Blue By Ninety - Michigan Meltdowns At Minnesota

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

Justin and Joel run out of positivity after Michigan drops its second straight game, and first to the Golden Gophers since 2014.

All right, welcome back to Blueby 90. We're already laughing. I'm Joel, or I'm Justin joined by Joel. We're presented by Felvin Chevrolet of Highland. We are laughing through the pain already just because Joel and I were chatting right before we jumped on here. And I don't even know what to say. I don't have, I'm sure some people are going to listen to this,

thinking that we have the answers for you. I don't know. I listen to Kyle Whittingham post game. He doesn't have any answers for anything. He said that we're going to get it figured out. But I mean, Joel, just a complete meltdown in Minnesota. I've never, it's been a long time since I've seen a truly like disaster performance like we saw on Saturday. Yeah. I'd like to formally apologize for my optimism going into the game.

This is no longer a positive podcast. The positivity is over. It's out of the window. Yeah. You want to talk about being a Michigan fan and just being almost like embarrassed by the performance of the team. I don't know. I think I've felt it on the field before. I felt like being embarrassed by performance probably during COVID, which was a two and four season. I don't know if I've felt it really since until Saturday. Just probably a culmination of realizing that my original idea that we are a really good team,

but we can't figure out how to win and now saying, you know what, I actually don't know. I think we have a lot of really good individuals. I think our team is bad. I think our team is not very effective. And it's really frustrating to watch, especially with, you know, you introduced the aspect of, you know, well, how can you criticize 19 to 22-year-old athletes? And it's the fact that they're making ridiculous amounts of money. If you're going to make grown man money,

you have to deal with the other aspects of that. And like I love those guys. I feel for them. I understand that all they're seeing right now is criticism and that sucks as a player. But the reality of the situation is that that's what you've. That's what you signed up for. Yeah.

I mean, that's what happens when you lose to Minnesota for the first time at their stadium since 1977, which is a horrendous statistic. I mean, we're, Justin, we're five weeks into the season, and it couldn't be any worse, legitimately. And here's the thing. I mean, you're sitting at three and two. Without an extra second in the first game,

you're at two and three with three losses to what I think are worse teams than you. Yeah. You know, and I, I, it's crazy, though. I know you just said, like, oh, I still think we're good. Like, we're sitting at three and two, which should possibly be two and three. There's a world where we're five and oh. Like, I still think, like, I know that it's obviously not panned out and we haven't played. We're just not that good.

We can't put, you know, a game plan together. But there's a world where we're sitting here, like, I'm watching these games. If you, if, if these plays go the other way, you're sitting, you're looking at five and oh and you're a top 12 team in the country. Right. And once again, I still think that that's the most frustrating thing. You know, Joel, when you're saying, yes, there's a ton of good individual players,

I'm looking at there, I mean, we outmatch Minnesota almost everywhere, you know, and still are losing football games. And so the other thing that we talked about on Thursday, where we said that we said at some point, you are what you are, right? These mistakes are your identity. Right. And right now, that is 100% our identity. We have doubled up on the number of penalties, an average of penalties compared to anything from the past 10 years. you know and that i mean we're owing to a big time play for the first time since 2014 i think the

time before that was 1977 as well and i mean that is staggering that is an unbelievable statistic because before jim harbaugh got here we were really bad for a full decade right right and so it's just i mean it's crazy where we're at right now but i i just go back to the way that we lost that football game on Saturday is like probably the most frustrating thing because I'm I mean you're sitting there like all right it's disaster after disaster after disaster and all of them happened in a row and I mean the third quarter was like the most abysmal we ran two offense a place right the most abysmal thing I've ever seen. I don't know. I think that honestly, I feel really bad for the defense.

Yeah, I do. I mean, they were on the field all day. And I understand that there were some, the defense had, you know, a good amount of mistackles. But the reality is that that's going to happen to a defense. The beauty of a good football team is that when your defense has a bad series, your offense picks them up. And when your offense has a bad series, your defense picks them up. The reality that we're living in right now is the fact that our offense can't do anything at all. And we are completely relying on our defense to even score points for us. And I just, I can't wrap my mind around it. I think you touched on this already. But the reality is, is that nobody has any idea what to do, which is the most concerning thing to me.

Right. Like we have a lot of issues on our team right now and a lot of things that are keeping us from being an elite team, but nobody has any idea what to do about it. Like Coach Whittingham says this is the biggest challenge he's ever faced. How is that possible? You are coaching one of the top tier Division I football programs where you have brought guys from your previous team from a school to which you were known for creating great teams at. And now you have your biggest challenge yet. I don't know. I mean, I believe it,

right? We can see that. Well, I can see it. Yeah. It looks. Playing football looks challenging to this team. Yeah. It really does. Like it does. And then Bryce steps to the podium and they ask him, you know, what are you going to do? And he says, well, we got to go back to the drawing board. I'm sorry. but like that that just doesn't work for me like it's it's a media trained response and he probably I mean realistically he has no idea what to do right that was probably the most uh just I guess like disgruntled I've seen him play all year just the the pocket awareness and and the ball delivery was and I listen I don't want to see here in Harp on Bryce because I just don't want to do that but the reality is that he had a very below average game.

