Blue By Ninety - Honest Whitt

Episode Date: September 7, 2026

Michigan Football is 1-0.How the Wolverines got there is a much more complicated conversation.Welcome to Rise to the Victors, your daily start with Michigan sports on the Blue By 90 network with Trevor McCue and Darnell Porter.Michigan somehow escaped Western Michigan with a win Saturday night after an offensive performance that raised significantly more questions than anyone expected entering Week 1.And the biggest questions surround Bryce Underwood.After an offseason filled with positive reports about Underwood's development in Jason Beck's offense, some of the same issues that plagued his freshman season resurfaced once the game went live. Kyle Whittingham acknowledged Monday that Underwood's performance was disappointing compared with what Michigan saw throughout fall camp, but stressed that this was his first live game in a completely new offense and that the Wolverines remain confident in his development.So how concerned should Michigan fans actually be?Trevor and Darnell break down what went wrong with Underwood, why the problems went well beyond the quarterback and what Michigan needs to change before Oklahoma comes to the Big House.Whittingham actually came away more encouraged by the offensive line after reviewing the film, but Michigan didn't run the football violently enough, struggled on third down, committed costly penalties and turnovers and allowed Western Michigan to possess the football for more than 40 minutes.There were positives, too.Michigan's defense quietly allowed only 3.3 yards per play, missed just five tackles and didn't surrender an explosive play. Rod Moore and John Henry Daley made successful returns. And JJ Buchanan emerged as a major weapon in the passing game — including, of course, the catch that somehow allowed Michigan to escape with a victory.Michigan didn't play well.Michigan still won.Now the Wolverines have one week to figure out what went wrong before Oklahoma arrives in Ann Arbor.🏈 IN THIS EPISODE:• How Michigan somehow escaped Western Michigan• How concerned should we be about Bryce Underwood?• Whittingham's message about Michigan's QB1• Underwood's reads and QB run decisions• Michigan adjusting Jason Beck's offense around Bryce• What Whittingham saw from Michigan's offensive line on film• Why the running game struggled• Michigan's sloppy penalties and turnovers• The defense was actually pretty good• The missing piece for Jay Hill's defense: turnovers• Why escaping at 1-0 still matters• What has to change immediately against OklahomaRise to the Victors is your daily start with Michigan sports on the Blue By 90 network.Join Trevor McCue and Darnell Porter every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday morning at 10:30 a.m. for Michigan Football news, analysis, recruiting, basketball and conversation about everything happening around the Wolverines.Subscribe to Blue By 90 and turn on notifications so you don't miss a show.〽️ Rise to the Victors🎙️ Trevor McCue & Darnell Porter📅 Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday⏰ 10:30 a.m.📺 On the Blue By 90 network

All right, welcome in. Rise of the Victors here on the Blue By 90 Podcast Network. We are presented by Feldman Chevrolet of Holland. You can find them at Feldman Chevy or Highland. I said Holland, where I live. Feldman Chevrolet of Highland. You could find them at Feldman Chevy Highland.com. Obviously not a resounding victory Monday that we're here talking about.

But Kyle Whittingham was at the podium today. And we got more of what we saw all offseason, which was an honest Kyle Winningham. The conversation, obviously, he's going to start with Bryce Underwood, who on that first drive looked fantastic. The offense looked fantastic. We saw all the improvements we hoped to see,

and then it felt like from the moment he had that scramble out and the forced ball into Andrew Marsh from then on, the offense looks disjointed, and Bryce was doing a lot of those familiar things, locking on to receivers and throwing into coverage and such. So we'll get into all of the weeds, but obviously going to start darn out with Kyle Whittingham's press conference and his comments today. I'm going to read the entire quote because I'm already seeing the first two sentences spread like crazy and turning into something beyond what it was.

And look, he's clearly showing he's not be being Bryce Underwood, but I don't think it's anyway. Here's the quote. He's our QB right now. It's not something that's infinite. it. Obviously, if I stop there, it's like, oh, my God. But at some point, we've got to turn the corner. We've got to see improvement as we've got to do with a bunch of stuff. We've got to see improvement out of the coaches. It's not just on Bryce. And it's not just Bryce's job that is not absolutely set in concrete. Nobody's is. We've got to perform week in and week out and become somebody that we feel like is playing at a level we can win with. That goes far beyond Bryce. It goes throughout the whole team. What you've done lately is very important.

you know he he talked about you know it was unfortunate and disappointing because of how sharp Bryce had been in camp was talked about how this was Bryce's first chance being live and that was something we talked about right now that we wondered and worried about the one thing we wouldn't know right if Bryce had that moment where the pressure came in the bad throw or whatever would that old stuff come back and it did and and that's obviously the disappointing part so there was a lot of good stuff we did see the progress again especially early on that first drive but you got to figure out a way to stay with the new and the teaching and not revert back to some of those old habits yeah um i've been waiting for our show to kind of collect my words all weekend um

definitely wasn't pleased with what I saw as a fan. It was kind of concerning. I think me and you kind of highlighted this and we preached this. We were excited about what we was hearing, but we also was kind of tempering a little bit because we like, we got to see if it can translate the Saturdays. I think somebody made a good analogy. It's like sometimes there's these,

there's some, often these kids, these players that great Monday through Friday players, right, with great practice. Does everything right. Every rep is done to pristine levels. And then you get to the game on Saturday or Sunday and it's like, where is the dude that's practicing in the shell? In the, I guess they call them shells. Where's the dude that's practicing in the shells? Like, how does this not translate?

