Blue By Ninety - Iowa Stuns Michigan I What Went Wrong?

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

Joel and Justin react to Michigan's 20-19 loss to Iowa.

All right. Welcome back to Blue By 90. I'm Justin, joined by Joel Honingford. And Joel, I just rewatched the film this morning. We're recording this Sunday morning and I got pissed off all over again. Because, I mean, there's just like probably 10 to 15 things that have to go wrong for Michigan to lose that game. And nearly every one of them went wrong. And it's just so frustrating to watch. before we get into it, I'm going to say this. We are a positive podcast here. So I wore my, I wore my 23 national championship shirt and my basketball national championship hat, you know, to choose to, you know, live on the bright side here. No pun intended. But man, it's just, I mean, I want to hear from you what you're feeling as you're watching that happened yesterday.

Yeah. I don't think we've had a Michigan game. yet this year where you don't want to grab the TV and shake it vigorously. Like, it's so frustrating when you have absolutely dominated a game, statistically speaking, now outside of two categories, which we'll dive into, outside of two categories, you dominate the game. Your quarterback has his best game all year, almost starts for 300 yards. You have two wide receivers who have caught and have over 100 yards in receiving, like everything is there. Our defense is performing at a high level.

And somehow we just refuse to close the game out when we are given multiple opportunities. See, now you're getting me fired up. Iowa gave us multiple opportunities to say, hey, listen, you can have the game back now. I mean, it is fourth and one. they false start, they missed the field goal. They gifted you that. The false start is gifted to you. Absolutely.

Iowa, sorry, I'm going to let you go real quick. When has Iowa ever made that mistake? That's like the one thing they don't do in that scenario is put the ball on the ground or have a penalty. You know, they might not make plays, but they don't do that. And they do it, and you still don't take advantage. Sorry, go ahead.

it's it's so frustrating like when you're in a situation like that they i think they had did they have one time out after the field goal or was i think they did yeah okay well all you have to do is get a first down you just have to get a first down that's it that's all you need to do and we can't do it well let me let me tell you this joel we did get a first down and then you have an illegal formation of too many men in the backfield, which is not even like, oh, a guy in the moment false starts because, you know, the crowd or like, you know, the scenario, it's literally just lining up wrong. I mean, that drives me insane.

And Savian, I believe, had the first down there where you could have just kept moving and instead, you know, you have to punt it back to them. And that's ultimately, you know, what, I mean, there's. 20 things that lose the game, right? But I mean, it just, I agree with you. It's just, I tweeted this out this morning. I'd almost rather that we just suck and don't have the talent. And you're sitting there like, you know what?

It's a new coach. We don't quite, we're not quite there yet, but I can see, you know, how we're progressing and I can see where the vision is. Right now, in my opinion, you have enough talent to go be a nine and three, 10 and two football team and be knocking on the door of the college football playoff, but you continue to underperform and make mistakes and, you know, everything else under the sun. And it's like, it just keeps being like a what if game, you know,

and that's more frustrating to me than just saying, you know what, we just don't quite have the guys in yet to be that high level of a football program. I think my biggest frustration right now comes from the whole office. season we spend talking about Whittingham and how he is instilled this culture that would be Jim Harbaugh-esque. He runs a very tight ship. It's very business-like. And if we look back to when Coach Harbaugh was at Michigan, there was very few on sportsman-like conducts, any type of penalty that you would deem shooting yourself in the foot. That is completely unnecessary. And it's happening week after week. And that is a, a, direct representation of what it like something that's going on inside of that facility and now i'm not saying there's like controversy or or or there's something like mischievous going on but something is going on to where our fifth year in zeke berry is committing an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for what reason literally no i don't help in the play at all it makes no sense to me

It makes no sense to me at all. And then, like you said, the illegal formation. Like, we are, yeah, we're in week four, and we can't seem to line up correctly. And it's not like this is something that's happened once to where we're like, oh, okay, yep, maybe the, you know, tackle was too far in the backfield. Like, we are seeing this repeatedly week after week. And it makes no sense to me how that is a continuous mistake. I think what's most mind-boggling to me is that's the one thing we were told was going to be taken care of with this program and this coaching staff was you have a coach that's coach for 40 years. You know, he grounds and pounds.

They don't make mistakes. They're a tough physical football program. All those types of things. And then that is what you're getting. And so that's where I'm just like, I just don't quite understand. you know, why that continues to happen. But, you know, Joel, I think that I felt like after stewing in it for a while, that was like a welcome to the Big Ten to Kyle Winningham a little bit yesterday,

where it's like, you know what? I'm sure at Utah, he knew exactly what, you know, a lot of those Pac-12 and then big 12 teams were their tendencies and how they've come and play the game and how they're going to approach and their game plan and et cetera. And you and I have watched Iowa do exactly what they did on Saturday a hundred times. They wanted just to hang around. They're going to have a special team's big play. They're waiting for you to make a mistake and then they pounce.

And that's what they did. And I don't know, again, I'm sure that this coaching staff prepared like crazy as they always do, but it just didn't feel that they were ready for Iowa to Iowa them. Yeah, right. Yeah, I texted you that last night that Taylor-Wan said that we got Iowa, which we absolutely did. Happened. Yeah, I would actually agree with you on that.

And something that we've talked about is like Michigan's tendency to play to the level of our opponent. And my version of that for this game is saying, you know what? we can't get a first down on offense, but we'll just put you deep and we'll make Iowa try to drive the whole entire field. And there's no way Iowa's going to be able to do that. Well, they did. They did. We talked about how this isn't the same Iowa team where they have an inability to play offense. Obviously, it's not a super high scoring game. They score on special

teams. But, I mean, their quarterback had 35 pass attempts. Like, when is the last time that has happened at Iowa. Well, I also texted somebody this this morning. I said, let me pull it up here. I said, I'd love to know, I want somebody to do this research,

but where is it? I would love to know how many times in Kirk Forens' career that they've went 91 yards in a minute 46. Because I can, I bet you I can count on one hand in 40 years for him, how much that's happened. I mean, and then they went 45 yards in 11 seconds, right?

