Blue By Ninety - E69: THE BOYS ARE BACK

Episode Date: June 6, 2021

After a quick break from the pod the boys are back to talk spring football, Big Dickinson's NBA decision and more. Crack a cold one and enjoy the show.

This is the University of Michigan. Touchdown, Michigan! That's the beat of Michigan ball! And they've got one extra pass. And it goes for the win! The three-pointer by Jordan Poole! Down the sideline! People jump!

Touchdown, Wolverines! Alright, welcome back to Blue by 90. I am Justin, joined by Jack and Kalen, as always. And it's been a while, boys. We took a little hiatus after the basketball season. There hasn't been a whole lot going on. Obviously, a lot of other sports for michigan athletics have played but you know we wanted to take a little break here after the the long hoops and football season and just crazy sports here in general but boys it's good to be back here how you doing it's good to be back i uh i had to

remember how to like plug my microphone in and everything so uh i'm glad i'm here and i'm glad you guys can hear me i i just said it i have literal dust on my microphone so we need to start doing this a little bit more so we can uh we can't have that well i'm glad i really downgraded my uh my whole setup i used to have that microphone set up just like you with the anchor whatever have it all set up take about 15 have that microphone set up just like you with the anchor, whatever, have it all set up, take about 15 minutes to get set up. Now I just plug the headphones in the iPad, set the iPad up,

takes about two seconds, much better experience for me. There you go. Whatever's easiest for you, Jack, we wouldn't want to inconvenience you to talk to the people. Um, but yeah,

so I mean, there has been, it's been like, there's hasn't been a lot going on but there still has been a lot going on you know they did have the weirdest spring football season of all time in ann arbor where honestly i don't even know if it happened outside of a few pictures and hype videos did spring football happen in in ann arbor i don't know um they could have just like they could have just published videos from like three years ago and i would have no 100 percent nobody would have known um i mean that was the weirdest thing i thought and i know it's like that's michigan's whole thing they don't let people in, blah, blah, blah. But, like, for them, and I know, you know, I saw on Twitter,

and this is going back a few months now, but, like, Zach Shaw was pissed about it. I know a lot of other media members were very mad that they didn't have any access into the big house specifically for the spring game, but also just for the whole spring season in general that they were practicing. And so it was just families there. We didn't get any insight into how well the quarterbacks did in that QB battle and all that stuff. So do you guys have any thoughts on just like tell me why? Like, what is Jim Harbaugh hiding?

Ohio State has like 50,000 fans at their spring season. MSU even had fans. You know, everybody else did. What is Jim Harbaugh hiding here? I don't think he wants anybody to know how disappointing this season is going to be. I think this is the first season for me in a long time where I'm going in with literally zero expectations. I'm excited to see who ends up at quarterback, and I'm excited to see Blake Corum play in the backfield. And that's really it.

I don't really give a shit about wins and losses this year i just want to see exciting playmakers you can't be mad at that and and tailgate and tailgate that's important that's most important for number one for sure no yeah i mean i'm i'm officially in the i'll believe it when i see it mode so like I what is Jim Harbaugh hiding like I don't know maybe there's nobody out there maybe like he's wearing a uniform at quarterback I have no idea so I'm just gonna turn on my tv for Washington game and whatever happens happens yeah man i i feel the same and honestly i don't know the last time i didn't have at least a little bit of juice flowing you know i know it's june it may you know by august something may happen here but even during the rich rod era and the brady hoke era it felt

like there was something going on you know we were on the brink or this was going to be the year, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, we've said that for two fucking decades at this point. But, I mean, it just really is. I mean, I don't know if it's Jim or whoever. It's really worn on me and worn on all of us now that it's like you really can't even get yourself up for this team after everything's that's going on so i don't know i mean is that i i guess i want to hear you guys thoughts too is like what could change that is it a win over washington in week two all of a sudden are you bought back in

or are you still thinking like you know what we all know that that Thanksgiving weekend we're going to lose to Ohio State still, so we might as well just not even get our hopes up even after a few wins and early in the season? To be honest with you, I don't know. I'm really trying to go into a season as far as I can without getting excited. And that sounds ridiculous, but I've been hurt too many times. I'm literally here just to have a good time tailgating and see a couple good plays. But I think Michigan – and I don't even want to talk about this. This is so ridiculous.