And he just, he doesn't know what to do. It's like we come back with all of these answers of, well, last year he didn't have a quarterback's coach, and that's going to be the answer this year. And we bring in one of the best offensive line coaches in the country. And like all of this hype around the team. We got Kyle Weddingham, who was essentially a lottery pick at the time in the year that we got him. And our performance looks the way.

that it does and we're somehow still trying to figure out our team after five weeks into the season it just i i'm it's so frustrated no i mean to your point i think with bryce for a long time i was like he's so young he's just so young and raw and then it was you know well he didn't have his coach last year and then you know the staff turnover and blah blah blah at some point you have to make strides, right? And so right now, even after that Iowa game that we lose the football game, but both you and I said, you could see where he was making strides, right? And then this, in Minneapolis, he took about a hundred steps backwards. Yeah. Right. And so I think it just seems to me when push comes a shove, like if anything goes wrong, the mental toughness is

not there to say, all right, let's put our head down and let's move forward. Let's press on. And you know what? Our backs are against the wall. I love it here. This is where I want to live. You know, let's go do it. As soon as there's any type of adversity, it is a meltdown. And you watch that happen in real time on Saturday. Like you literally, I was watching on TV. it. It was like, you could see it. You could sense it through the screen of the complete, like, I don't know what to do. You're hurried in your brain. You know, you're making bad decisions. I mean, it's just really, really tough to watch. But yeah, I mean, listen, to your point, this is what comes with being, when you're a five-star high, high-profile recruit and you're

making a ton of money, this is what comes with the territory. And I just don't know that he is ready to take that on. I don't know if he ever will be. To be honest, right now I would say I would lean to know, you know, but it just seems like there's, you know, Coach Whittingham talked about a disconnect between, I don't know if he was talking about the players or, you know, between the players and the coaches, between just the players, between the coaches. But there's a huge disconnect for sure somewhere. And it just doesn't seem like I don't know. I start with just the mental toughness of your starting quarterback who is a captain and supposed to be your leader. Guess what? Your team is going to take on that identity. That's just the reality of how sports go.

And I don't think, you know, we talked about going on the road and that might be good for them. Like you're playing at Minnesota. I know they packed the place. They were loud by the of the game but I mean there I tell you what that last drive I've never been less confident in my entire life and something than Michigan going to get a touchdown to win that football game yeah I'm and that's something we've seen all year is you know which is interesting because typically in the past when we've had offenses that were not very efficient for whatever reason um whenever we were in like a two minute drill or something like that we seem to somehow find some efficiency to get points before the half. You don't see that at all like this year. You don't see it. I mean, Western Michigan,

we get the ball to the 50 yard line. You know what I mean? And throw a Hail Mary. It's not like we drove the field to get a touchdown. You haven't seen it all year. You haven't seen us drive down the field to score whenever we really needed to. Even to close out the end of a game, we weren't able to get a first down. And I just think the disconnect is between the team and the game of football. There is a huge disconnect. I think the coaches don't understand the players. I think the players don't understand the coaches now to execute. It's like, it's stuff that would be sorted out in fall camp and spring ball. And it is currently happening in the middle of the season, which is unacceptable if you want to be great. We could sit here and say, you know, if we run the table,

we could still have a chance at the playoff, which like the idea of running the table right now, like it seems so incredibly impossible. I mean, I believe, do we have Penn State next? Is that who we put next? Penn State's next, yes. Yeah. Which they're having their own issues. So, I mean, who knows?

But guess what? We'll make them look like they're all world. Is how I, you know, I watched the Lions make Bryce Young look like he was Joe Montana last night. Yeah. And, I mean, all my football teams look the exact same. It's insane. where you're just like, holy shit, what am I watching right now? It's just, I mean, they make football look really, really hard, you know?

And I just, I don't fully understand it. I want to ask you right now about the play calling on offense. Everyone, there are a lot of people talking about it. I texted you during the game. It felt like we were picking plays out of a hat sometimes. where there wasn't really a rhyme or reason of why we're, you know, going with one player or another. You mentioned that it feels like we are trying to fit the scheme onto our players rather than the, you know, making our scheme work for our guys.

Give me a little sense of why you think that's happening or why that doesn't work. Well, I think this goes back to our topic of identity, right? You see great offenses have a particular identity in what they're going to run, how they're going to do it. We don't have that at all. And you could say, well, you know, that's because Beck is calling all these other, you know, types of plays. He's switching up from week to week.

But then you could also make the argument that the players aren't actually executing any of at a high level and he's sitting here trying to figure out what the hell can these guys run. I don't I don't understand why we go wildcat on third and one. I know I've heard other people talk about that. I texted you immediately after that happened and I was just like in disbelief. I mean that and we were running the ball at it up until that point it was like five yards a chunk. Like we were actually, for the first time in quite some time, it felt like we were running the ball. Like, your quarterback is 6 foot 5, 230 pounds.

Right. Quarterback sneak it. Right. What, like, or run your really good running backs right up the gut. I mean, if you don't feel confident that your offensive line, which I'm not confident either, so maybe I don't blame back. But like, if you're not confident that they, that that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, line can't get six inches? I mean, what are we doing? Right. It's, yeah, it's not, you know, we were, we were promised, you know, we're going to run the ball and that's going to be the main

focus of our offense and the efficiency of our run game has not been at all where it's been in the past. We have great running backs. We have guys who can run the ball hard. But to go back to the play calling, I do think that there is a huge, disconnect in Beck understanding what these guys can execute at a high level consistently, and then also the player's ability to say, you know, okay, we can do this over and over again. So they're getting thrown a new style of offense every single week, you know, whether we're in Rhino majority of the time or if we're doing our wildcat, which I'm not a fan up at all. They're just trying to figure it out and it's not working at all. Not working at all.

I just watched this game on Saturday and I struggle to see a like just this like sense of fire and pride in particularly our offense and just getting the ball moving and I don't know like I don't I can't sit here and tell you that I have any answers on on what the team needs to do because I'm not inside of the facility obviously a lot of people have opinions and a lot of people now are on the Tommy car train more than ever and is that the right way to go I don't know I mean ultimately at this point in time like you have nothing to lose right we're oh and two in the Big Ten, the idea of a Big Ten championship is pretty much out of the picture at this point. Like, we're likely not going to get there unless Ohio State folds for the rest of the year.