And so I think it's just, it's, you know, frustrating to watch that knowing that, you know, that it's very improbable. I do want to like, Michigan played a good football game. That's the weird part to me of I was watching it back. And the fourth quarter starts and I'm like, it's still a whatever, you know, I think it was a 13 to 10 game at that time, or 13 to 7 game at that time. And, you know, there, Iowa had nothing going on on

offense for three full quarters. Right. If the, if the, if the, if the, if the kick return doesn't happen, I mean, they're not sniffing the end zone. Literally, I don't even, they were barely touching midfield. And so, you know, when, if you're Jay Hill, you're like, man, Like, this, we're playing well, you know, and, and then Michigan on offense, I just think, like, to your point on the playing down to your opponent, you're just kind of sit in and like, all right, let's just grind this out instead of, hey, our defense is stepping up. Let's go put 28 points on the board and put this game away. Right. And I saw earlier in the game, something that I really like to see. I think it was Sabion who had a run on the left side, kind of got stopped.

And then you see this surge of offensive linemen come in and push them another five yards. And like that to me was like, okay, these dudes get it. Like they're playing with some fire to them. But then a similar situation happens in the third quarter. We get stuffed and then we get driven backwards. And I also noticed that. And I was like, oh, that's kind of strange. Like what happened?

Why are they not doing the same thing here in the second half? And I think the play style, like you were saying, kind of with the same way. There wasn't like a need for like, hey, we need to go score again. It was we have two minutes, two and a half minutes left. That's really not a lot of time. Like we can run the ball a couple of times and maybe we'll get a first down. Maybe we won't. We'll put it back to them, but they still have to score.

Like stop putting it in their hands. Stop giving them a chance to win the game. Exactly. We have to put the nail in the coffin. And we were clearly unable to do that yesterday. And it's unfortunate that that touchdown gets scored on Smith Snowden, who we have raved about. But like I can't sit here and say, you know what?

Our defense ultimately lost us that game. Like our defense did everything that they could against a reasonably good Iowa offense. Our special teams gives up a freaking kick return touchdown after we have a lights out drive. Like, what a momentum killer. I mean, you're, you're that whole first half in, and especially the first quarter, you are, I mean, you are literally dominating. I think that they had like six, maybe 50 yards of offense in the first quarter. We, we force them to two punts, you know, and then you have an 80 plus yard drive that takes,

I think about four minutes. It felt like, oh, man, this is like, we're starting to get in a rhythm here. You know, things are happening. I mean, you feel really good about going up 7-0 there and then immediately let that happen. And again, that's exactly what Iowa does to stay in the game and give themselves a chance to win. But those are just the little things.

I mean, how many times, Joel, have you and I talked about special teams leading up to this that it's either going to be a big positive or a big negative for us during this in this stretch of the season? And, I mean, that loses you the football game yesterday, you know, that's one of the spots that loses you the football game. If it doesn't happen, you'll win the football game. Right.

It's frustrating. Like we said, special teams in the turnover battle, we're going to be important for this game, both of which I would say that we lost on. I mean, the kick return touchdown is huge. I know they missed the field goal late in the game, but the kick return touchdown is so significant for the momentum of a game. Like, it's the difference between,

Your defense coming out firing after a drive of the offense going down and scoring, you know, executing at a high level. Defense comes out. It's fired up to now your offense is just going back on the field like, oh, crap. And it took the wind out of the stadium that was, you know, about to get rocking, you know. And I will give a shout out to the Michigan fans because anybody that was in the stadium, it was loud again, you know. You could hear it on TV. And I love that, you know, because I think that we've said this a couple times, you know, six, seven years ago, I wouldn't say that about Michigan Stadium, even in the big games.

It was, you know, just not that good of an environment. I feel like it truly is one of the top environments now. And so I know this team hasn't been, like, unbelievable, but you got to give credit to the fans that are showing up and being loud for them. you know, I think that if you would have told me, Bryce is throwing for, you know, however many, what was it? It was 227 yards and, you know, in a couple touchdown. Like, I would be like, all right, we're probably winning this football game, you know? And I will say if we want to talk about bright spots, he was one of them.

I mean, I know the interception was pretty bad. I can't tell it was an obvious miscommunication between him and Andrew Marsh. I don't know who that was on exactly. You know, you'd have to ask them. But outside of that one play, he played a really good game. And not only in the passing game, but they put him, they put the weight on his shoulders in the run game, too. It was, I mean, I think in that on our first couple drives, he definitely ran the ball.

more than our running backs did. And so they were definitely like, all right, this is your game. And in my opinion, he stepped up to the plate yesterday. I completely agree. I think he's playing at a high level right now. I think his decision making is continuing to progress. There's still a little bit of stuff to clean up. But what I noticed about him yesterday was his ability to kind of navigate the pocket.

Like he didn't seem like he was getting so flustered when there was some pressure coming on the outside or anything like that, which I appreciate. and he's stepping up and he's reading downfield. He's not this like impulsive decision maker that we have known him to be in the past. And he also threw some good balls yesterday. Like he was putting it on guys. Really good balls. I mean, to your point on the pocket presence, I mean, his touchdown to Buchanan on the

scramble, he never panicked and kept his, you know, I think even three games ago, let alone last year, he's immediately talking and running and figuring out, okay, where do I go? But he kept his eyes downfield the whole time. And they were getting after him. You know, the Iowa defense was getting after him. And so I felt really, I was really impressed by that. It feels like he has taken some significant strides in just four weeks, which is impressive for a 19-year-old that after that Western Michigan game, we're all sitting here like, I don't know if he made any progression, you know, in the past nine months. Yeah.