And I don't know if it's that the pressure feels different. I'm not sure. But that first drive when everything was going Bryce's way, he looked comfortable. He looked like he was doing everything that he had been working on this summer. And there's something happened between that first drive after we scored. And then that second and third drive is where. you started to see the miscues, and then it just went downhill.

And so I haven't got a chance to look at the all 22 yet. Hopefully, I'll be able to do that this afternoon this evening for our show tomorrow. But it's alarming to say the least. I appreciate it with honesty, right? And I hope everybody doesn't just take that first quote and just run with it, thinking that, oh, he'll be bitched this weekend. They're going to give him a little leeway. They're just not saying he's going to be the start of the rest of the season.

I think that that might be a wake-up call for Bryce too, right? If I'm Bryce and I hear that, and I hear my head coach, he ain't got an infinite runway. That makes me look in the mirror, too. And I'm pretty sure he's had some tough conversations with the people that are surrounding him. Like, we got to figure out what this mental block is because there definitely is a block. Yeah, I think I'm less into the practice player narrative just because, you know, especially being in Michigan. I saw what Bryce did as a sophomore in high school,

a junior in high school and senior, and how good he could be in games. I lean towards the idea about like he's never had to struggle before, right? And the way he handles that, right? I always tell you, I try not to read too much into body language stuff that gets shown on cameras because they're looking for stuff and we're not seeing the full picture. but the contrast between how amped up and excited he was coming out of the tunnel and even before that first drive and during the drive to later in the game when the offense was struggling and, you know, he was missing some moments and whatever.

And you could see him very calm, stoic, just kind of sitting there sad and upset. it kind of made me think about some of the earlier, you know, what could be thought of as cocky comments or, you know, nobody's seen anybody like this, blah, blah, blah, to now the more pulled back and reserved comments, right? So I think it's in those moments, you know, reverting back. He's got to figure that out, how to push the bad stuff out the window and get back. And to Witt's point, it wasn't all on him, right? I did not understand. So, you know, for my post-game analysis over at Blueby-90.com game session for the offense, I have an interactive feature breaking down Bryce's game with the passing chart. On the opening drive where he was five for five, his average depth

of target was 3.4 yards, all quick short throws getting out. And yards after catch was 44. So taking advantage of the playmakers, right? Hitting the guys, nice, easy throws, get those guys running upfield. For the rest of the game, his average depth of target was 17.3. And for those that haven't paid attention to, like, charting J.J. McCarthy era, that's crazy deep. Right? Like, that's a lot of going downfield. Only four yards after the catch from then on, and he was 7 of 17.

The offensive line, we watching it, I think we both agreed. We thought, man, this is brutal, this is brutal. And Winningham actually said something I agreed with, which was going back on rewatch and grading out. It wasn't as bad as we thought. It still wasn't good, but it wasn't as bad as we thought. He only had, Bryce was only pressured five times. And he was 0 for four on those first pressures. And the only one he completed, the one he was one for five on was the Hail Mary touchdown at the end.

right so i think they got to figure some stuff out i hated that they were rotating the guards we didn't have we didn't have two drives back to back with the same two guards in at the same position until the fourth quarter i thought that was crazy and then running the jumbo set western had such a clear obvious answer to that they were only playing four linemen sometimes only three regardless if there were seven eight nine nine guys in the line. They were playing back off the line and kind of letting Michigan tell them runner pass. If it was a run, those four were coming up and then the four linebackers were finding gaps and getting to the edges. If it was a pass, they kept bringing four

and they had seven defenders back on two or three receivers. So he was constantly throwing into a ton of coverage because they had so many people back and only two people out there. So I thought it was a poor game plan that Western Michigan absolutely dominated and exposed as well. But yeah, look, Wittingham's not going to go out there and be the guy that says anybody's job is secure no matter what. That's how I took it. I didn't think it was this massive indictment on Bryce. I think it was just an honest answer that the performance wasn't good enough. And something I tell fans all the time too, like, you guys don't care more than them.

They're not more frustrated than them, right? Like I assure you that's the case. So Bryce isn't happy, obviously, either. But like, hey, you say it wasn't good enough. And if it doesn't get better and we don't see the development and it continues to be an issue with where we can't win football games, then yeah, it's obviously something we have to consider. I don't think that means Tommy Carr is right around the corner. And I don't think fans want it to be either. I'm very optimistic on Carr in his future here.

But, like, I'm not going to fall into the trap that the backup quarterback is always better, man. I'm not ready to do that. Well, here's the thing for the people that screaming, Tommy Carr, Tommy Carr is not even the backup. It's the kid that got from North Dakota. He's actually the backup, which is to tell you about Tommy Carr's development as of right now because that kid came in after the spring. And then basically everybody thought at the end of the spring game, Tommy Carr was the backup. up and then that kid came and pushed Tommy Carter to the third string quarterback. So it wouldn't be Tommy.