But it is so incredibly frustrating to watch. And I know that every Michigan fan sees that right now. I wish I had better insight on an answer on what we need to do. But I don't know if I've ever been as confused. watching a Michigan team than I am this year. Yeah, I mean, I think it is, this is where, like, part of me wants to, you know, trash Beck's play calling because I didn't agree with a lot of it. But I think back to your point when I think where he, where he was at is,

all right, I call this play. It works, but we don't make the right decision or the right read to get it to the guy. that we need to, right? Or even if it's a run play, you know, all right, it worked if we actually blocked the correct guy across from us, but we don't. And so then he goes to a different thing. Maybe this will work. And so I think everyone's just kind of grasping at straws to say, all right, what, you know, can we find something that'll work? But back to the quarterbacks, I think, you know, let's be honest, Bryce played pretty poorly.

Right. Bryce, I mean, and now you're sitting here. We've made every, every excuse for him. And you're sitting here like, all right, I just don't know if it's going to work. And but are you going to put in another 18 year old, like an 18 year old Tommy car that, you know, doesn't have any experience? and I think I go back and forth between, yeah, it can't get any worse or, you know, you've got nothing to lose. But also, I don't want to throw a Tommy Carr into the fire and have him, you know,

completely mentally screw up and not be, you know, ready for the following year or, you know, whatever it is. You know, watch that happen in the NFL where, you know, a rookie gets picked first overall. His O-line sucks and they throw him into the fire and then his entire career is ruined because of it, you know? And so I want, I don't, I want, I want, I want to make sure that he is ready for that if, you know, if they do call upon him. But at some point, you have to just see what you got, right?

Like, and I think there has to just be repercussions for not playing well, right? Like, you, I mean, there has to be like a point where it's like, you know, winning him after the Western Michigan game said that Bryce's job is not infinite, you know, and at some point, you can't just be like, all right, man, you made a ton of mistakes on Saturday, but we're rolling with you still, you know, I don't know. Yeah, I think when we look at the position of quarterback and the greatest quarterbacks, most successful quarterbacks, the one thing that they are is consistent, right? Cade McNamara led us to a Big Ten championship because he was just consistent.

He wasn't this all-world quarterback who was a complete game-changer, but he was consistent enough to allow our team to win. That's what we don't have. We have no consistency. We have a game against Iowa that seems like, oh, wow, he's really starting to turn the corner, and now we go to Minneapolis and perform the way that we do. How long are you willing to sit in the inconsistency

and just hope for at some point in time he becomes all-world or say, you know what, maybe Tommy Carr will be more consistent, assistant. And, you know, I love Bryce. But if I'm on the Michigan coaching staff, I'm probably saying we need to give Tommy Carr some reps because what we're doing right now is not working. You have to at least try something else, right? I mean, that you can't just keep rolling out what you're doing and think that it's magically going to, you know, work this time. But I guess then my question is, what if Tommy's not right? ready and you roll them out against Penn State who also is not playing well and he really

struggles go back to Bryce like then you're really you know I mean and then your team's ruined right yeah then your team's completely ruined and Bryce is totally checked out you know like you watch that with Cade Magnamara in 2022 right and so um I think I just I think that they're probably sitting saying the same thing that we are like I don't know what to do you're going through every possible scenario and like none of them are good. You know, the best possible scenario is that Tommy Carr somehow is ready to go with zero experience, you know, and can at least get you know, some consistency, which, let's be honest, though, if you have any consistency at all, you probably win that game on Saturday.

Yeah, you win that game. You beat Iowa. you don't play Western Michigan to the final second. I mean, it's... All you need is him to be average. Yeah, right. Yes, I know. That's the unfortunate thing.

It's like you and I have sat here week after week trying to justify the performance and like find... Because it is a positive podcast. Find the positives and his gameplay. And, you know, last time we talked, it was about, you know, Bryce taking a load on his back. and here we are now. And like I'm all out of all out of options here.

I can't sit here and give you another reason why Bryce should be protected anymore. I do think that he throws an interception because he's being hit, right? And you could say, well, it was because of the pressure in his face. But it wasn't blindside pressure. The pressure was coming directly at him. And I think that kind of attest to the pocket awareness that he had on Saturday, which we kind of just told throughout the whole entire game. But like I said, I've really run out of paths to go down here to say,

hey, you know what, let's keep protecting him. But I don't know. Like the worst thought right now is watching what we watched on Saturday for the next seven weeks. It's like no fun at all. I mean, there's, I turned off that game on Saturday laughing because I was just like, just like almost like a disbelief. Like, what is going on? How was our team to this point? Like, I know we didn't have any huge expectations for the team, but anything that I would have had, this is completely below that. It's below, I guess, the standard of Michigan football, which is, yeah, I mean, what even is that anymore? Yeah, I don't know what it is at this point, which is sad to say.

The one thing, to go back to Bryce real quick, again, we're trying not to pile on the kid, but at some point, I mean, we got to give our analysis on it. You know, the second interception, he throws into double coverage when Andrew Marsh is wide open by 15 yards down the field. Right. And to your point on the sack, or the first interception when he was getting hit, too, I just, from my analysis on him, He cannot get to a second read. If the first situation, if the first read is not there, it is complete panic mode.

It is 90% of the time tuck and run, which thankfully he's really good at. So that works out half the time. But he cannot be. And I thought against Iowa that he was getting calmer. you know, in the pocket, the pocket presence. But still, I think when you go back and watch that film too, basically what Iowa does is they just line up in what they're going to line up in and go.