I, that's one thing that is, is positive right now is I don't know if we can look at any specific player on the team and say they're not at all where they need to be. Like, like, we can't point the finger, but I say, hey, man, this guy just stinks. Like, he's not who we need him to be. Like, he's playing good football. Unfortunately, I think the finger is going to the coaching staff. And not something we expected, not something we expected at all. Just from what we were provided in the media of like, you know,

like Michigan hit a home run with Kyle Whittingham and the staff that they brought in and all that they do. And another thing is that they had mentioned how last year's offense was something that they tried to shove Bryce into. And they said, you know what, we're going to kind of build it around him this year. I'm a little frustrated with the variation of what we're doing. It doesn't seem like we have a specific tendency for our offense. Like yesterday, we fall in love with the Wildcat out of nowhere. Like, I don't know what happened there. It's like we're not quite sure what we want to be.

And maybe Jason Back is sitting there and he's thinking, you know what, I want to be the most dynamic offense where people have no idea what we're going to throw out. Adam. I get that, but you can only do that when you're really good at something. And right now, we don't know what that is. Like, we don't know. We have nothing that we're like, yes, like we can hang our hat on this. Let's start throwing in a few variations here and there. It seems like every game is a different style of Michigan offense. And you, like, it would be hard as a player to not have something that you hang your hat on. Like, you're not sure that when it's

third and one, you're going to run power, and that's what you're going to run every single time. You are just going to force people to stop it. Like, that's not what we're doing. And I just, I struggle to understand that. I do too. And I think you can feel the players feel that a little bit, too, of like, all right, what are we doing now? You know, because I, you know, even in the red zone, when Michigan ended up kicking a field goal, you know, they run it twice and don't really get anywhere.

So then you, and they were under center, I believe. We were begging for that. So I'm happy to see at least that they have that available. But then you don't get anywhere. You go right back to like four wide, you know, on third down. And it's like, okay, well, again, I, I enjoy or I appreciate wanting to be dynamic in that sense. But like, at some point, you have to just be like, all right, when push comes a shove, what are we going with? Right? Because we know exactly, I am so confident in our ability to execute this one play or this one formation or, you know, whatever else. And I don't think we know what that is. You know, if, you know, you have the two point conversion play and you don't convert that. Like it doesn't, it didn't feel like, oh, we've got our go to there. Like when you need two points or need six points, you know, it's like, what are we, you know, when you need three yards on fourth and three or third and three,

What are you going to? And, you know, not only is it what play or formation are we going to? I think they still are like, all right, are we going to Jordan Marshall or Bryce or Savion Heider or JJ Buchanan or Andrew Marsh, which is a good problem to have that many weapons. But, you know, I think it used to be like, okay, Harbin knows that he's going to Colston-Levelin and they can't stop it. Right, right, yeah. Or Blake Corum on fourth and one.

It's like we're going to line up with a fullback. Every single person knows that we're running this right up your gut, and there's nothing you can do about it. Right. No, I completely agree with you. And it certainly is frustrating. And I would imagine that is frustrating for the players as well. Obviously, you see Rod Moore take the podium after the game just with visible frustration.

I mean, one was with Zeke Barry. And I don't know if I'll be able to understand that. that it's just you've been at the university for so long with so much experience to know that that is not something that you should ever do at any point in time. And it's selfish. Like he's just kind of taking the game to his own hands, right? And I think, I mean, he's a guy, I will say, like, he probably is sick to his stomach going home. For sure.

I want to say that. Like, he's not a guy that's. So you say selfish, and I agree with you in the moment that is very selfish. He's a guy that's like, I just lost us the game. Yeah, Zinclair is not an asshole. No, he's probably going to his teammates, like, sick to himself after the game or, you know, today in the locker room or whatever, and being like, dude, that's completely on me. I can't believe I let that happen.

Yeah. Let me ask you this. When you're in, you know, you've been on the field in the thick of it, in the heat of the moment, during all that. How, you know, when do you stop yourself and how do you, you know, and when do you let it go? Like, I think that that's something that is easy for me to say sitting up in the stands. And I'm like, how could you possibly do that? But these guys are going a million miles an hour for, you know, 20 seconds in a play.

And then you have to stop immediately. Right. Yeah. I don't know if I have a good answer to that. See, like, I was never the type of guy who I was never going to do anything extra. Like, I just didn't have an interest in it. I wasn't really going to trash talk anybody. It just wasn't worth my time.

Now, we do know that, you know, in the world of football, defensive backs tend to be the chippiest players on the field. For sure. We see it all over the place from the NFL to college football. defensive backs and in some defensive ends tend to be the chippiest players on the field. I guess kind of where I'm at with that is stuff like that is addressed in the facility. And this is a common theme that we're seeing with this team is that there are little pieces of the game that shouldn't be happening. that you're like, this isn't like, it's not an X's or O's thing.

It's just like, are we not putting enough emphasis on, hey, when the ball carrier's down or the whistle is blown, get back to the huddle? Like another thing that kind of fits in with that is we are struggling to run the ball upfield. We love to go laterally. And I don't know why. Like, that is something that's not, like nobody would ever teach, hey, you know, what, run laterally until you see a seam and then go.

It's, listen, it's third and one. You need to get the first down. I don't care if it's one and a half yards or if it's five. You need to go vertical and get the first down. Like, just push through your guys. So stuff like that. And if we look at like the fourth down, which we turned over, why is Bryce jumping there? If you look at the replay, the surge of the line would have taken him to the first.