It would be the kid from Colorado State that they got a transfer portal as your backup quarterback as of right now. I'm not really into the, I've done the whole let's play a true freshman for a season bit. me personally I'm not subscribed you want to build off of what you're trying to say because Whittingham named Carr QB2 and he is getting one reps he has been so what do you Oh well then he must have

He must have passed them again Maybe Carr passed him again towards the end But like two weeks out from the start of the season Oh yeah no you missed Okay I thought you were talking about something else you heard You missed no no no they came from Colorado State So if it's changed then it's changed But yeah I just don't

I just don't subscribe to the whole true freshman playing type stuff. No disrespect to Tommy Carr. I think Tommy Carr is good, but good teams don't have to play true freshman. They let true freshmen develop, and then they bring them up in the ranks. Even some of your kids that have been good, like Keon Russell down at Bama, he didn't play his freshman year. This is his first year. He looked pretty good in his first game.

the kids that played as true freshman outside of arch because i don't think arch played as true freshman year because queen yours was there but outside of arch most of those kids struggle or they on teams is just not good i think jks is pretty good uh but he struggled uh against UCLA right and everybody deemed him as Bryce's uh QB class number one pick so like I'm not saying Bryce is the answer because I don't know what the answer is right now after what I saw, right? I think they have a lot to work on. I, I, what is the coach? So I'm giving him the grace of what he's saying.

But just looking at the TV copy that I saw, um, I don't think the O-line played. I think they played well in pass, bro. But running the ball, I don't. don't know if they did as well. I mean, me and you, Trevor, we watched last night some of the clips from when they're in that right-on, when they're in that eight-man line, guys missing assignments, not knowing who to block, not seeing anybody to block. So then they just go and block somebody else. And then the person they suppose to block is the person is making the play. I just think,

I expected the one position that I said I didn't have the least amount of worry about was O-line. And now coming out this game, I put O-Line in Bryce development like neck-and-neck. And I'm scared to say that because I thought, and I still do think highly of Jim Hardy. I mean, he's one of the best O-Line coaches in the nation. There was a bunch of schools after Jim Hardy before he picked Michigan. So they wasn't just calling Jim Hardy because he's a bad online coach. But something is not meshing. I don't know if they're calling audibles on the line and people are not hearing the calls.

People are missing the calls. I'm not sure. But some of the run game looked a little weird. I know we'll probably get into it later, but like the zone reads wasn't really zone reading. It looks like typical Michigan. And you know, Trevor, you've said this before and I agree with you. If I have to sit another season and deal with a quarterback who is not going to pull his own read and you're going to still run that play, then we're wasting our time. I'm not saying that the Heider play, he should have held it because I think when we slowed it down yesterday, Trevor, we both agreed if He probably should have gave it to Hider a lot quicker because that hole was there for Hider to hit.

He kind of stuttered after he got it. And I think he stuttered. When I went back and looked at it right before I went to sleep, Trevor, I was like, he probably stuttered because he's waiting for the ball to be let go so he can go, right? Because if he goes too fast, it's a fumble. And if he don't go fast enough, the play is made. So I just think there was a lot of miscues, and it shouldn't be happening against the Mac. I know people want to say, I've seen in the comments, I've seen.

on Twitter people yelling. Oh, we were vanilla, we were this. Here's the thing. You should be able to be vanilla against Western Michigan. No disrespect to Western Michigan. I think they're a phenomenal program. They're going to win the Mac. Great.

Taylor's a damn good coach. Yeah, but there's levels to this. You should be able to be, you should only need about 30 to 40 plays in your playbook to beat Western Michigan at most. And they probably tried calling less, if we're being honest. like that's how they came into this game but right so um he got a he he has to um this is a this is a week of reflection i think everybody got to take a look at a mirror i know

yesterday it was reported on multiple sites uh and i'm not saying we report that you reported it as intel but it was definitely on the blue by mighty that definitely posted it very very I definitely posted a day on the message board, yeah. Yeah. That they did have a team meeting yesterday, hopefully, and it seems like it was a player meeting and it was a player-led meeting. And hopefully that's your captain is stepping up and holding the mirror to each other and they're holding a mirror to themselves, right?

And digging deep and saying, look, we almost technically, we didn't got to get into the whole little controversy thing. We almost lost to Western Michigan. if that wasn't a wake-up call to lock the hell in then this season is going to be six and six seven at five of us and hopefully when they got out of that meeting they realized like okay we've been given an extra life and on this season and we got to lock in but I know people want to want Bryce done I know they want them out and I'm not saying you wrong I'm not here the cape for Bryce. But I would tell you that if they felt confident 100% with anybody that's

on that bench, they'd already be in the game. Because it's one of those things you can't get, you're already at rock bottom. You can't get no worse. You get what I'm saying? So obviously, they feel like the people that's behind them is not going to give them even a better chance at winning. And I know it's easy for us to say on the sideline, we saw them in the spring game, Tommy car looks great. The other guy, we haven't seen him. But if you look at his film, he looks okay. But we hear now, I mean, this is what it is.

So strap it up Saturday and let's play ball. Sorry to run a little bit. No, that's all right. No, I just, I feel like I'm still having some of the same, like, chicken and egg conversations too, right? Like, and I know, look, it's a bad game. It's the first game. and I'm not saying people shouldn't react the way they're reacting,

but like you, and you got to react one way or the other. But I just, I'm thinking about the Fresno game in 24, where I'm like, okay, this can't be the offense. And I'm saying a lot of the same things with this one, right?

Like, this issue, this issue. And then, like, let's see if it continues throughout the year, right? I,

nothing leading up to this in terms of what they saw and fall, all of that, None of that wasn't true, right? Like, this is different than a staff that doesn't know what it has, right? And I've just, I've seen so many instances in the past where, like, inexplicable bad losses happen, right? It's the first game of the year, so it's easy to be like, okay, this is what it is and assume for the rest of the year. And it could be. I'm not telling you that it's not.