To get myself excited, Michigan would have to literally go 10-0, I think, for me to be disappointed. Like they have to go 10-0 to set me up, to have my heart broken the last two weeks of the season for me to be disappointed this year. I mean, I'm literally expecting nothing. Like Caelan said, I'll have to believe it. I'll have to see it to believe it. And that's what will have to happen for me to even have any sort of expectations of excitement this year. I mean, that's so funny because that's how demoralizing last year was. Jack is just like, I'm just here for a good time.

It is though. I can't get hurt if I don't get my hopes up. It is though. And honestly, here's the crazy thing about that is even if they're 10-0 or 11-0 going into Ohio State. You know they're going to Ohio State. Yeah, exactly. going into Ohio state, you know, they're going to Ohio state. What's the, what are, I mean, I don't think that's going to give me any confidence still going into, into that game.

Right. So it's like, you know, at this point you just, I'm starting to think like, dear God, is it ever going to happen? Are, are they ever going to be at Ohio State? Because then you watch, you know, Ohio State has a five-star QB in 2021, five-star QB in 2022. They're hosting the five-star QB for 2023 now. It's like, all right, this is really fun for us, you know? I mean, basketball school, right? Like, that's all I have to say about that, really. See, I think, like, I've tried to take a step back a little bit and so i like

ohio state is the big 10 equivalent of like clemson or alabama so like other teams in the acc pretty much don't beat clemson and other teams in the sec i mean besides a rare few here and there like don't beat alabama so like i I'm kind of looking at Michigan like that. Like, hey, like, yeah, that's our rival, but, like, they're kind of on another level right now. So let's beat the guys we're supposed to beat. So I would be really pleased this year if Michigan beat Michigan State, Indiana, Maryland, like, and if they beat Washington, I'd be like, oh, wow, that's a big achievement.

Just beat Michigan State. I agree. We can't lose to Michigan State again. I can't hear that in my household again. Not another year. No, I mean, that's like I agree with you, Kalen. I agree definitely with you, Jack. Like, if you just beat Michigan State by a lot, you kind of have to win that one convincingly.

Is it in East Lansing? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And then you also, I think you have to, like, fucking go beat James Franklin. It's going to be a night game at Penn State, though. They're not going to be favorite in that game. Like, I don't know. You also have to go back to Wisconsin.

Like, that's the tough thing, Kalen, is, like, this is not an easy schedule. You know? So, like, obviously their backs are against the wall, but it's still, like, they're going gonna play a lot of top 15 teams on the road here and so i don't know how it's gonna go uh i i did see this stat the other day that and this is on a complete tangent but you you brought up alabama 50 out of the last 55 games that alabama has played they've been favored in 54 of them. What's the other one?

Is that not insane? Joe Burrow at an LSU or something? Yeah, it must have been. They might not even have been favored in that one. A championship game or something. I don't know. I don't know. But, I mean, that's just what. That's insane.

So, yeah, I don't know, man. It'll be interesting to see how that how all that plays out but i i agree with with both of you honestly i'm kind of excited about the tailgating aspect because i'm not going to even be like trying to wrap up the tailgate to get into the game i'm just going to be like dude i don't give a fuck so i'm just going to stay out here and keep drinking dude are we going to have a out there we gotta figure that out i mean that's i think this is the year to have a tv so that i don't so we don't have to worry about it yeah that works let's do that i'll start looking around we gotta get calum's old can we gotta get your old big old box tv that 3d tv and your base oh

dude that thing was awesome not actually a 3d tv no it just looked like it because it had like the blue and red fucking thing i'm convinced if i would have put on 3d glasses it would have been it would have worked well all right well enough talk i mean it is kind of depressing to talk about michigan football i haven't done it in a while we did it for a second now i'm just like oh shit always puts me in a bad mood i know real quick before we move on though yeah a lot of michigan football players were in the nfl draft and a lot of a lot of good feedback from their teams saying like hey you know nico collins this guy's pretty legit quitty pay this guy's legit right so i haven't