And there's no disguising anything. And so if you disguise anything for him, Bryce can't comprehend it. I think that's just where we're at. And that is the piece where being a quarterback, that's the toughest part. you can have the arm, you can have the legs, you can have the body, you can have all of it. But having to read the defense and have that mental mindset is why there's only like 10 good quarterbacks in the NFL, right? And so I just, you know, maybe he can develop that at some point in the future. He is still young and there's still a lot of time, but he's nowhere near

being able to do that right now at the level that he needs to do it. And I think it probably was the issue was he never had to in high school. You know, he was big enough and strong enough and he had good enough receivers that they just played backyard ball. And I texted you this on Saturday, too. I think right now, the best chance for this offense is to just roll him out and let him go do a bunch of bullshit and make some plays. And I would be okay if he threw two picks if we're, you know, if we're going to maybe make

some magical plays happen, right? But right now, he's throwing two picks and we're not doing anything. You know, there's not even a chance. I mean, the other thing that I want to say about the offense is, I mean, we didn't even take a shot downfield. Not even one time where it's like, all right, let's see if Andrew Marsh can take the top off. Let's throw it five yards past him.

And if he can run underneath it, great, if not, it's second and 10. Yeah. No. I agree. I think our biggest issue right now, and this also makes it incredibly hard to win, is Michigan is not going into games saying you need to stop us, right? You need to stop what we have going and see if you can beat us. What we are doing right now is trying to figure out how to beat a team in the middle of a game. I don't know if that makes sense, but like we don't go into it saying this is what we're going to do and you are going to have to stop us, as opposed to, we just go in like we talked about earlier the play calling it's like we need to figure out how this is going to work how are we going to beat these guys like we we're on the back foot immediately and it's so hard to win a football game when you do that when you are trying to figure out what is going to work in the middle of the game which i mean it's like really like the story of this team a lot of

the stuff that's happening in the game is stuff that should have been figured out prior to whether the preparation of the week before or in fall camp like what the hell happened like what are we doing with our time in meetings i i have no idea i mean we're seeing the tight ends get a little bit more involved in and i think hogan hanson had three catches for 22 yards um other than that it was it was only martian yukannon who didn't have games like they did the week prior but we we we have nothing to hang our hat on. There's nothing that we can say, hey, listen, you're going to have to stop this.

We have two really good receivers. Our running backs are good enough, but we can't put the thing together. We can't put ourselves in a position where people have to stop us. I saw a pretty funny tweet. I can't remember who it was. But it was like Jim Harbaugh would run it 60 times and we'd beat this team 42-0.

Yeah. Like that really wasn't. And you didn't have to do anything more than that because they were so good at running the ball that that is, you know, it was like you literally can't, you know what's coming and you can't stop it. And as annoying as that was at times because we couldn't open up the offense and, you know, evolve into the next level. Like the problem right now, Joel, is there's that one thing that you can point to on this offense and say, we're really good at that. At least we're good at that. You know, and, you know, you mentioned there's nothing you can hang your hat on. Like, I think if you went to Coach Whittingham and Jason Beck and said, all right, hey,

what is like, what's the one thing? If you need to go get four yards right now, is there one play, is there one formation that you feel 100% confident that you can go get it? I think they wouldn't be able to give you an answer. Right. And that's, that to me is the problem is if you, if you, You can't be good at the second and the third and the fourth thing if you're never good at the first thing. Right. Yeah. And, you know, to your point about horrible running the ball 60 times, I also saw a gentleman talking about how, like, on that third and one where we were in Wildcat,

what even a Michigan team last year would have done is say, all right, we're going to run it up the middle. And if you stop us, we're just going to do it again. but we're going to bank on you to stop us. And if not, then whatever, you can have the ball. But like, we're almost timid to do that. Like, like, fourth down was an option for Harbaugh. Like, he saw it as another offensive play, if necessary. That's not even a thing here.

It's only an option when it has to be an option. And then we overthrow our receiver by five yards, which is crazy. That, I'd rather you throw an interception on that play than throw it straight out of bounds, to be honest with you. That was the first time that he's thrown the ball away ever, and it happens to be on 40-down with the game on the line. You could throw it.

If you would have thrown it directly to a guy, it still would have been a better throw than what he did because at least it could have been tipped somewhere. And if you threw it directly to an opponent, it would have been a better throw. than that because he gives at least something could happen. Yeah, man. I mean, I just, I think that the, there, yeah, there's nothing that they do well.

Like, there's nothing that you can sit here and be like, yeah, well, you know, all right, that's something that we really feel confident in executing, you know. And the problem is, though, like, Joel, I can see it on the players' faces that they don't feel confident in executing. Oh, yeah, 100%. Right? Like, you can tell that these guys are like, I don't know about this. And I think that probably starts with the fact that they don't feel confident in the play call that they're getting. They're like second guessing that. Like, why are we running this? Right. Whereas back to Harbaugh, like, guess what? You knew that it was going to be a fourth and one, they were going to run power.

And we all, you guys all felt like, hell yeah. I know exactly what I'm doing. I feel confident and that I can do it. I mean, Joel, against USC in 2024, we had to go the length of the field with Kowellell Mullings. And we weren't going to throw the football. Yeah. It was like a minute and a half and we had to go the length.

And guess what? They just ran it up the gut. And somehow, some way, it was. worked. And like, I mean, at some point, you just have to be like, all right, we're going to do this until you can stop us. And right now it just feels like, all right, we're going to do that. You stopped us. All right, let's try something else. Let's go and then the next thing. And then the next thing. And none of them work because you haven't repped any of them. I mean, the thing, I'm, you know, I'm annoyed at how poorly that last drive went. But the reality is, we didn't take a shot downfield all game or all year.