I don't know. But I brought it up, we were talking before. I saw Notre Dame lose to Northern Illinois and then be the, the national champion runner up you know what i mean like i'm just i'm not ready to forfeit i mean people are talking about like firing wit already it's just it's crazy talk man i'm sorry and i looked at this game and i told you too like the penalty the part that frustrated me the most was the stuff i told you i was willing to leave laps for product for um development yeah and things not be perfect and whatever i wanted to see a cohesive team and a well-coached team

That first drive with tempo, like they were all getting up there quick. Bryce was making the right calls. Everything felt smooth. Defensively, I do want to get to that at some point. The defense I thought was great. And we'll talk about that. But offensively, the penalties, two formation penalties related to that rhino because they're not properly stacking.

So they're getting five men in the backfield penalties. Terrible. They had the two holdings that were completely unnecessary, right? Or soft, whatever, whatever. with the Bryce one. But again, we watched, even on the one

where Bryce held, where if, I think it was Beagle would have taken the right. He shouldn't have to have. He shouldn't have to do it, right? But the point is they had

these penalties killing drives. Four first downs. Right? Yeah. Four first downs is 12 more plays minimum. Right? And then maybe there's first downs there. Then maybe there's points,

right? The penalties were just crazy, defensively, hell, pushing the guy out of bounds. you know, and then that that face mask doesn't get called on the third down at the end of that 20 play drive. That would have been another first down. You know, so the penalties to me were killer. Obviously, you can't have the turnovers on offense.

Losing the time of possession battle, 40 to 20, Michigan had only 10 possessions. And then obviously not being able to run the ball. Like, I agree with what the offensive line was better than it looks live. It still wasn't good enough. obviously. And I'm not excusing Bryce because I didn't want to see him revert back to some of the things that he was doing. But I'm just sitting here going, man, how are we still talking about the penalties and, you know, some of that other stuff? And before we get to the defense and the positivity, I told you one thing that is an early little red flag for me. when I go through and I name all the players that really stuck out to me in this game,

there's a common theme. On offense, it was J.J. B. Cannon. On defense, it was J.H.D. Dom Nichols, Trey Pierce, and Oeta. In the secondary, Smith Snowden, Jair Hill is going to be the one exception of this that I thought really stuck out. Linebacker, Staling was a stud, Troy Bulls was great. every one of those players, except for Jyir Hill, is either new to the team or new in a bigger role. None of your returning starters came out and have huge games that jumped off the mat. So to me, that screams that even though this progress has been made in the offseason and the staff has come in and all of these positive changes has happened,

And as soon as things got kind of tough and ugly in this game, for the guys that were here last year, I think some of that negativity crept back in. Right. And that's scary because they got to be able to put that stuff away or else you're not going to be able to win with the dudes that can't get rid of what happened before. Right. So, yeah, you guys, there's a couple of comments still. You guys can say it's time to hard time. But, bro, I've been here for it's Dylan McCaffrey time. It's Brandon Peters time.

It's, oh, I'm trying now. I can't remember. Anyway, the backup quarterback is the most popular guy on the team, always in forever, dude. Like, it's things. All the time it actually happened. And we went even in 24. Oh, my God. Yeah, we went full circle, right?

Bench for Orgy. Now it's Jack Tuttle. Bring Davis Warren back. And now everybody loves Davis Warren because he's playing well in Stanford. Like, it's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I get a John of Corn was another one yeah yeah John I remember the John of corn he had to highlight real at the University of Houston and everybody was excited and wanted to bench I want to say spate and bring in a corn

um spate's such a big what if for me if he doesn't get hurt against Iowa and he's healthy against Ohio State and then we don't decide to throw and then we don't decide to throw a play action pass out our side of the field. He throws that pick six to put Ohio State back in the game in Columbus. But yeah, I think I think

what you said has some valid points as far as like returning guys. I thought Trey Pierce played pretty well. Trey Pierce played. Yeah, again, he's a starter now. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not saying it was just

transfer guys but yeah trey pierce man he he bulrushed a dude and looked really strong he had a good get up and some quick step had to look more comfortable in his role i think those two and then with jonah from utah you know that was a question mark we can talk about the defense now since we're there i think that was a question mark coming into the year i think you're you're pretty solid at the top and then they did do what i thought they would do i talked about this in my great session for the defense um daily played snaps at the interior nickel played some snaps on the interior. So I do think we're going to see that where,

especially in passing downs, we're going to have three defensive ends or just a three front, but you're going to see some defensive ends get into the three tech. Yeah. I thought the linebacker started slow, but then they picked up. I like what I saw the bows. You highlighted a couple of plays for me that I'm,

and Bulls looked really good. And look at, I thought Bowen played okay. The other kid that they got to transfer in, I thought those are your two starters for sure. I didn't see a lot of Chase Taylor, which was I was doing. Well, I don't think people realized they tweeted it earlier out in the week, but Taylor was wearing four, and I think that threw some people off too.

But Taylor played more than Boatang, actually, and Moa played more than Boatang, too. So we kind of talked about I didn't know what the linebacker roles would be in the Hill defense. So Moa is very clearly the San. linebacker when they have three linebackers on the field because he lined up as an edge defender I think it was 12 of 15 snaps so yeah I saw moa out there a lot yeah so Moa played a lot more than I expected but um and it could be just once again I think Jay looked at this game and was like these guys really can't compete with us and so that if there was one huge takeaway because I know

people was like, oh, the defense got pushed around. The defense got this. The defense rotated a lot of players in. And I also think when you have a defense that's on the field for 60 plus plays, bro, that's hard to keep up that intensity when you get a three and out and then your offense put you right back on the field a minute and a half later.

