protruded by that one, Brian, I was a little, little peeved. Yeah. I think you and everyone else that I'm not special. I'm not special on that one, but I was mad. Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, I think that the real question is, is, or there's two questions for me. One, what's the goal of the rest of the season, right? Like what's the real focus of the rest of the season? Like the Big Ten titles, off the table, playoffs are off the table. You know, right now, if you look at bowl game projections, it's like, do we want to go to the TaxSlayer Bowl or the Gasparilla Bowl?

And I'm not making the guaranteed rate bowl. Like that's our, those are our bowl projections right now. So what, question one, what's the real goal for the rest of the year? What are we trying to accomplish for the rest of the year? We hear Colts 11, right? Yeah, yeah. Back other teams, seasons. Just back other teams, right. I'm down with that.

I'm down with that, but in terms of development and long-term, what can we do for the balance of this season to not have two back-to-back seasons? In so many sports, they say don't let one – like in golf, don't let one bad golf shot cost you another bad shot. Don't have one loss turn into two losses. Like what can we do with the rest of this year to not make one bad season be two bad seasons, right?

That's question – that's not a bad thing. Spend some money. Yeah, that's question one. And then question two is like what is there to be excited about? What are things to be really scared about the future of how things sit with Michigan football right now? Yeah, and I think with college football – Well, with college football especially, even more so than the NFL,

because the NFL, right, it's, you know, parody-driven league, so you have a bad season. Hey, we'll get some draft picks, right? In college, it's like perception is everything from 17-year-olds especially, right? And obviously you have the transfer portal, but even those guys who are 19, 20, 21, like, you know, perception matters to them and where they're going,

they're going to win and get to the NFL. So I think in college, I think it's so much easier to get on the ledge because it's like, Oh God, what does this mean for recruiting? What does this mean for future commits? Right. Like you just, you kind of, you play at this doomsday scenario. Now at the end of the day it is michigan for god's sakes they are going to be okay they are going to get elite talent most most of the time right um they're going to get top two four seven kids in their recruiting classes but to your point how does how do you ensure that this does not become

you know this is a year zero situation now? Right. How do you make sure that it's not another reset next year, right? Like you have to make really good decisions and maybe have a stroke of luck with who your quarterback's going to be, right? Is it going to be a phenom freshman coming in next year? I don't – I'm not getting my hopes up, guys. I'm just going to be honest.

I'm not going to do that. But is it going to be a guy from the portal who's had a lot of experience, who's played well at maybe a million? Is Dave Portnoy going to pay $3 million to him? I mean, honestly, at this point, you know, maybe this is a good thing that it opens up some of the pocketbooks for some of these folks that Michigan needs to continue to stay competitive in this space with the ever-changing landscape of college football.

I don't think it's a good thing to be losing the way they are. They should be 6-1. I mean, after the Minnesota game, it's like, okay, you know, they were dominant in the first half and had some things to clean up. But this is a team that should be, you know, win its next three games and go into the Oregon game 7-1, set up a big matchup at the big house against the currently number one team ranked in the country. And instead instead you fall flat on your face at washington and you fall flat on your face illinois and you lose two games you honestly should have no business losing ever especially with this team still very talented right at least on paper i mean we've seen a lot of these guys and what they can do they've made big plays last year uh in the year before like there's a lot of talent

on this team. No doubt. I think that's the most frustrating thing for me is this defense should be really, really good. And people have their problems with Wink Martindale. I thought the defense was really solid on Saturday against Illinois. Against Washington, maybe some bad luck with the slipping. I thought Washington and Jed Fish took advantage of Michigan, though,

in that matchup, at least schematically. But, yeah, now you're sitting here at 4-3. You should be undefeated in the Big Ten. I don't care what anyone says. You should have won those two games, and you didn't. And so now you've got Michigan State coming in, who looks really well coached. Maybe not the most talented team.

They certainly don't have as much talent as Michigan, at least on paper. But they play together, and Aiden Childs makes some mistakes, but he's a really good ball player. And he's a young kid who's growing through those kind of growing pains right now. And so you look at kind of the difference in these two teams who are both four and three. Michigan State is really well coached. And I don't feel that about Michigan, which is really unfortunate because over the last decade, Michigan had been one of the better coach teams in the country, and last year they were the best coach team in the country. They didn't turn it over.

They didn't have penalties. They didn't make stupid mistakes. They were smart. They made the right types of plays. I just don't see that from this year's team, man. So it's a really interesting position now to be sitting here at 4-3. Your season's kind of on the line on Saturday. It really is.