heard anything about jalen mayfield but i'm sure he's doing okay but you know it's same old story right guys went to michigan we maybe didn't see them you know perform at the highest level we expected to and then they go to nfl and you're like holy shit this guy's maybe like superstar yeah i mean quiddy pay how quickly did he rise in the draft rankings throughout this offseason i mean he obviously was very good at michigan but i don't he wasn't ever like oh my god you can't stop quiddy pay right and then all of a sudden he goes to the combine he's the biggest freak in the draft like all this stuff and he goes what did he end up going top 10 he went 19 i want to say 19 okay all right yeah but it was uh well pro football focus they had him had him early on right number one freaking college football i think before the season started

and then he played what three or four games before he got hurt or stopped playing so we never really got to see him do anything i mean he made some pretty crazy plays at times but we never got to see him really go off which i would have loved to see but uh he i mean he dude's happy for that guy he deserves more than anyone yeah i mean to your point caitlin though at some point that's got to be a selling point to recruits right like you know i know that Michigan's not winning, but you come to Michigan, you've got a pretty dang good chance if you start to make it in the NFL at some point, right? Especially now with basically the entire Ravens staff at Michigan. Yeah, right.

It's like, why not? It's hard to compete with Ohio State when they're doing the same thing, if not better, and winning games. True. Very true. Shut up, Jack. Sorry to affect the reality here. All right, all right, whatever. All right, enough with the disappointment there.

Let's go to somebody who was absolutely not a disappointment, and just the whole basketball team in general. Juwan Howard, I mean, still, is there a more beloved man in Ann Arbor than Juwan Howard right now? No. 100% no, there's not. And, I mean, the crazy thing is that I think as Michigan fans, we take it a little bit for granted how lucky we were to go from John Beeline, who was one of the greatest men as well, and now go straight to Juwan Howard without really any hitch at all.

And now they're bringing in this unbelievable recruiting class, and he's probably going to do it again year after year. And it's a disappointment to lose in the Sweet 16 these days, right? Or Elite Eight. God, it's been a while. Sweet 16. No, it was Elite Eight. Elite Eight. Elite Eight.

Because lost to UCLA, then they won in the Final Four. Right. No, they didn't win in the Final Four. I don't know what the fuck happened. So long ago. So long, yeah. It's like two months, three months. But either way, that's like the the you know the basement for michigan basketball at this point

it's incredible i love it that's basically like making it to a new year's six game in football imagine if that was michigan football's basement. Oh, my God. We'd be on cloud nine. Anyway, so we had – so let's see. Franz Wagner going to the NBA, signed with an agent. Isaiah Livers going to the NBA, signed with an agent. Sean D going to the NBA. Eli coming back for his sixth year. That's awesome.

Huge. And then Hunter just recently, kind of surprising, kind of out of the blue, but he had to do it before May 31st, was that he declared what he's keeping. You know, he's doing an NCAA certified agent, so he keeps his eligibility. So what are your thoughts on I mean all of that or what's I guess two questions what do you think Eli's you know how big is that for for Michigan to get Eli back for a year with them it would have to be you know a couple new guys coming in and then coming into the point guard and shooting our position and then how you

know where do you stand on hunter dickinson 50 50 coming back 90 10 coming back is he gone what do you guys think well i think for eli i mean you have so many young guys at the one and two guard coming in i mean zeb jackson from last year he could use you know all the help he can get and the growth he can you know everything he can learn from eli being there for five years yeah kobe buffkin uh frankie collins i'm sure i'm missing some other names we got those two guys coming in as freshmen i mean if if eli wasn't coming back you wouldn't really have a veteran guy i mean you'd have um that transfer from uh charlotte yeah devante jones jones that sounds right okay and then he's coming in i mean anytime you can have a veteran guy come back and especially the way

eli's improved every single year that's a huge move for michigan i think and as far as hunter goes i'd say 90 10 coming back i mean he'd it would be idiotic for him not to test the nba waters go to the combine get an evaluation see what he needs to improve on, and then take that and come back. I mean, he's gotten, like you said, an agent that's certified by NCAA, so he's not like risking any eligibility or anything. I mean, I think it's a no brainer. Smart move. He should do that. 100 percent. Yeah, I think Eli coming back is huge. I don't I guess I don't know enough about the roster off the top of my head is there any chance that would lead to like transfers or anything like that i i assume not with eli coming back yeah no no i don't think they will

what i was surprised there though was i thought that maybe juwan would have faith in zeb jackson to step into that role but maybe maybe he's not ready yet you know with and so i thought zeb would either get the shooting guard role or maybe just the point guard role but then we got the davante jones guy so we'll probably it'll probably be davante j Jones and Eli with Zeb rolling in there a little bit. Yeah, I think one more year for Eli, he actually should improve even more, and that would be great for his draft stock next year. So I think it's a smart move for him. And for Hunter, I think it's a no-brainer to get that NCAA agent.