You get another three and out, your officer puts you back. And then now those rotations are needing, you have to go deeper in your rotation because dudes are just tired. And they are wearing on you

because they know the best place, the best thing to do is to hold the ball and keep you on the field. And then their defense is easier for them because they They've turned you into a one-dimensional thing. And I don't want to go back to the office, but like, that was Taylor's game plan, right?

It's keep our defense on the field. And then when we're on the field, on offense, he's like, Michigan's identity for the history of the school is to run the ball. So we're going to put eight in a box and we're going to make it look like we're running man. And it's really going to be zone. And we're going to confuse some things with the quarterback. we're going to muddy it up. And then in the run game, we're going to play a yard off of the ball. And we're going to motion our D-Lyman around to confuse your lineback,

your linemen, and you're going to go three and out. And then we're going to put you back on the field, five, six minutes. You know who used to do that? Michigan. Mm-hmm. That was our brand of football. We're going to hold the ball, but four, five minutes. We're going to have a game manager quarterback.

I know people love J.J. McCarthy, but as you're seeing now, He was great in college, a game manager. He gives him the NFL where they need him to play quarterback. He struggled, right? Because that's what Michigan quarterbacks are, the game managers, right? We haven't had a gamer as a quarterback in quite some time, probably DeNar Robinson. And we could argue that some could say he's not really that much of a gamer. But DeMonar Robinson was in here.

That's a whole last. Yeah, that would be your last gamer quarterback. quarterback. When you really think about the history of Michigan quarterbacks and then you go back to Henney and some of the quarterback before him, but Western Michigan pulled a Michigan on Michigan. They had your defense out there for 40 minutes. They outrushed you, which I haven't seen in a long

time. They didn't really want to pass the ball. They just wanted to play clock ball and sit on the ball. I was looking, I was like, damn, this should remind me of Jim R. Ball. Like, this is Jim R. Ball's offense. It was like looking in the mirror. Yeah. So I just, I know people are probably, people was all on the defense trip. It was like, oh, they was getting pushed around.

And I, I lost my mind. I don't know Darbo's still in here, but I lost my mind on him yesterday when he was trying to tell me how bad the defense was. I was like, what are you talking about, bro? It's hard when your defense is out there for 40 minutes, bro. I don't think people understand unless, and I'm not trying to. to act like I'm some superior athletes. I stopped playing in high school, bro. But I don't think people understand what 40 minutes on a football field feels like.

Where you're constantly... Yeah. Because that's what's happening at that line of scrimmage. It is... It ain't at the NFL level, like car crash, but it's close, right? And you just constantly going at it. Boom, boom. Bro, you're going to get tired.

And then what happens is Troy Pierce can't be out there because he's been out there for three minutes. So now your third string defense to tackle who you didn't think you were going to have to play as much is now in the game in a critical moment and they're getting three yards to push and people like, oh my God,

I can't believe that we're getting ran on like this. Well, yeah, bro, you've had your defense out there. And I saw somebody, they was moving the ball in the first half. You know why? Go look at the time of possession, disparity in the first half. Like, it's not why,

this is not rocket science, bro. Yeah, but again, like, I'm sorry, I just, I get frustrated by this. They allowed 3.3 yards per play. Bro, they gave up four field goes. Yeah, they held them to. On a muff punt? Yeah.

On a muff punt? and a pick. Bryce accounted for, I'm sorry, Bryce accounted for three and Andrew Marsh counted for three. So that means your defense gave up six points. The Snowden allowed 11 yards

receiving Zekeberry 18 on its whole six targets. Jire Hill, two for two targets and receptions, negative three yards allowed. They had no yak whatsoever. So when you're talking about, you know, they came out in that first half and threw the ball a lot more than I expected, right?

We talked about that. But they still went, what was it, 15 of, 15 of 21 for less than 100 yards. And this was impressive too. When he was, when he was in a clean pocket, he was 12 of 13 for 76 yards, 5.8 yards per attempt going 12 for 13 is crazy low. They were just doing the little dinks. But under pressure, he was 3 of 8 for 13 yards, 1.6 yards per attempt, got sacked twice. Sacks came from the edge, two pressures from defensive tackle Pierce.

Hale got in. Taylor was impressed with the rotation and pressure there. This was so 2023 defense for me where they had some bend don't break moments, didn't let them score, right? Wasn't giving up, they gave up zero explosive plays, not a single one. So no pass over 15 yards, no run over 10. The high completion percentage doesn't mean a thing to me because, again, it didn't translate to anything. It was basically a West Coast offense where, okay, a little three-yard completion. That's a short run, right?

So, yeah, the 20-play try was brutal because they gave up the first four third downs, and it just kept going. That was the first time we saw them do what I thought Western was going to do. They came out and threw the ball a ton early and really looked different. And then Michigan, the drive book. before that was moving the ball really well. It was their best drive since the first drive. And then again, penalties killed it.

And they had to punt and they made the right decision. And they put Western back. And Western was smart. And they go, okay, now's our moment. Now is when we're going to grind this out. They took the clock all the way into the fourth quarter. My fault. Completely changed it, man.

My fault. Flint is correct. Bryce gave up six. Marsh gave up. That makes my point even more about the defense. Bryce gave up six because he had to fumble and the, uh, the fumble. in the pick.

Yep. Marsh had to fumble on the punt return. So that's nine. They scored 12 points, guys. They gave up three points. Do you, and I don't think people, I think, I think fans saw us win the national championship or how good that defense was and just was like, this is what Michigan's defense all has been about.