And he's too. 230 pounds, Joel. Like, he himself can probably push through there. You know, let alone that your line actually did their job and got the push for two yards. And then you also probably have a, you know, a fullback and a running back behind you that's going to keep pushing the pile. Like, I, that was, I think a Bryce going back to like, let me be the hero and do it all myself instead of let me do my job. You know, I, I think that. that was just a lapse in a moment where, you know, I think that he, we've talked about us,

he wants to be the guy so bad. And I don't blame him for it. He's been, I mean, at Belleville, you know, he would literally do anything he wanted. And then, you know, there's never a repercussion because even when he makes a mistake, it turns out good for him, you know. And so I think that he had a lapse in that and kind of went back to his whole self a little bit. But, you know, Yeah, to your point, it's just like you can point to a bunch of different scenarios and instances of that of little things that are, you know, it's like in the, in the vacuum, that thing is not a big deal. But when you have 10 of the same type of thing, then you're like, okay, that's the type of team we are. Right. Yeah.

We just, yeah, I don't understand why that's happening because that's something that should have plenty of. emphasis on it in the facility. And like I'm just going to go on a little bit of a tangent here, but does the coaching staff think, well, this is Michigan? This is the highest of the high levels. That's not something we should have to worry about. Like, is that where they're at? I just, I don't know. I mean, I can speculate here all day as to why we see these stupid mistakes over and over and over again. But like, I know that Bryce scored a touchdown, jumping over the O line, reaching the ball. Okay?

I get that that happened. But if I'm in the film room and I see that, I would say to Bryce, listen, unless this is fourth down for the game, you're never going to want to reach the ball like that. We don't do it on third down. We don't do it at any point in time. We do not reach the ball unless it is for the game.

And we will let you know when is a good time to reach. We will tell you, okay, you can reach. So, like, are we just not a, addressing things like that? Are we not telling our running backs to get up field? What, like, what are we missing? It's so frustrating to watch on TV. I agree with you. I think that that is, you know, we're, we're Monday quarterbacking a little bit here, obviously, you know, hindsight's 2020, but that's what we, that's a job, you know, you know, doing this. I think that, to your point, it's like, you now have helmet comes too bright.

So on fourth and one, you're saying, I don't think that it's some long John Gruden play call of Z right, banana Y, spider, two. It's QB sneak, shove it up, run right behind your center's ass and go, you know, or find the crease to the left or right and pick one as, you know, once you see the gap and just go. Like, that should be pretty simple to say that, you know. And if maybe they said it and he just again tried to try to do too much, I don't know. Going back to your comment on the getting up field and running north and south, I have a big issue with us continually lining up Jordan and Savion at a slot and then motioning them in and giving them 0.2 seconds to see the alignment of the linebackers and where the hole is going to be.

You know, that to me, like, I don't, I watched it plenty of times yesterday and on the film this morning. When they motion back, the defense didn't change. It wasn't like you caught them off guard because we do it almost every play, you know. And so they're now ready for it. Like, if you did it every so often and you're able to see, you know, are they motioning out of a man or zone or whatever else? But like, Iowa is just like, nope, we're lining up. we know that this is coming.

Obviously, Jordan Marshall is not our slot receiver. Right. You know, and so I just think that they're overthinking that a little bit where it's like, what if we just line them up next to Bryce or even in pistol or in eye formation something and said, hey, let's trust that our O line is going to, you know, create enough of a hole for you, hit the gap with four yards of running speed getting going. And let's see if we can get four yards of.

on a, you know, on a, on a run play and or break one, you know, I feel we, when was last, like, you felt like, I felt like there was never an opportunity. Savion almost broke one. But that was like the only time where I was like, man, we're like this close to breaking a big play. Yeah. And it goes back what you said on the last podcast where you run power, you know, 12 times in a game. and 11 times it goes for three or four yards and one time it goes for 60 right but that only happens

because you just continue to do the things that you're good at you don't you're not getting too fancy with it trying to disguise all these things because like I said earlier we're not at the point in time where you're so good at something that people are like okay we have to stop this right here right now and then we have to disguise it like let's just make people try to stop us in a setting that's most beneficial to our guys, meaning that we just put Sabian or we put Jordan in the backfield so they can look at what the defense is. And that's what they're used to, man.

He's done that for four years. This is where I think I struggle with a, you know, there are some coaching staffs that are really good at, all right, I'm going to be my, I want to use my philosophy, but I'm going to conform it to the players that I have on the field than what they're used to and comfortable with. Right now it feels like we're trying to squeeze all of our guys into Coach Beck's philosophy completely instead of saying, all right, hey, Jordan, what are you most comfortable with?

It feels like that that conversation has not been had with really anybody on the offense. Yeah. No, I agree. And I think this is a positive podcast, but we did just come off a loss. So we're just, we're ready to bear with us. It's tough. To go on to a positive note, I mean, we talked about Bryce. Andrew Marsh and JJ Buchanan are really, really good football players, man.

They are a, if you're looking for a bright spot at all, I mean, those two guys are unbelievable and made so, I mean, Andrew Marsh made like four really good plays yesterday. And then I just think that JJ is so good at every facet of. of his game. He blocks well on the outside for a wide receiver one, right? That probably is, you know, normally there, a wide receiver one is not your best blocker on the team. Right. You know, he, he runs really great routes. He catches the ball, doesn't drop it. And then the scramble, like, he's staying open and doing everything he can to make sure that he can extend to play. And I just think that he does just about everything well. On top of the

of being a really good kid. You know, and so those two guys, I'm extremely impressed with. And if you're looking for something to be excited about for the next, you know, however many, 12, eight weeks, whatever it is, watching Bryce and Andrew and JJ continue to progress, you know, is something that I am excited to see. And hopefully, obviously, it gets to next season. And we're, you know, we're saying, all right,

we've got those core three back, this passing game is going to be really good. Yeah. I think the thing out of all of it is they're fun to watch. Like, I don't know the last time you could say, I mean, probably when JJ McCarthy was at Michigan, where you said the Michigan passing game was a lot of fun to watch. Like we have a lot of playmakers in the passing game, and we do, and they're consistently good. and they catch virtually anything that comes their way, which is a lot of fun to watch.