And in terms of him coming back, I'm a little bit more like 75, 25, just because you never know. I mean, he could go out there, get a really good grade, and then at that point, you know, money talks. I can always come back to school. So I hope he comes back, obviously, but you never know. Yeah, I definitely can see it. I could see it happening.

It sounded, I thought, so I can't remember if it was Jeff Goodman or who said it, but they said that Hunter was grading out among teams that what he had heard was he was a possible second rounder. I didn't think he would, after this year, be drafted just because he's so raw. He's obviously huge. He has a ton of talent and a ton of potential but he had a left hand that was it i mean he and he did really well with that left hand but it really had you know you saw it as soon as people figured it out down the stretch that all

they had to guard was his left hand it was a lot easier so i think to your guys point you give him one more year in college and he develops a right hand he develops a jump shot maybe even steps out to a three-pointer which i don't know if you guys saw it i tweeted it out today yeah he had it up he had it on his instagram story he was just drilling nba threes like one after the other like four in the in the 10 seconds or whatever it was really impressive so you know I think if he does all that then he now becomes not a second rounder he's a lottery pick he's a top five pick 100 so I don't know I think that benefits him but I think the crazy thing is that nowadays you you know, the G League can provide that as well.

Right. So, you know, I think it's different than before where it was like if you don't, you know, get drafted after college, then you're going to get stuck in the G League and you're not going to pan out. Probably nowadays, the G League is so much better than they develop. They really focus on developing those guys so maybe he goes that route and and like you said caitlin maybe money talks and he's like you know however million however many million dollars he gets in that second round is good enough and he wants to prove himself there who knows i mean we compared him to or not so not so much compared him but you know we talk about guys like luke garza that stuck around and really developed and got better and better every year.

I mean, you look at a guy like Hunter who's that big. I mean, he's definitely athletic. He's raw. If he can get a right hand and show that he can shoot the three, I mean, 7'2 guy, unstoppable around the rim, can go both ways, hit the deep shot. You know, he's athletic. I mean, like you said, he's a lottery pick. I mean, he'd be unanimous All-American NCAA Player of the Year, you know. So I think, I mean, if he can really develop that over this next year and maybe even takes another year and sticks around for a while like Luka Garza did in Iowa,

I mean, the dude's a no-doubt first-rounder. No doubt top 10 pick if he can hit threes and become a little bit more athletic just play that steven a thing talking about kobe right there's nothing this guy can't do honestly though i mean if he if he even he started to step out a little bit to that mid-range and it opens up everything so if you can just do that one or two times it's not like you have to be a 40 free or three point shooter you know all you have to do is hit an occasional one all of a sudden they got to guard you out there well then that opens up the whole lane for you to go in right guess what you're seven foot two and nobody can stop

you you know so i agree with you um and also you have to think about it like even if you go to the g league if you're hunter dickinson are in the g league are you getting better somebody better to teach you about how to play in the post than juwan howard i don't think you are you might not got a guy who who spent 20 years essentially in the nba like from playing and coaching so i i really i think that's a big thing for for a lot of these big guys and it's going to be fun with musa diabate and caleb houston coming in like if those are sweet and and you know it seems like michigan now hosts a new five-star recruit on a zoom call or a visit you know all the time it's like i don't know about

you guys but i scroll twitter all the time and tipton edits is on twitter he's like posts like oh i've been talking to this guy and he says these people are recruiting michigan's always at the top literally michigan is the first team on there every single time on every five star so i love it it's fucking awesome basketball school i'm not mad about it dude it's i i it's a lot less stress too you can lose a basketball game and right we can be okay every time we lose a football game if we're like trying to be over season's over and i'm devastated for weeks on it yeah all right so last. So last topic here, we're going to make it quick. Uh,

by the way, we're, we're kind of going to switch up the podcast a little bit for all you listeners out there to a little shorter segment so we can do a more often touch on things as news breaks and things like that. Uh, get you guys some feedback quicker and our reactions and stuff. So last thing,

and we were kind of joking about this before we we got on here but it is not good for Jim Harbaugh in this football program that every single other sport sports program at Michigan is like conference champion, national champion, you know, NCAA regionals, NCAA semifinals, final fours, all this stuff. It's like for good, especially with these spring sports. And I know a lot of the fall sports actually went over to the spring this year because of COVID too. It felt like every couple of days there was a new conference champ from Michigan.