But do y'all remember for the people that saying, like, all the defense, the defense, the defense. Do y'all remember how many, excuse my language, I'm sorry, and I'm not going to cuss. Do you all remember how many freaking penalties we got the year that we lost to Georgia? Was that Georgia was 22, right? Sorry, all on. There we go. That McDonald was 22 or McDonald was 21, Mentor was 22 and 23rd. Okay. So in that year, we got so many freaking penalties because, Because McDonnell, I mean,

Mentor was calling the defense. They was adjusting and calling it in too late. We kept getting called for too many men on the field, not enough men on the field. And then, also that year, they gave up a ton of yardage in between the 20s.

You want to know what game still haunts me to this day? Go look up how many yards they gave in that Michigan State game. Like and by the metrics that defense was elite That's why we always laughed about the Ohio State 21 game When it was like all the weather you know we couldn't run our offense broke CJ Stroud had almost 400 yards passing in that game Come on man

Yeah they just didn't let them score yeah no I The offense I there's there's this weird world where If the offense doesn't have a couple of the those drive killing penalties, right? And doesn't get dominated in the time of possession. That way gets into like a scoring position. The game's not even close. Like that's what's so crazy. And they just kept shooting. Like every time there was a moment where I'm like, okay, we can start to see Michigan take over. Like Western's done good here. They shot themselves in the foot, you know, with the penalties or just poor execution on some play calls.

I thought, you know, I brought this up to you already. When they went super jumbo, there were nine guys on the line, and you're in Wildcat with Marshall, and Bryce is running a fake jet sweep from the wide receiver position inside your own 10. What are we doing? You know, and again, props to Western, what they did, playing off the line and not reacting to the rhino and like just waiting for it to develop,

and having guys find gaps. I thought it was smart. I thought it was really, really smart. Yeah, I know people hating on the rhino, man. I just, I've seen it. You can't tell me that an offense doesn't work when it produced the number three offense in the country last year. I know it works.

It's just the players got to execute. We watch four freaking, bro, we watched four plays. They got misalignment penalties, and that wasn't even on the rhino. One of the misalignment penalties was literally on the wide receiver, who's next to the ref. I have no idea how a wide receiver

doesn't stick with a ref and say, am I on or am I off? And he not know whether he's supposed to be on or off. Right? You had another play that went for first down. Your rhino didn't block anybody. Bryce is in the back field like,

where did this dude come from? Because he should be blocked. Bryce tries to block him. And then he gets called for a holding. penalty is brought back. The play that we, me and Trevor brought up, if you guys want to go look at it, the zone re-play

with Xavieron Heider. One of the two things is supposed to happen. Either Beagle is supposed to block that dude and then Xavier Hider is supposed to bounce to the outside and he has a clear opening. Or Bryce is supposed to give him the ball and he's supposed to run through

the slight opening that he had and all he would have to do was hit the safety one-on-one. touched on you touched on two things for me one why i'm not putting all the blame in one spot and two why i'm still optimistic things can be fixed one i'm not putting the blame in on once in one spot because i can watch that play and i don't know which of the three or four things went wrong you know what i mean like it's not like oh this one clear thing like that to me like multiple things weren't happening right two those are all fixable things and easily coached up right a lot of former players that put that out

like dude it was bad it was bad but easy to fix things um this kill i was just thinking about the play calls that were questionable to me yeah bryce threw that interception on that outthrow to hoffman and he was staring at him and he didn't we we were talking about didn't read the guy in the flat properly whatever that's a hard throw and i don't understand the call there's 12 seconds left on the clock that would have gotten you five yards i i don't even understand what the point of that call was so that frustrated to me. But anyway, you know, we're sitting here, Oklahoma week. They're one and oh. Like, the game is an absolute gift to be one and oh. I'd rather it count as, I know it feels like a loss

because it took the Hail Mary at the end to get the win, but it's a win in the column. And that's a wild, wild gift to have. So they have a ton of stuff to fix. We'll see, you know, if it's any progress at all, if it's a lot of progress, but still, you know, not enough to be competitive, or they do something crazy and beat Oklahoma. Again, that Notre Dame team went to Texas A&M and won and then came home and lost to Northern Illinois. Like, weirder things have happened in college football.

You know, so we'll see. I'm not ready to end the season like so many are, which, I mean, if you are cool, you've got a whole fall free, you got a bunch of Saturdays, you can, you know, go do cool stuff, I guess. Right, but I'll be watching. I don't let it stress you.

to the point where you're the season over, enjoy your Saturdays, go outside, do a little fall leaf raking. Apple picking. Go to the apple orchard. I mean, we're here now. I know people are upset. I know it doesn't.

It's not a good feeling. No, that was a frustrating watch. It was. I'm very much so calm down since then after having a real conversation with Tref and some other things and talking with some. people who played this game at a higher level than me. I'm a little bit more relaxed.

But at the end of the day, like Trevor says, no matter how you feel about it, I don't feel good about being one and O, but we're one and up. So you have to take this week and you have to assume and have to hope that everybody took a look in the mirror. Because like I said, I don't just blame the kids.