And you like to have two guys that are like that. I think just a lot of the frustration in today, and like with you and I just kind of being so frustrated with it, and a lot of the fan base is exactly what you were saying earlier. It's not that we are a bad team. Like we are an objectively good football team. We have the talent. We see spurts of it.

And we still find ourselves in a position like this against Iowa at home. And that is just the most frustrating thing because, like, I felt myself yesterday watching the game, like confident in our ability to win that game until at the end, it's like, holy shit, we actually might not win. Right. Right? And this isn't the first time that's happened this year. It feels like that's exactly what everybody on the field on the Michigan sideline is thinking, too,

They're like, we got this, we got this. And they just aren't like, hey, let's put the pedal to the metal and go make sure that it happens. It's like, no, I feel really good about what's happening right now. And then you blink and it's like, oh, shit. Like, we actually aren't in a good position right now. And I mean, I'm looking, going back to just the drives. And you, in my opinion, played an unbelievable half of football in the first half, especially on the defensive side, obviously.

But yet, we talk a lot about the middle eight, right? I guess we haven't really talked that much about that on this podcast, but that's a big emphasis in football is the middle eight minutes. Last four minutes of the first half and the first four minutes of the second half. Well, on offense, that was when I believe Bryce did not. We turned it over on downs with how many, how many minutes? left in the in the first half. It was with 317 left was when Bryce tried to jump over, over.

So you turn it over on downs. The defense still comes out and gets Iowa to punt. Amazing job. You know, that's an awesome turnaround because I think a lot of times when you turn the ball over like that, it's really easy for the offense to be like, all right, this is our time and they go make you pay for it, right? So Michigan's defense comes out, forces them to punt. And then Michigan, I know the end of it was you probably just running the clock out.

I think they ran it three times, which is fine. But you end up, you end up punting there too. So zero points when you probably should have at least three points, I think, on the board there, which is huge. And then you come out of halftime up 10 to 7. You should probably be up 13 to 0 at this point, at a bare minimum, right? And then you drive down and having a great drive, and then Bryce throws an interception, zero points on the board.

And I believe they ended that drive. I mean, we were on what, the Iowa 19. So you're in the red zone and should, again, at least three points on the board should be there. And he gets zero. Defense, again, after a turnover comes out and force. them to punt. Four plays for five yards. So your defense is still responding and playing really well. And then Michigan goes on an 11-play 43-yard drive that stalls and ends up with just a field goal. So at least you get points. But that stretch right there is, in my opinion, where you had the

opportunity to go up probably 21 to 7 and you end up with just a 13 to 7 lead going into the fourth quarter and that to me is is the difference in the game because you I don't think you even get to the moments of the fourth quarter if you do your job in that stretch right and I think the the importance of leaving the half with points no matter what they are. We don't need a touchdown. Like, really what we should be doing is playing to get into field goal range. And if a touchdown is a possibility, then we go for it.

Because we weren't in the position where we like, hey, we have to have a touchdown here. It would have been nice, but you're in the position where you have to have points. And we don't even end up with points. And actually, we give Iowa the opportunity to potentially score some points, which they don't. but I completely agree with you. It's just, it's so frustrating to continue to, like, I guess hear about all the different aspects of the game that are like,

why do we do this like this? Why do we do it like this? And it's not on, it is on the players to a certain extent, but like if we look at the statistics, like we dominated them everywhere. We were in control. We were never not in control of that football game until that last drive.

And then to your point, everyone's like, oh, shit. Like they've got the ball with a chance to go win it. Now they still have to go 91 yards in a minute and a half. Right. Like to me, I know to your point, you said, you said, you know, don't give them the opportunity to, because that's what they shouldn't have done is they should have just said, all right, let's go get a first down here and not give the ball back to them.

But still, it's very improbable for Iowa fucking football to go down 91 yards in a minute and a half. And so I still think like you sit, we're both sitting here like, we were the better team on Saturday. We played the better game outside of actually putting points on the board. And now you're sitting here with a loss that you're like, just scratching.

your head at, man. And let me, let me ask you this. And this is completely hypothetical. I just want to play the scenario out. So Iowa, I think they threw that pass to get to before, before the final play, right? There's where there was two seconds left on the clock. They're rushing down the field. Now, if you don't understand football, you have to have three seconds on the clock to spike

the ball. So they were in a position. They did not have a timeout where they were forced. to run a play. Like they were going to have to run a play. Right. But John Henry Daley goes down. And they essentially-

Just so unfortunate. Like how is that? And I actually am worried that he's not in good shape. I have no idea, but I, I, he didn't look good. He was squirming not out there. But, yeah, go ahead. I mean, I just like if, to continue on the idea that Iowa had to go 91 yards, Iowa also had to throw a game-winning touchdown with two seconds left without having any time to prepare for it.

And if I'm a betting man, I'm taking Michigan in that aspect. But then you give them the opportunity to, and listen, please don't take this the wrong way. Like I don't, like, I'm not sitting here pointing the finger John Henry Daly. It's just, I just want to think about it. But does Iowa have the capacity to score in, in, in, a fast-paced, no preparation scenario with two seconds left. I really don't think so. If you can even, like, crawl to the sideline, we probably win that football game, right?