It feels like, you know, particularly who the opponent is, like pick some other 500 opponent in the Big Ten, put Maryland uniform on them or Minnesota on them. It would still feel like a lot is at stake, but just particularly coming off the 49-0 manhandling last season, like you start to take that game for granted. Like losing the game this Saturday would just be so defeating. It would just be so like the,

whatever the opposite of icing on top of the cake is, you know, like, you know, it's pouring acid on our wounds or whatever. You know, I just feel like we have so much at stake. And, you know, on one hand I look at the game Saturday and I think, you know, even in Michigan's bad years, we've always been pretty tough to beat at home. Like the Shea Patterson year, Shea Patterson lost one game in two years as a starter at Michigan. You know what I mean? Like we've always been pretty good at home. It's a night game. Like that should bode well for us. But what happens sometimes in those situations, particularly when you have a fan base with the mental state that ours is in right

now, you know, if that game starts going sideways a little bit. Oh, they're coming out. They're coming out, right? Like two, three and outs. The birds are coming, man. Right, right. And so, you know, start quick, you know, like, cause I don't, you know, what's crazy is that we're seven games removed from a national title that our

fans could be booing anything, but you know, that's the reality we're in and it will be there. People will be booing. So, you know, that's the reality we're in, and it will be there. People will be booing. So, you know, it's like quicksand a little bit. Like, I feel like if they get off to a good start and it's just competitive back and forth and it's, you know, it's 14-12 at halftime or something, either way, I think we're okay. But if for some reason we get down a couple touchdowns like we did Illinois,

that place is going to get ugly. So, you know, I hope they hope they you know what i'm hopeful for is whoever whatever quarterback they choose they come in with a good game plan that's not just thinking about one player like i felt like i thought we need to get tunnel going so we'll take some deep shots but that didn't keep in mind of the impact that it has on the run game on the time of possession possession, on complementary football, the position it might put the defense in. Forget about trying to get any one particular person going. Think about the game plan that at the end of the day, you can look in the mirror and say, hey, this game plan was sound and we'll deal with whatever consequences come of that

game plan. And that seems pretty clear to anyone that's watching. I don't think anyone that watches this team thinks, let's line up and Michigan State doesn't have a great run defense. Let's run the ball down their throat. And if we lose running the ball down their run defense. Let's run the ball down their throat. And if we lose running the ball down their throat, then we lose running the ball down their throat. Let's not get silly.

Let's not get too creative. Let's not try to get Tuttle Davis orgy going. Let's just play Michigan smash mouth football and deal with the results that they can. Like I'll sit here on our podcast next Tuesday and say, Hey, you know what? I'm really sad that we lost to Michigan State. But at least we did it our way, you know? Yeah, I mean, I think Michigan, you know,

despite not having the talent offensively they've had the last few years, still needs to try to run an offense that dictates the game, to your point. And that starts with running the football with Claude Mullings. You know, and I've said this for two years now. There are ways that Donovan Edwards can help you win games. I just don't think it's lined up as a running back behind a quarterback, you know, or to the side of the quarterback. I think it's in motion, it's getting him lined up and mismatches on a linebacker or a safety and letting him run routes. But again, I'm with you. I think you need to run the ball. You need to

establish the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. And on offense, if you can, and if you're getting large chunks on the ground, five, six, seven yards a pop, you have to take advantage with play action. You cannot pass the ball and there be no threat of a run. You have to have play action in the game plan. And that's – honestly, again, they won the national championship last year, so it's hard to have gripes, but the last three years, I think my biggest complaint is the fact of how well they ran the ball and they never seem to run play action as much as they should have. Right. Because you get those linebackers eyes in the backfield. And even

if it's just one false step, you've got, you've got the ability to throw the ball and, and hit somebody over the middle. Cause that linebackers may be late to his spot. Right. So run the ball and and and hit somebody over the middle because that linebacker is maybe late to his spot right so run the ball use play action be creative i i loved what i saw on that third and seven conversion against illinois where it's kind of a pop pass to colson loveland i thought that was phenomenal the blocking on the right side was almost like a power sweep i thought it was beautiful what i need more of that like when i watched the lions on sunday brian i'm like wow that was awesome i need to be able. I want to say that five times about Michigan's offense. Just give me five awesome plays a week. Well, what's frustrating about the last few years, particularly with J.J., I think one of the reasons J.J. went top ten in the draft is

because of how good he had the highest pass rating in the country in play action last year. That's what was frustrating as a fan is it works so well. I think not everyone is comfortable in play action. Not every quarterback is comfortable with turning your back to the defense and then have to turn and see the field in front of you and make decisions and read what you want to do and read what's in front of you. And I don't think every quarterback is comfortable with that. And I think that sometimes limits the play calling.