And it was just like,'s like, oh, Jim, this is not good for you. I loved all the Michigan Twitter accounts that were changing it from like basketball school to water polo school to gymnastic school. I mean, everybody else is literally succeeding at such a

high level of Michigan football. We're technically supposed to be a football school. It's like, what's going on? We're a field hockey school yeah I mean field hockey made it to the national title and you know lost in a heartbreaker to uh North Carolina I mean everybody is doing so well and it's almost like it's almost like great timing for them to do it too because they're getting recognized they're almost getting recognition kind of as a joke because like Michigan football is so bad and we're saying like field hockey school and whatever but it's like bringing so much awareness to the talent of the other teams that you know michigan has and

it's it's kind of awesome it's like i kind of love that we can all joke about michigan football being you know in a rough spot right now is a great thing great thing for my mental stability no i mean it's good because like what when else would you watch michigan gymnastics like never yeah but like you hear about them and you're like i need some good like michigan athletic achievement in my life so you watch some clips and you're like holy holy shit, these guys are awesome. Yeah, those girls are talented, man. Liz Plotky, she was a member at OTF for a little while. Oh, really?

They got a good program going over there. We went to a couple meets to support her, and, I mean, they're no joke. They've been succeeding for a long time. Shouts out to Liz. That's right. Yeah, I mean. Bev Plotky, I apologize. Liz Plotky.

Bev Plotky. I thought it was Bev. Bev Plotky i apologize sorry they were both members though um but it's uh it it is cool to see i think you know i think it's cool i i try you know i know we all try to give as much recognition to those guys and girls in the in the lesser televised sports you know to give them the recognition because you and i you know we all know they put in as much effort as as the football and basketball teams do um so it's good to see them get some recognition especially among uh among michigan you know twitter accounts and Instagram accounts and all that stuff. So it is cool to see, but it is like it's that awkward thing where everyone's like looking around like, all right, when is the, you know, and I think it happens probably within the student athletes too. I have to assume that these gymnastic girls that are winning national championships,

they're like why the fuck are they are we spending money on football who gives a shit right you know i have to imagine that's happening right oh that's awesome i hope so i can i funny story so like my girlfriend swam at eastern and they won a lot of national titles for swimming. So she was always like, why the hell are we spending all this money on Eastern football? Cause they're so bad.

So it definitely happens. Yeah. I, at some point, right. I feel like the football players are probably like walking around, uh, walking around uh walking around campus like with their tail between their legs a little bit don't you think and then the gymnastics

team is like chest out like puffed up you know and all these other teams are just like bro you're in the football team all right get out of here this is a gymnastics party yeah football players not allowed oh my god what a time all right uh do you guys got anything to touch on i know that was really quick but i i felt like we touched on kind of everything we wanted to yeah i'm looking forward to this new setup shorter episodes a little more often it'll they're really touch they're trying to to hold me down honestly these guys talk too much which i do definitely do um jack has adhd issues so he can't uh can't pay attention he also has to go to bed at 6 p.m every day so it is past my bedtime guys

well we all know we're going to turn this podcast off and rose going to go in the bathroom and talk to the mirror for two hours yeah you should have said this jacqueline is gonna hate you guys because now i just gotta keep talking to her and she's like are you fucking kidding me this guy won't what happened i used to have my free time for an hour and a half here what's going on she's just hanging out with some guy in the living room you had no idea before yeah so all right well as as uh you know it might be a slow summer still with news but as uh things come out we'll still keep keep putting stuff out it'll be fun uh well i'm sure we'll we'll try to get ourselves excited about michigan football as much as we can

mainly just about tailgating but yeah we're we're a tailgating account we're tailgating school i like it perfect perfect all right well you can follow us at blue by 90 on twitter instagram uh and facebook at blue by 90 podcast on youtube as well um we will see you guys all later go blue go blue go blue