So why would you think that Bryce can go and do a two-minute drill and move the ball 20 yards at a time? Right. You know, my question is, and this is to anybody listening as well, how much grace do you give Coach Whittingham and his staff for essentially inheriting a team that was faced with a lot of controversy and turmoil? How much grace are you giving them for the lack of performance on the season? I'll give my answer first. I'm giving them minimal grace because Coach Weddingham is a guy who just came off of a 20-year stint at the University of Utah. And the reality is it's not really any different than when you bring in a new

offensive coordinator or defensive coordinator, especially in a world now where the transfer portal is huge. You are essentially bringing in a new team or at least, pieces of that team every single year. And like you're not able to lead them towards success. I'm sorry. I recognize that Coach Whittingham was very successful or experienced the level of success that Utah was happy with.

But that's, we talked about this before. That's not the same at Michigan. It's not how it works here anymore. Like, unfortunately, you stepped into a world where anything less than perfect is not acceptable. It doesn't matter how good you think the team is or not. And so, like, I'm not in the facility. I don't know how he's handling all this, but what we see at the press conference of this is the biggest challenge I've ever dealt with. Like, that's a really poor sign to me. Like, I appreciate the honesty because I think it's true. But, like, do you know what you want

to do with this team? Like, you are ultimately the final decision maker with anything that happens at any point in time. Do you know what you want to do? Like, why is our returner still muffing punts? Why are we reaching the ball when we don't have to be? And we almost fumble it before a touchdown. Like that's stuff that just, how is that going unnoticed? We've seen this week after week where guys are reaching the ball

in situations where they should not be reaching the ball. And we're still doing it. Like, what is going on? How are we not addressing these things? Yeah, I mean, I've got a couple of things to say. One is I think the one thing I really do not appreciate of what Coach Whittingham has said at the press conferences is those are my coordinator's decisions. Yeah. At some point, you're on the headset, man.

You, you, like you just mentioned, it is your call at the end of the day. You're the top dog. So if you see something that you don't like, call a fucking time out and let's change it up. Right. Right. Like let's, I hate that. I mean, you have to give your coordinators the, you know, the, the ability to go and, you know, how, do what they want to do. But at some point, it's your team, you know, and there, I hate that part.

I also just, I think, again, I'm not in the facility either. I don't know Kyle Whittingham more than I've shaken his hand once. but it just seems to me like this job is too big for him at this time in his career. I don't know that he knew what he was signing up for. At Utah, I think that if you lost some games like this, people move on to the next week. And, you know, it's not a complete meltdown. And, you know, you can go eight and four there and then you still have your job for the next year. Right now, losing one game is meltdown.

here in Ann Arbor. And the way that they've done it the past two weeks now is justified. And so I just don't know. It doesn't seem to me that he's the right guy now at this time in his career. You know, if we were 10 years ago, maybe, right? But it just, listen, it's an exhausting job. It is super exhausting. It's a really, really hard job.

And I think that I'm just, this is just from me watching him on the sideline that he, I just don't know that he knew what he was signing up for. What do you, what do you take from every time they pan over to coach Whittingham on the sideline, he has zero emotion. He is kind of looking off into the distance like he's confused. again, this is only what we're seeing, right? So it's probably 5% of what's actually happening. But when your team is playing as poorly as you are, I want to see a Jim Harbaugh rip off the jacket and chuck the clipboard. You know, instill something in the guys, right?

Like, I don't know, man. What's your take on that? Well, I agree because I like, seems like the only time he reacts is during penalties. Like we had the past interference call that was complete BS. Yep. And he's frustrated about that. Like, we don't ever see him like getting after the guys, which I sit here and I think,

like, how much control do you have of this team? If you're just sitting here and kind of almost being a spectator to the game and then making the comment to the media that that's your coordinator's decisions. Why are you hired? What are you doing? You're not just here to sit and watch and make sure the team gets on the field and gets on the plane to the stadium. You are the end all be all.

The buck stops at you. And so when you're not showing this type of emotion, like, listen, I'm all in favor for a neutral mindset and somebody who's very even heel. But the problem is, is that you are not, at least to the viewer, not lighting a fire under any of these guys. And is there like a lack of respect between the coaches and the players? Maybe. But he's a guy that, like, we were almost, like, assured that he was going to command the respect of the players and the way that he was kind of introducing his culture was exactly what the team needed. But clearly not.

Like, these guys are not performing like the culture inside of the facility and inside of Chembeckler Hall is this close-knit and very highly held standard of a team. Like, that's not what we're seeing at all based on the play on the field on Saturdays. And let me tell you, like that, it's not like it just happens on Saturdays. That's happening all throughout the week. And are they not addressing it? Is it not a big enough deal? Are they trying to just focus on making sure we have the right plays to run? Clearly not because we don't know what we're running. I agree. Like I sit here and I just want a reaction out of him. Like, get fired up.

Do something. Stop just saying that we want more. I just, I want to see one time, even if it, like, Nick Saban, when he would just go off on a kid or off on a coordinator,

right? Like, when you say, oh, it's only after penalties, all I see is him go like this and put his, like, you know, rub the bridge of his nose. And I'm like,

that's me. Actually, no, that's not me. I'm throwing shit, you know, at home or, you know, whatever. But, I mean, I want to see, like, Sabin going off on Lane Kiffin back in the day, you know, freaking out. Like, give me something, you know, give me something to show that, like, you know, was it the Colorado State, they fired their D coordinator in the middle of the game? I mean, we probably don't want to get to that point.