Yeah, right. And, I mean, to your point, the number of things that had to go right for Iowa and wrong for Michigan to lead up to that point, you know, you have the guy comes out of bounds, you know, and which is a weird rule. First of all, the tip, the tip going directly to him is like statistically improbable, right? And then he comes back in bounds. I think you have to like go out of bounds,

even though he's pushed, you have to immediately come back in, which he kind of just hovered on the sideline. So you can argue that. Then, you know, Zeke Berry, dumb, but also very ticky-tacky, too, like in the heat of a moment. I don't know that that should get called. Still very dumb. But like, I mean, it was, and that flag came in so late from like it looked like

from the other side of the field. Not that sideline ref. I mean, the catch before the two seconds tips it up to himself, you know, after scrambling. You know, it's just like all these little things had to go right for Iowa and wrong for Michigan. And every single one did. But you're sitting here like, man, we're a good, you know, I don't know. What would you, I guess, let me ask you this. If they throw that incomplete and he's out of bounds on the last play, you know,

he doesn't get his toe tap in and Michigan wins the game. Are we, what's our feeling today? I don't know. I think, I think it's probably, there's one side of it where you say, well, we just beat Iowa, right? And you're excited about that because Iowa's a good football team. But then I think that you would also have that feeling of like, man, we kind of escaped there. Like we gave them another opportunity to win the game. Like we keep doing this.

We keep giving people chances to win the game. And I think that's still a lingering thought, even if we would have won the game. Would you rather they reverse. So let's say they say the touchdown. they say, well, he didn't have possession, he bibles the ball, you know, it kind of jostled around and he hit the ground. They call off the touchdown, right? And it would be, there would be some controversy.

Or they go to the tip pass and they say, oh, well, he didn't come back and bounce right away. It's a dead ball. They're probably just rule incomplete, I suppose. Would you rather have that? And there is controversy, continued controversy around the program, or would you rather have lost like we did? I think I'm probably still taking the win. I am too.

A win is a win as a win. But that is the funny thing of just like, we just can't win with, you know, conviction at any given time. I mean, even your game against Utep, you know, the first half, you're sitting there like, man, what's going on? You know, you have a great second half and third quarter.

But yeah, I mean, it's like, it just feels. like you can't ever this team i mean this program prior to this year obviously also has a lot of that don't get me wrong but even this year you're just like you know there's probably a couple quarters total that you're like i feel really good about this team but through four games i don't think there are many you know many moments where you're like man i feel great about this football team and where we're at right now you know if the defense is playing well then you feel like the offense is kind of sitting on their hands and just not pushing it forward. And then, I don't know,

sometimes the offense plays well and then the defense gives up, you know, some. And then your special teams is good and then bad, you know, at different times. It's like, man, it just doesn't, right now it doesn't feel like you can put it all together. And, you know, again, it's four weeks. I don't know. By week four, you should be feeling like this is probably what you're team is. Yeah. Throughout the year. You know, week one, week two, you don't really know you're either playing like a

Cupgate game or you play a really good team early in the year and you're trying to figure out where you're at through four weeks of two more Cupgate games, I would say, even though obviously some would say you lost one of them. I wouldn't, but some would say you play a top 15 team in Oklahoma and then a top 20 team in Iowa. Like, we've got a pretty good idea of where we are as a team. And it's like, you're a good football team, but you just can't put it together is where I'm at right now. Right. Yeah, I would agree. We're a good football team that is not playing to the caliber of what we actually are. It's very visible, like how good we can be. There's just like there's a missing piece or something that

we are unable to win with conviction. I understand the story going into yesterday's game is this is going to be old school Big Ten football. We even said that. But as a player, you have to have a certain capacity to say, I understand that, you know,

this might not be the high scoring game possible, but we actually don't have to play them close. We can just blow them out of the water. And I don't think that's a mindset that they carry right now. I think they very much have this tendency to play to the level of their opponent thinking that like, oh, well, it's supposed to be a close game. Well, I guess it will be.

Like, we won't convert this first down because we don't really need to. The game is close enough. You know what I mean? Like, there's just not that like fire and drive to to just beat somebody's ass when you maybe shouldn't. Like, let's just do it anyway, you know? It doesn't feel like every play is like, I have to go make this block. I have to make this catch. I have to get this extra two yards to get us a first down. You know, and then by the time when it comes around and you actually do have to do that, then they're like, I don't know if I fully can, you know,

where if you just play like that every time you get to the ball, I just think that too I don't think that that that's the mindset 100% of the time and so when when push comes to shove at the end of the game and you need to get it you you can't just snap into that right like that's not how that works you have to have that mindset all the time and you know something I I've watched a lot of Ohio State football so of you you're you're you know you live in Ohio now you live and breathe the rivalry and why they have been a really good program over the last 20 years is they'll play a team tight for the first quarter, maybe the second quarter. Then they come out in the second half and they put 28 points on you. And they say, all right, it's time for us to put our foot on their neck and push down. You know, and they do that a lot. And the number of times that I've looked up at a score of Ohio State and I'm like, oh, shit, it's halftime. And they, you know, it's a close, you know, they're only up three or they're only up seven.

And then you look at the end of the third quarter, and then, all right, there's the blowout that you were expecting. And you know what? In 2022 and 2022, 23, you guys did that. Michigan did that really, really well, whereas, like, you smell blood in the water and you're like, all right, we're going to go put it on them. I know I'm better than the guy lining up across from me. I'm going to go prove that to everybody in the world. I don't know that this team right now knows that in their

I don't know if they truly believe that all the time. No, I completely agree with you 100%. They're just not that level of, there's not consistently, there's not consistently that level of fire that we would like to see all the time. And you're right, like in 22 and 23, that is the way that Michigan played.