I think the coaching was bad too. And I appreciate Witt getting up on the stand and saying, hey, this falls on my shoulders too as they head. guy right one of the things we used to hate um and i i don't want to i'm not going to bring up no old coaches but one of the things we used to hate about former coaches at michigan is nobody wanted to put the blame on themselves it was always well we could have did this better or this person could have did this person we got up there this morning and said and this is the second time now because he said it right after the game and then he said it this morning this falls on me this

falls on our coaches it's not just a player thing yeah coaching have to be better players have to play better and so what you're hoping for is that this scare makes them wake up and you see a different team on Saturday. Am I going to guarantee you guys you're going to see a different team? No. Am I going to give you some hope and say we hope to see a different team? Yes. But yeah, they got to show it obviously. I mean, to be honest with you guys, we were.

a clock, one second clock away from having the second biggest loss in Michigan history. I don't think I asked you, what did you do? People ask me like when that hell Mary was caught, what did you do? I laughed. Like, I just was like, what is the game, bro? Yeah, I was kind of numb to it because I just, I don't. it didn't feel good because I felt a lot better on Sunday

because of how pissed off all the rival fans. Oh yeah, they're upset. That made it much more enjoyable for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I still, I can't get over that, but whatever. Yeah, so I didn't feel great. I wouldn't jumping around like some of these other people. I've seen some of the fan reactions.

That's how you react to it is how you react to it. I'm not going to be the reaction, emotional police. But to me, I expected more out of the team. I expected more out of Bryce. And I expect more out of the coaching. And so this week, I hope they're locked in. I hope they figure this out. And I hope we see a different team come Saturday.

I think they have the first thing that should be on the agenda is I would have a conversation with Bryce to figure out what's the mental blocker. there has to be something that we're not seeing that is happening in the game that is causing him to default back to what he was doing last year. And what that is, I don't know if is that he getting hit. I don't know if the pocket gets a little muddy and he's like, oh, they can't block for me because he bailed on a lot of clean pockets. A lot of pockets he could have stepped up in. He decided to bail out.

I don't know if he's more comfortable with the rollout. It just looked weird. Even that play that he probably should have handed it to Marshall on the zone read, he made the wrong read and tried to go for the pylon. He lost the yard on that race to the pylon. They have to figure out what that blocker is. I don't know what that blocker is. I can't tell you I'm not in the building, but there is something there.

And then once you get past that, I don't know if they need to simplify some blocks. but they definitely need to get some help if they're going to run that rhino if they're not going to run it cool because it looks like when they had five and tight hands out there it looked good when they brought beagle in and i'm not to pick on beagle because beagle had a great game great at wise but when they brought here me in it seemed like there was there was some missed assignments that i would think if i go back and watch this like if i watched that same play last year at utah that I would have saw that whino pick up. And to Beagle's defense, he's never been an offense alignment. So if you never played O line, all you played is D-Line, it does take a little adjustment to, you know, flip that switch. Yeah, I think I told you this will be my last thing on this,

and then we can get out of here. The Kyle kind of echoed this when he got here, and, you know, an Urban Meyer thing that I've always really liked was I'm playing my 11 best players, right? Manuel Beagle was a starter, essentially, in terms of reps. Like, is Manuel Beagle one of your 11 best players in offense? And I'm not taking a shot at him. That's not what I'm trying to do it all.

Absolutely. To go from former converted defensive tackle, get into this rhino roll, earn it, right? And he didn't even really, again, he didn't really have that bad of a game. Like, it wasn't him necessarily as much as the formation itself, right? but if he's playing that many snaps. And again, the guard thing, it'd be one thing if, like, a phobia Norton played a little bit

and you weren't sure on right guard, but the fact that a foby played right guard and left guard and you rotated that whole way through, look, I think they thought they could come into this. I think they spent the week, probably not fully prepping for Western, probably carried over some fall camp, and probably leaked in some Oklahoma stuff,

and they thought they could come in with this game plan and do some rotation stuff and win the game. And then they were wrong. And then at halftime, they made the decision. Like, okay, we got to go out and actually win this football game now. And they had that drive in the third quarter where it was moving along and doing okay. And Western shut it down and dragged them into the fourth quarter. And then all of a sudden I was like, oh, my God, we might actually lose this thing.

Right. So inexcusable. But I know, again, the coaches are more pissed than I could be. and I know the players were not happy. There wasn't a celebration in the locker room. But look, if it drags into Oklahoma and so on, it doesn't matter. They got to fix it. So obviously, we'll be hoping they do.

I'll just speak to this last comment because I know I got a feeling that where it came from, but we're just addressing real quick. I did not hear that I know people are getting the, he didn't see live defenses. I was told that they were thudding him. You don't get many quarterbacks in fall camp that's going to get live, live bullets because they're not trying to get them hurt. As you saw with somebody accidentally stepping on Babylon's foot, now Babylon has been out. So he got thuddered a couple times, but it wasn't like what you're seeing liven in the game. He's just now got to, I mean, there's no excuse on that anymore because he just,

play the game where he got hit. So if it's a hit thing, that's a bigger problem. And at that point, you just move on. But I don't know if it's a hit thing with Bryce. I actually think it's him trusting this O line. Yeah, they did. They celebrated on the field after completing a Hill Mary to win a football game. Sorry. I don't. Well, I mean, I don't think that they was, I think the celebration. I get people are pissed, but that's such a weird. Yeah, I think the celebration. The rush in the field thing was crazy, but it was in the student section. But I think that's what happened.

And then they spelled out and then it just got stupid from there. I think that that's what I think that's what happened is that it became, which is I'm not going to I'm not going labor that. But anyways, bro, we got 131 people live in the chat. The chat is going crazy. We appreciate you guys popping in. But if y'all could do us two favors, really three. third one is 24 favors

24 for 80 but can I get a like hit that subscribe button hit that notification on so you know when we're going live we try to do this every day sometimes we're at 930 sometimes we at 1130 like we was

today just to prison with me and Trevor got going on after you like and subscribe please share it with another Michigan fan that you know we're trying to build this community up And then the last thing when I speak about community, man, Trev, can you pop up the graphic for everybody and tell them what you worked on? Because, man, the work Trevor's doing over at blueby 90.com. From a what?