but shit like at least like hold somebody accountable for when they're making a mistake i mean Joel the number of mistakes that are being that are that are happening is absurd yeah and those are the those those those those are the ones that we're seeing on the surface level right like imagine the number of misassignments that we don't even know that are happening because we don't know what the play call is or we don't know what the assignment is right like the ones that are just visible where, I mean, it's muff punt, then penalties, then interception, then like reaching the ball out. And then even when, you know, Jordan did score on that play, obviously, but he reaches the ball out. And then Andrew Marsh goes to like block a guy

instead of jump on the football. Yeah. It's like little shit that's just happening. Like, I mean, it's that to me is just insane in week five. I mean, this is something. that like a really, really bad football team would do. Right. It's stuff like in high school, the coaches are telling them. And on the note of him showing emotion, you know, we've talked about like potentially reprimanding some of the players and things like that based on their mistakes. But regarding the penalties, like, if you don't believe a penalty should have happened,

like that past interference, go fight for your players. Yes. Like, as much as Harbaugh would yell at his players for messing up, he would also fight for them for things that he thought were wrong. And we don't see that at all either. It's just like he's this like disproving father who is spectating his child's game and has nothing to say about it. Like, I'm sorry, Kyle. I know that you were planning to step into retirement, but guess what? You were the head coach for the University of Michigan and you need to fight for this school because that is what they hired you for.

and we don't see it. Like we don't see it. And it drives me crazy. Like, I just want to see my coach, like, fight for his team instead of, well, we need more. We need, we need, yeah, clearly we need more. Like, that's not the problem. We understand that. Everybody gets that.

Everybody's watching the same game that you are, but nobody else is the head coach like you are. Like, please figure something out. I hate to say this, but it's giving Jonathan Smith that Michigan State vibes. Yeah. Oh, yeah, 100%. You just, you pan over to him and you can just tell he has no answer for what's happening,

right? And the thing is, we've had a chance to win every football game. So it's not like, you know, I was watching with my Michigan State buddies and they're down 28 to 3. Jake Butts on the call. He's like, this is, you know, Michigan State is a bad football team. Like, they're just bad, right? Right.

Michigan has a chance to win. You know, your defense has held up somehow for four quarters, even though you ran two offensive plays in the third quarter. And so it's the like, if you can just change three to four plays, you can, you're probably, again, sitting at five and oh, you know. And, and then, but with that happening, he has no reaction. You would have thought that we were down by 28, you know, and that the game is just out of hand and whatever.

And, like, I mean, that's where I got to, you know, give PJ flex some credit. It's like, you know, I don't think that he, I think some of his stuff is performative and I don't know that he's the greatest coach in the world. But like, he's trying to rally the troops at least, you know? And like, I mean, there's something to be said about that. When you go back to talk about 19 and 20 year old kids, they're very impressionable. They are they're not professionals that are you know that are going to be you know I'm just coming here to do my job and you know I don't you know I'm I'm an individual here blah blah blah like you have to build the team and there is no team right now. It's just it's just a bunch of guys doing a bunch of bullshit in my opinion.

And I just I the mistakes are like I mean the number of mistakes that now they compound from one. into the next into the next. You know, I think that brings me back to, again, we're talking a lot of Harbaugh, which we usually do. But if you made a mistake under Jim Harbaugh, if you made a mistake under Nick Sabin, if you made a mistake under Tom Izzo, get your ass out of there.

You don't make that mistake twice, right? You're going to learn a lesson. Right now, we make a mistake. All right, let's go get, you know, it's back to Brady Hope clapping as much. as possible on the sideline. It's like, get back in there and, you know, and see how it goes. Try it. Try again next time. You know, like, I mean, those, those things, I think are, that's so frustrated to me where you go back to the standard. What is the standard? Right now,

the standard is you can make as many mistakes as you want. We're still going to just like, see if you can do it again. Right. Yeah. I, I don't know. I think I'm kind of at a loss right now for Michigan football. I mean, really, I play during the COVID season, and this feels very much like that, almost like disbelief of what the hell is going on. My question to you is what is your outlook for the rest of the season here? Like, where is your mindset at with Michigan football? Do you think that at some point in time we'll figure it out?

Are you optimistic about moving forward? No. Like, how could you be optimistic at this point? I don't think there's an ounce of optimism. You know, I think two weeks ago, even last week, I was like, listen, I was optimistic because I could see what I could see good things happening. And it felt like we were just a few different plays away from, all right, this is, you know, we're going to figure it out.

And then just like Bryce took 100, steps back, but so did a lot of people, right, including the coaching staff. It's, you know, he's going to wear a lot of this on his shoulders because he's a quarterback and he's a captain and he makes a shit ton of money. But the reality is that there were a lot of people that weren't helping him out, you know, whether they were on the sideline or in the game. And right now, if I'm going to be honest, what I'm worried about is in the transfer portal era, guys start looking mid-season.

and not only do they look outward at, you know, transferring to another school, but every other school is looking to poach them. And so agents start reaching out to parents and saying, you know, hey, somebody at Oregon's like, you know what? Andrew Marsh would fit really well in our, you know, in our scheme. And Dylan Ryola is going to be the quarterback next year. And, you know, I think that we could get him 10 targets a game. you know and that's all going to start happening so that now you have the outside noise that's coming in on top of your own fan base that's piling on right now and i did i just this is where i mean i wanted to ask you back to you you know when you guys were in that covid covid year it was like the same team from 2019 and really mostly the same team in 2021 you know with with some different uh

there are a couple differences, but it's not like you over, it's not like you were so bad talent-wise in 2020, and then we're just unbelievable in 2021. You know, so when you were going through that in 2020, similar to what's happening right now, like what are you saying in the locker room? And how do you keep it from completely imploding? Well, I think that's what happened in 2020.

Like you said, that team had 24 draft picks on it. That's point in which is nuts. But the issue that we faced is that nobody wanted to go into the facility anymore. Nobody wanted to be there. We weren't good, which also led into not wanting to be there. And it was just a complete catastrophe. It truly did implode from the inside. People just didn't want to be there anymore.