Like they beat the shit out of people because they just could. Like they were like, we don't actually have to play people close. if we don't want to. You know, and this team has a talent to do the same thing. We have the talent to say, hey, you know what, Iowa? I get that it's supposed to be a smash mouth low-scoring game, but we're actually not going to do that.

We are going to beat your ass up and down this field. And so, yeah, and on top of that, and we spoke about this a little bit before we started recording, but we're not seeing that fire out of Kyle Whittingham. Like they pan to him on the sideline, and it looks like this guy's, trying to figure out what the hell's going on. Like Harbaugh was animated in both senses.

Like he would be very frustrated when things weren't going well, but also just so overjoyed when things were going well. And I'm not saying that like emotional fluctuation and being on this emotional rollercoaster is a good thing. But like the even keel sit here and I don't know what you're saying on the headset, but just kind of sit back and watch. Like, it's not working. You are the person who is going to light a fire under these players.

And, like, we need to make it happen. Now, I did see Bryce and coach Detmer. I don't know when this was, but Bryce was coming off the field. And Debtmer was trying to talk to him. And he just walked away from him. And, like, Debtmer was, like, actively kind of trying to walk after him and talk to him. Now, I don't know what was happening. like that could be like a beat writer headline that I'm creating right now but I did see that

which I wasn't a huge fan of but like coach Whittingham can you he just get fired up like come on I mean fake it we've talked about that you know and I think coach Harbaugh what he was really really good at is he'd get fired up for three seconds you know when he I think he knew when to do it and when he needed to just be like, all right, I'm just calm, cool, and collective, and I'm stone face. And, you know, we score touchdown. We're on, I'm on to the next drive. I'm already thinking about how our defense is going to go get a three and out. You know, sometimes he did that. But then a lot of times, I, I could feel it when he's like so pumped for his quarterback who just made that throw that they've been working on in practice for 12

straight weeks. You know? And it's like, he's like, I knew you could make that play. I knew it in my heart that you could make that play. Right now, I think everyone's kind of looking around for somebody else to provide them with some enthusiasm and, in the, you know, the drive to like, all right, let's go get this. Let's go do this right now. And, you know, I think that, again, we talk about Coach Harbaugh probably way too much for

a guy who hasn't been in the program. know, in three years now. But you just, Jim Harbaugh was so good at making sure his program was the embodiment of Jim Harbaugh. Right. Right. And you, they were, the personality of Jim just reeked throughout the program in Shemmethler Hall and Michigan Stadium. Right now, I just don't know exactly what that identity and personality of the program is. And I'm just, I think, it seems to me that a lot of.

lot of people are looking to the next guy to be like, all right, are you going to be the guy to get us going or make this next play? Rather than when Blake Corum was in the game, he's like, give me the freaking ball. I'm going to go make this play. Right. You know, and you had probably 11 guys on both sides of the ball that could say that at every, any given time. And I'm just, this is why I think the slow starts and the playing down to your opponents happen right now is nobody's like, I want it. You know, I think there are probably a couple guys. I do like a JJ Buchanan in that sense.

I'm like, man, I'm open. Give me the ball. There's a lot of the guys on the defensive side of the ball that seem to, you know, be like, let, I'm going after it. You know, a Rod Moore is definitely one of those guys. And I, but I think this is probably more an offensive thing than a defensive thing. Just like, all right, who wants this play? Who wants to go make the game winning play here?

Right, yeah. Who wants to put it on their shoulders? Yeah, I think we're definitely missing out on that piece right now, which is as frustrating. And probably while we'll, if it doesn't get fixed or adjusted while we'll continue to be in this season of watching the game with hands on the side of TV shaking the living shit out of it because you're so frustrated, which is kind of where I was at yesterday. And I guess let me ask you this. so now you're sitting here, your 0 and 1 in Big 10 play, you're 3 and 1,

you know, 3 and 1 with a loss to a solid Iowa team. Season's not over. No. You know, and so this is where I'm asking you, how would you go about it in the locker room here on Sunday when guys are getting treatment and then into Monday practice? All right.

But how are you making sure as a captain, as a leader of a football team, that everyone's not thrown in the towel after one tough loss? Yeah, I think, you know, we talk, there's a player-led meeting after Western Michigan. And, you know, the way that that goes is, you know, hey, we got to lock it in. That can't happen again. That's not acceptable. And it's kind of like a conversation. And that works, right? We beat Oklahoma.

And truthfully, we don't really know how good Oklahoma is. They got smashed by Georgia. Georgia's number two team in the nation. And then UTEP happens, slow start. We end up winning big at the end. Like, it kind of goes back into what we're saying. Someone has got to take the reins of this. And, like, there's no more Mr. Nice guy.

Like, we are not trending in a direction where we're like, okay, like, it was rough, but we're going in the right direction. We're seeing repeated problems. And the approach that we've been taking to try to fix these problems has not been working. Someone has got to, it could be your Rod more. Like Rod is a tremendous leader. It might just take him saying, hey, listen, like, I don't know what's going on. And I don't know why we're playing like this because we shouldn't.

But this isn't how we're going to do this anymore. And like, tighten it down tenfold. Like, we have to lock in. Right now it's about stop making stupid mistakes. and missing assignments and the law communication. Because the reality is like on the kickoff return, I don't understand how that happens. If you are sound in your assignment,

you just have to be in an area where you make that runner bubble into your teammate. Like the kickoff return is a rarity and the fact that that has happened. And we've seen some issues in special teams and just details all over. But it's going to take somebody to really grab this thing and reel it in. Like, we're not in a situation where it's like, hey, we suck. And that's just the way that this is.