Just tell them about the website where they can get to you. Oh, yeah. I know you guys are running a club 90 promotion just so that we can get more people into that community because we do a lot over there. And you never know who you're going to run into in the forum and be. able to chop chop it up and talk ball with i don't know where the graphic is but oh well then just speak on the trip no graphic yeah no no no but you on the spot there yeah my bad no blueby 90.com obviously now that it's up and running i'm able to get into a lot of cool stuff maybe i can show some of the um grade session of stuff because i'm so happy about that yeah

games there we go yeah that was crazy that grade study stuff was crazy yeah yeah yeah yeah so for those who followed me last year i did stock report and that was how i went through and graded and i would show different plays or whatever um still have all that i've got the data and you know the analysis but like so the grades are still here edge how many snaps they played their pff grades pressure sacks but i'm really happy about how because it's my site now I can take advantage of a lot of features that on three would not let us. So for instance, the pressure map, I can actually click Jire Hill and see how many pressures hits, Harreys is great.

I can click Pierce, Nichols, Brandt, right? Like I can actually interact with this. This was showing this is really cool. So I can click, these are the runs that Western Michigan had and where they were successful, right? When you click it, it actually shows you how many carries yards, first downs, blah, blah, blah, all the stats for that. You know, how we were talking about how guys lined up on the edge or interior, right? So here's Daley, how many snaps he took at three tech over the tackle on the outside. I don't have the quarterback one. That was,

I'm like nerdy on my own stuff. I apologize. That's on the offense. I looked at that yesterday. Yeah, this, well, and it's good for. me too because like so i've got all the drives charted there for um michigan and like that this is something that really stuck out to me i keep talking about this is that third quarter drive right here yeah where they had to punt it but they added it was plus 3.7 in predicted points added it was a good drive that they stalled out and then had to punt and then western ran their long one um yeah being able to chart bryce's throws right so i have brys

This is throwing chart here. What was complete? What was incomplete? The interception. But you can actually click these and it'll pull up the exact play when it happened, who they threw to the results of the play, whatever. And in this situation, I had, here's the opening drive. Here's all the middle eight drives. And then here was the last drive, which was obviously deep ball to JJ and then Hail Mary.

But it's something that like as a Michigan fan, I was like, okay, what would I? I want to see or read the next day. Yeah. You know, and now I can kind of nerd out. And I do it for myself so I can be more informed when I go on shows and talk about stuff. But I want people to have access to it. And when Justin and I launched,

um, we even talked about launching blueby 90.com. We talked about how we wanted unique content and unique access. Um, obviously he was busy Sunday at the live adept with Jake, but in all the players. And yes, I posted some information on the message board yesterday. I'm not writing an article and click baiting that, man.

That's not the transaction that's happening. Yep. You know what I mean? Like I know the money for inside information model is completely broken. I have no interest in being an insider. and I can tell you, like, I joked with Justin today because we were having a conversation about things that we heard over the week. And I'm like, it's hilarious. You might be the most connected person right now.

Like, you might be the biggest insider. He's like, yeah, I don't think of myself that way. I hate it. I don't want to do it. You know what I mean? So that's not what this is. I'm not saying information will be available on the message board. It's going to be there because of the people that post on the message board.

but I'm not here trying to tell you, I'm not clickbaiting you for intel. It's just not going to happen. So, yeah, sites blueby 90.com. Search blue by 90. It'll come up. You can join Club 90. I put it in the message board.

Would love to have you in there. You can do the annual deal. Saves you two months or you can do, if you want to try one month and try it and give us a shot. Totally cool. But obviously, we want to build that up and we're really, really, really excited. it's it's been fun like seeing it start coming together we haven't even really blasted it much yet we

have a decent amount of people that have already joined so exciting times but obviously uh plenty of content here too on youtube um rise the victors will be here every day monday tuesday thursday friday um wednesday i'll have my show with bootros uh chris wormley and jordan strackerback the old gbbbb 90 pod with justin and joel has been going um dennis fithian i think will be on pretty shortly here today yet. I believe he's doing Monday and Friday again this week. And then he had postgame live for us on Saturday as well. My old buddy, he does a fantastic job.

Lucky of him. So we've got live and new content on here every day. But I think that's enough plugs. Yep, us and Toski tomorrow. Thanks for that. Oh, yeah, you too. Geez. Yes.

But keep looking because we might have to push your back depending on if I get all 22 today. So like you said, Tread, we got a bunch of content. I appreciate everything you guys do. You guys gave me the platform to step on here and talk about a team and a sport that I love. So appreciate you guys. That link is in the chat. I know people was asking about it. I know somebody brought up.

We didn't talk about special teams. Kerry Coombs is the coach of special teams. He's not related to Witt, by the way. His son coach is linebackers. But we'll get into special teams tomorrow slightly at the beginning of the show because I do think that that's something. Yeah. Yeah, there was some stuff there too. All right, guys.

Appreciate it. Thanks for the line. year ship if you're not watching live like I said you can hit over to blue by 90 or also have podcast on spotify we'll see you tomorrow and uh a little bit more recap but yeah we can start turning to oklahoma hopefully so all right rise of the victors blue by 90 thanks guys