And the difference between that and the next season is there was a decision made between like amongst all the players on the team that, hey, listen, that is completely unacceptable. And in order to get this moving in the right direction, we all have to be on the same page and we have to take things up a notch, right? Which seems obvious, but getting everybody to buy into that is hard. But we did it, right? And kind of Aiden is at the head of that. Of course, everybody wants to follow Aidan Hutchinson. He's an absolute baller. But we had that.

And the coaching staff was also interested in that. They wanted to figure out what do we need to change in order to lead us to success and not repeat what just happened here. What we're clearly seeing now is just a lack of understanding of what to do. It's like, well, I've never been in this spot before. How do I do this? Like, well, you're the head coach. you brought the staff with you, you brought these players with you, you are the head coach of the University of Michigan,

it is your job to figure it out. It's not your job to sit here and say, well, you know, we need more. And this is my biggest challenge. I don't have the answers right now. Like, you're the guy that's supposed to have the answers, or you go and figure it out. Right. And so, like, we see the player-led meeting after Western Michigan by Rod Moore,

which I think is great, but what happened there, obviously it didn't really change. It changed for one game to an Oklahoma team that is not nearly what they thought they were going to be either. So that win is not as good as it looked at the time. I mean, you still like to beat Oklahoma. But I think right now we have a lot of individuals, both offensive, defensive, and special teams

that have no idea how to piece together a full game and win. They don't know how to, I mean, I guess the Western Michigan game, you know how to win when it's down to wire, but really should never been like that. But they have no sense of response to adversity. We throw an interception, we come back to the next drive, and just do it the very next play, just throwing out of their interception. our defense like our defense is like the highlight for the team jay hill is doing a great job and listen

when you have your defense on the field for an incredible amount of time during the game like they're going to get tired and they're going to make mistakes i'm sorry that's just they're not built to play 50 minutes of the football game um and they shouldn't have to do that they shouldn't like our offense should have more control of the game, which we don't have at all. We've seen it through every single week this season. I don't know. Like I'm sitting here wondering, like, is this something that's salvageable for the rest of the year? Like even the 2024 Michigan team, it was frustrating to watch.

But, like, you knew that there was a certain level of heart that those guys had to want to win the game for each other. And I just don't see any of that right now. Yeah, I know a lot of these players. I don't think they're bad kids. No, not at all. I think they're good kids and everybody wants to go win and play super well and, you know, all this, all this stuff. Right. So, but I do think, I don't know that there are a lot of guys that are in love with football on this team.

I think that there are a lot of guys that like football and love right now, what comes with that, which is money and fame. And, you know, you get to be popular when you go, you know, out and about on campus and girls love you and all that stuff. I think there are a lot of guys that really like that. And they like, they just like football, which is, you know, whatever. You can go play somewhere else then where you don't have to love football. But the reality is you got to love football. And that means love it when it's good and when it's bad. It's really easy. It's really to show up to the to the facility in 22 and 23 when you win every damn week right when everything's going well and you don't really even when you make mistakes you still won the

football game so you know you try to get there and clean it up and it and it goes you gets brushed under it the guys that love football are like i think about you and brad robbins and jake moody and those guys that i knew from you know from those teams like I remember you when even when things were going wrong you guys were itching to get back into the facility to figure it out right right and like that's where you needed a max bretison you know as well where it's like all right listen I want to take this head on and I don't care like if we're going to die we're going to die trying like that's truly like going back to Jim Harbaugh and is you know his 2021 media day like

that became the identity of your guy's team. Right. And right now, it's like, we're just going to die. Yeah, we're just going to die. We'll just die. We'll turn away, you know, and you watch PJ Fleck row the boat. And I, you know, again, I don't think he's the best coach in the world. But I think half of our team is rowing different directions.

Yeah. Right. Nobody's, nobody is on the same page. Nobody is like, all right, let's hunker down. Let's get into the facility. I think to your point, if I had some worries right now, you know, some people are like, wow, it's best time ever for a bi-week. You get some time off.

I worry right now, guys are going to go home for the bi-week and you, people aren't going to want to come back. Yeah. You know, I'm not saying that people are going to just quit, but mentally they might feel like, it might feel like they're quitting on the team. Yeah. I agree. And to be honest with you, this is probably the worst by week that anybody's ever been a part of as far as being a football player on that team. I don't know Kyle Luttingham, but I do know college football coaches. And in a situation like this, it could go one of two ways. He could be like, you know, we're going to make your lives hell for this next week and we're going to practice hard and we're going to hit each other and do all this and that. Or he could be like, you know what?

If you guys don't care, just go home, you know, which I think is the wrong thing to do. The last thing that he needs to do is get these guys spaced out from each other. Like, I don't know what I would do if I was in his shoes. I certainly don't envy him for that. But the reality is that this is kind of what has been created as a result of being at the helm. I don't know. I think I also here's where it's tough. I think you make that point of, you know,

either get in there, practice harder, you know, practice longer and do that or like give them some time off. The problem that is sometimes when you just practice harder, guys hate it even more because they're like, screw this, we suck. I don't want to be at practice for five hours today, you know, and I, you know, I'm just thinking about getting home. I don't care.