I think we take for granted that everyone likes that run action and to kind of get the defense on their heels. But if you can't process what you see in front of you, then that's kind of a challenging thing to call. So I just wonder if part of the reason is we're not calling that is because they don't have confidence that our quarterbacks can turn their back to defense and process the information fast enough to make a good decision. Just give me a flea flicker.

There you go. Right? What's the Vegas odds? We haven't had one in a few weeks. I would bet big money on a flea flicker at some point in the Michigan offense on Michigan State. That's a staple in this offense we haven't run in a few weeks. So I would imagine we're going to see one on Saturday.

Yeah, and then do the Purdue fake pitch back. And then run. Yeah. That was great, yeah. Yeah, I mean, be you got to be weird right like you you were just so dysfunctional offensively a lot of the time that like you kind of just have to be weird and do out of the box things uh to have any sort of a chance of success so because who knows you get you know a couple plays that you fool the defense on now i'm sure

they're saving that stuff to have a snowball's hell uh chance in hell against some of these uh top top five teams left on the schedule so maybe you don't want to break them out now maybe you know maybe the plan is to just ruin other teams seasons like loveland said but you know i think you got to think outside the box you're gonna have a little bit of weirdness in the playbook this week uh this i don't want to think about what happens or how this fan base reacts should it not go michigan's way because it's not going to be pretty you thought the message boards were crazy when they were talking about fireworks just you wait because i've been there and i think it's probably even worse now than it was in the hope days but i was on 247 because i was even in high school and college i was you know a nerd and

i love this stuff so i was on there it not pretty then. It will not be pretty now. And I just really hope they win this one, Brian, because it's going to be rough and we're going to sound like, like the other team in this rivalry and say, Oh, it's basketball season. Well, I, you know, the opposite of me thinks they're going to come in and take care of business and protect their home field and, you know, make us all really happy and proud. But I hope so.

This is their best chance to a bowl game, by the way. Not that bowl games mean much of anything nowadays, but it is their best chance to get to six wins. Not going to a bowl game, you know, particularly this team needs to go to a bowl game. They need the extra practice. They need to see what they got. And, you know, because you have to assume any bowl game we play in, excuse me, Loveland's not playing in, Graham's not playing in, Grant's not playing.

Most of our best players aren't going to play, so we'll get a really good look at the guys who are going to be playing in 2025. Yeah, and maybe show some guys, hey, there's a lot of playing time here too. Yeah. The portal's still going to be open when they're playing their bowl game. Definitely. Unless they somehow do something miraculous,

which I just don't foresee being in the cards uh unfortunately this was our most negative podcast uh no doubt brian this this is not fun i don't know how people do this when your team's not great uh not you know like hey i'm still out here we're still taking it on the chin you know justin and i are still doing it weekly and right um yeah it's just bad enough having these conversations you know then you have the infighting you know you start you get you get upset and you know you disagree with somebody who's a michigan fan and i got you know it's just not a great time so this would be a galvanizing moment not just for the team which it would be but for the fan base just give us something to

rally behind give us something good you know it's been i mean shoot it's been almost a month since michigan's won a football game. So, sure, it would be nice to get in the win column here. And, you know, at the very least, we do have our beloved Detroit Lions, Brian. They are keeping me sane. Yeah, no doubt. I told my wife on Sunday, she's like, wow, I don't think I've ever seen you like this for a Lions game.

I'm like, that's because I normally expend all my energy on Saturdays, and I'm really pent up. And so I'm getting really excited about these Detroit Lions. But, yeah, football, man, it's been tough. But, you know, nowadays you can overhaul a program in one offseason. Look at Indiana. Look at a lot of these programs. So, you know, bear with us.

We'll try to hopefully be more optimistic the next show. Hopefully we have a reason to be. But as always, certainly appreciate everyone listening. You can follow us on Twitter, Blue by 90, Instagram, Facebook, Blue by 90. You can check out our website, blueby90.com. Check out our podcast, YouTube, Apple, Spotify. We appreciate you. Go Blue.

Go Blue.