It's like, hey, listen, we are so much better than what we're doing. The approach we've been taking is not working. We need to figure this thing out and we need to figure it out now because we are playing for a championship. And we just made it a little bit harder on ourselves to get to that point. Now, I think a side note here that college football nowadays is so unpredictable. Like Wisconsin beats Penn State yesterday. And we thought Penn State, hey, maybe they're not too bad.

And we thought Wisconsin was going to go five and seven and get Luke Fickle fired, right? You just never know. Exactly. So you really don't know. Like, I don't know how good Iowa is. I think they're a good football team, but I have no. idea how good they actually are. How good's Indiana. They looked all world and then Northwestern gives them a run for their money. You know, you just never know. Right. Yeah, you have no idea. And the good thing

with college football nowadays is one loss is not a season ender. I mean, even two two good losses is still not a season under. Now, we don't want to put ourselves in that situation. But hopefully we can take this and somebody just grabs the reins and gets that. fire under them where they're like, hey, listen, what we've been doing now is not working, and we have got to lock this in even more so than ever before. Like, we can't let little mistakes in practice slide where, you know, we're shoving the receiver out of bounds after the play, but nobody really says anything because it's just practice, right?

Well, clearly that stuff is being translated to the games. Right. And there has to be, we just can't let a slide anymore. We can't. We have to tighten this thing down more so. than ever. And the reality is that it might be a lot less fun because there's going to be a lot more correction happening. But if you want to get to a point in the season where you're having a lot of fun because you're winning a lot of games, that is necessary. Yep. I have two things

to say to wrap us up here that go along with your thinking there. One is, I think about this a lot. for a play to be successful 11 guys have to do their job all 11 guys so many times i see 10 guys do their job one guy misses the tackle or misses the block or runs the wrong way and it completely fails and gets blown up or you know something happens right now it feels like we have 10 guys that do their job on 90% of the plays you know and and we We rarely have gotten to 11 guys all doing their job. And to me, that is exactly what you're saying of perfection is not the standard right now. Pretty good is the standard.

And we're okay with that. Right. And that's kind of where why you're seeing what happens on the field where you're like, all right, we're a pretty good team. And I can see where we can be a really good team, but we're not holding ourselves to the standard of perfection and 11 guys doing their job. That is why Bill Belichick was so good with the Patriots is because he somehow got every single guy on his roster to buy in on doing their job on every play.

They were, how many times did they win a Super Bowl and they were by far not the most talented team in the league? It's like nearly every time, right? And so that right now, I think, is kind of, It's the reason why you're seeing what you're seeing as the result of what's happening on the field. The other one that's very similar is I think when you're talking about, okay, how do we, there's no more Mr. Nice Guy. How are we going to get ourselves to the next level and figure this thing out?

I know Jim Harbaugh did this a lot where we're rowing in a boat together as a team and we're going in one direction. If you're rowing in the wrong direction or if you're not rowing, get the hell off my boat. Right. I don't want you in this building. You know, and if you want to make excuses, if you want to not run out your routes every time, if you want to not finish your block, if you want to take a play off, there's the door. Go ahead. You know, and I know, I mean, Jim did that as a scare tactic during camp to try and get people

that weren't going to be able to do that for 12 straight weeks. out of that building early. Right now, Rod Moore or somebody in this building from the coaching staff or players needs to get on everybody's ass and say that exact same thing. Listen, if you don't want to be a part of this, nobody's holding you hostage. Right. And I think that it just seems to me that not only is that not happening, but it needs to happen right now more than ever if they want to not finish this season

at seven and five or eight and four. Right. And the reason we're having this conversation right now is because we're a team that can play at an extremely high level. And we're seeing that some of the time, not all of the time. And that's why we're in the position we're at. That's why we're talking about, hey, somebody's got a reel this thing in because it's not like, hey, we're just actually asked and we're not going to win a lot of games this year. We are a good team. We're a good football team. I think pretty much everybody knows that. We just have an inability to finish games and execute at the level where we are beating people with conviction. Agreed. Well, I hate that

we're in this position right now. But I hate it, but also, I'll be honest, Joel, after three weeks of football going into that Iowa game, I'm not shocked that this happened. I'm happened, you know? I think that I would have been more shocked if we just got ran out of the building and they beat us, you know, 27 to 10 and they just like outpowered us and, you know, out bettered us. It's more, this is, this is the, it's pretty typical of our team right now, that you feel like you can win a game and then you, and then you don't play at a high enough level. And so not super shocked, but I mean, man, there's a lot of, a lot of things that need to be, be figured out because there's eight more weeks of regular season football that you have.

And, you know, a lot of different things can happen. This is either going to go one way or another. And I think we're about to find out what type of program and what type of type of coaching staff and what type of players we are and we have in that building. So this is a positive podcast. And we are a good football team. We just have yet to show it at the level that we need to. So we're good football team.

Good football team. I'm choosing to believe until they, I guess, prove me differently that they have the ability to turn it around here. So thank you to Feldman Chevrolet. We're sponsored by Feldman Chevrolet of Highland. Appreciate you guys. Go check out our new commercial on our Instagram with Sabian, Heider, and Bryce Underwood.

That's a good commercial. Did you like the back of my head there? I did. Yeah, you look good. Yeah, you look real good. I had one line. I'm up for an Oscar of, you know, you know, best supporting actor in a social media film, uh, right now.

So that doesn't show their face. Um, it's a very specific category. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Um, but, uh, thanks to Woods and Whiskey. Uh, they had a sup in the suite yesterday, which was awesome. And, and, uh, the guys flew out, um, which was really cool. So appreciate them.

Um, yeah, for us, you can follow us at Blueby 90 on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook at Blue By 90 podcast on YouTube and Blueby90.com. We appreciate you. Go Blue. Go Blue.