You know, I'm not paying attention in meetings, blah, blah, blah. Like, that's where it's hard at this point where you just, you're kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't a little bit on, on how you, you know, how you respond. But yeah, I mean, that's why they're paid a lot of money to figure this out, you know? And, and I think that it's, this was a lot easier to empathize with a kid before, they were getting a ton of money. Right. And I've been very involved in NIL, and I think that players, you know, deserve to,

you know, make some money and it can't just be, you know, it can't just be the university and the TV networks and the sponsors making all this money off of their backs. But it 100% has changed how guys respond to situations like this. Yeah. Right. And, yeah. Yeah, I, I agree. there just has to be I think the more that I think about it

like the emphasis on like every team that we play needs to have the same amount of respect that we are going to give Ohio State when we play them at the end of November because the reality is we may have gone into Minnesota thinking that we are supposed to beat them like you and I sat here and talked about that which we can do because neither of us are taking the field. And maybe they thought that as well. I don't think the defense thought that,

but did the offense? Yeah, maybe. But the reality is, is that like, we're not going to be able to sit here and say, you know what, we'll be fine this week. This is not going to be a problem game for us. We should be just okay. Like, any win is going to be a great win from here on out.

Like, it's not going to be. be a thing where it's like, well, you know, we're supposed to, we're supposed to be Minnesota. Like, any win that we have from here on out is going to be a great win. And what we're striving for right now is to become bowl eligible to be able to play in, in late December, early January. I cannot believe we're saying that right now. I know. It's crazy.

Literally, like, literally cannot believe we're saying that. But you're staring down the barrel of six and six. And maybe five and seven, depending on what happens. happens to you know with pen state which they look like crap but i think northwesterns lowkey pretty good um but i mean you look at you look at this like who you have to play pen state indiana oregon ucla who's who's now that's a pretty good team ohio state like you you have two losses already you look at five teams that you're like shit right like i don't do you you feel confident that we can beat them?

I don't feel confident. And I'm sure as hell know this team now doesn't feel confident. Right. Like that's where I'm like, man, I mean, Michigan State's the only team that I feel confident about beating because they suck even worse than us somehow. Like, yeah. I mean, they didn't even, they didn't even sniff the end zone on Saturday. So I don't know, man.

I think that this is where. this is where you just kind of find out what people are made of down the stretch. And I think what's going to transpire in the next six weeks is, are we going to roll with Kyle Whittingham again in 2027 or is it, you know, we don't even have an AD right now that's working next year. You have a lame duck AD. Your presidency is still like, I think they just put, you know, it's a brand new president.

And so now it's like, okay, is there anybody out there that's like putting together a short list of like, who could we go higher next year? But then you have the third head coach in 12 months. Like catastrophe. I mean, you're staring down the barrel of like true disaster. True like these are spots that can set a program back 10 years, right? that's what I'm scared of, man. I, like, genuinely scared of. No, I agree.

And I was talking to my brother yesterday. Like, Ohio State, as much as I do not like Ohio State, has been able to rinse and repeat great seasons. Every year, aside from 2011, right? They have been a top team in the country. And Michigan, just from stature-wise, as a university, is on the same playing field. It is not any different.

We have just as much money as Ohio State does. We have access to everything that we need, facilities, gear, food, all of this stuff is top of the line. It does not get any better. Why are we not able to do the same thing? I mean, obviously, I'm on teams that didn't perform to the standard to which the Michigan football team should be. But we got to that point.

We figured it out over time. But it's bad right now. It is bad. It was bad last year. It was bad the year before. And like, what is going on? I think everybody's at this point in time where we're like, what the hell is going on? How is this even possible for a university like Michigan to be in the situation?

Yeah. I also am going to say something about Ohio State that I hate myself or even saying. I genuinely believe that if Bryce Underwood was at Ohio State, he probably would have thrown for 300 yards and four touchdowns yesterday on Saturday. Yeah. They somehow figure it out. Andrew Marsh would be like a Heisman, him and Jeremiah Smith would be, you know, like him and Jay, like JJ Buchanan. All these, they somehow will figure it out. It's a tough truth for us to swallow sitting here as Michigan guys.

because you make you said it. Like we somehow make it harder on ourselves all the time. They make it easier, right? And they play at a high level. Even when, you know, things go wrong, they somehow figure it out the next week, right? And at Michigan, you know, there's a lot more than just the football team

that have been having issues. But still, it's just, I mean, it's for some reason we make it so difficult on ourselves. And you just, you can't have the level of success that you should be having. I just, I don't know why that is. I don't either. If somebody can figure that out, they'd make a lot of money. Yeah.

We'd make a whole lot of money. Yeah, they would. I mean, moral of the story is at the end of the day, this freaking sucks. This sucks. Dude, it sucks so bad. it sucks so bad i just i have no excitement moving forward and you know i we do a lot of things where our life revolves around michigan footballs which maybe is the problem uh you know i i should find some other hobbies um but i i think that that's that's always the the tough part now is

like you lose i mean what what's what is what is what is there on Saturday, October 17th, what am I waking up and getting excited about to go watch this football team? I'm still going to go tailgate. I'm going to be there. I'll still, you know, rock the block M, you know, proudly. And I'm still going to, you know, be my fan, the fan that I am. But, man, it's just like they're making it really hard on us right now. Yeah. And I'd also like to apologize to the listener. If you're, if you're still listening to an hour and seven minutes in, This season has not been filled with a lot of positivity, which sucks. It sucks for us.

It sucks for every other Michigan fan out there. All right. We'll see. The only hope is that we can turn it around, I guess. Basketball season is in less than 30 days. So, I mean, I can't stand that we're saying that in the early October is insane to be saying that. But that's where we're at. So we'll see.

All right. Well, thank you. To anybody's still listening, you deserve a medal of honor, a purple heart or something like that because you, or you're just sick in the head like we are. Can't, you know, you love to drown your own self and sorrow and sorrows. But all right, we'll see you next week. For us, you can follow us at Blue By90 on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,

I at Blue 9D podcast on YouTube and Bluebion90.com. We appreciate you. Go Blue. Go Blue.