Blue By Ninety - Michigan Outclassed and Outcoached By Number One Oregon

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

Justin and Tanner breakdown the Oregon game and look to Michigan's road trip to #8 Indiana.

All right, welcome back to Blue by 90. I'm Justin joined by Tanner today and it is November. Michigan is sitting at five and four. Lost to the number one Ducks that came into town. I don't know that many people expected Michigan to win this game, but I think when you look at it tanner i'm more frustrated with how they lost this game and that seems to be a trend right i i was more i was mad about how they lost the washington game and how they lost the illinois game and now it's how they lost the oregon game what are your thoughts yeah i think with how Michigan played especially the second half I thought defensively they kind of anchored down a little bit which was which was nice to see guys were making some plays and held Oregon at 10 points and you know who knows if

Michigan's able to cut that game to seven points with the touchdown it was you know early in the fourth quarter maybe the defense isn't completely demoralized and you don't give up all those big plays on that last drive that allowed Oregon to chew the clock and then go score and make it a 21-point game. But, yeah, I certainly thought that, for the most part, coaching lost this game or made it to where it wasn't going to be as close as it should have been. And we're not around here for moral victories, man.

I mean, we've reached the mountaintop, and some moral victories I just really don't care about. But at the same time, you're down 31-17. Do we want to talk about it, like that sequence? Because that was really frustrating. I was very upset. After the Orgy run, you're down 14. You take Davis Warren off the field, which Alex Orgy had a great run to get down there.

But Davis Warren had been playing really well. He had had a couple red zone touchdowns. The throw to Peyton O'Leary in the third quarter was extremely nice ball that he put out there with pressure in his face. And I just feel like taking him off the field for two of those plays and one of those plays being just a handoff to Cologne Mullings was just coaching malpractice. And the last play of that sequence, the fourth down, I had flashbacks to the TCU game. It's like, what are we doing here? I mean, that's just like, I don't even know if you can call it overthinking because it's like, well, there's a 1% chance that that works right like i i mean unless you have set that up perfectly you know all year long or something um but i i have not seen anything from michigan to set that up right um and i think that that whole sequence um just felt i i agree it felt like 2022 where we'd get to the red zone and then shit our pants

yeah um and you're throwing a pass to alex orgy at like i just don't understand on fourth down and also the plays that led to that um i would have rather have thrown it three or four times you know uh davis warner been throwing the well. He had been very accurate during that game. And for some reason, this staff just does not understand, hey, this guy's got the hot hand. Let's just ride it until it doesn't work anymore. Right? Like when Claude Mullings has big runs,

it seems like they want to go to Donovan. When Davis Warren's playing well, they want to take the ball out of his hands. I just, I don't understand. I'm just not sure how to comprehend that decision um and yeah i just like how many times have they ran that package where samaj is gonna be the guy on the reverse i i don't think many very many times if any at all so there's nothing on film that's gonna fool oregon to be like oh this is actually going to be Samaj Morgan on a reverse on a fourth

and five coming across the field like no he's going to throw it um so I also think before that too like it's third and seven and you run Kalal up the gut when honestly running Kalal up the gut hasn't worked in two games it didn't work against MSU and it didn't work all day against Oregon so you know I listen earlier in the year, I'm okay with that probably because Kalal was gashing people. Right. But you also have to just kind of know how things are going. I, I understand, you know, it's four down territory. So you're probably just trying to make it a, you know, feasible fourth down,

but also you, you'd run it up the gut to make it a a feasible fourth down that they you know doable and you can get it and then you run that play like if it was like hey you're gonna run it up the gut to try and make sure that you can get you know four yards or something and then you run it again or you know you try to i i run a you know four yard out or in you know slant to colston i'm fine with that but then you run the stupidest play i've ever seen man i i just i'm like well if you like if you run that play on first down i'm probably totally fine with it right because you still have three downs to try to score so or at least get a first down because

i think they were at the 12 so they could have gotten a first and goal if they'd gotten down to the two i think if you run that play on first down I'm like all right hey it didn't work it's fine but just the order in which they did things on that last last four plays on offense that they had I just thought was just incredibly mind-numbingly stupid and so the other part of that is where's Colson Lovelock? I mean, he's the only reason Michigan's in the game. This is also like going back to the Nico Collins where it's like, how do we in four downs not try to just throw one fade route to our six foot six guy that, you know, like I just, you know,

that a guy that's dominated and nobody can guard him. Like I will never understand not trying to do. How does how is he not targeted at all? I mean, because to your point, if you throw a fade to him, right, so you line him up on the outside and you try to get him one on one coverage. If you have one on one, you throw it to him. If they double team him, that's going to keep things a little bit more open across the middle of the field or on the opposite side of the field that you can throw to somebody else so i just i would have rather thrown had him run four fades into the end zone legitimately because again he was the only guy for them i mean you know other guys scored

touchdowns and played well but he was the guy that kept michigan's offense between the 20s moving i mean he had seven catches for 112 yards I mean if you're if you're trying to take away a positive from this game like Davis and Colston have a great rhythm they they have a great connection right and honestly I thought that all day it was like that you know I want to give props to Davis again where you know it's very frustrating to me that we're looking at him and this was what game nine of the year and he's looking really good in my opinion like doing everything that you asked of him at the beginning of the year which was don't do anything crazy don't turn the ball You know, to do that against the number one team in the nation,

I think what more could you ask of Davis? Not much more. I thought he played extremely well. Was very, very excited to see, you know, how good a football he's playing right now. Yeah, he's not J.J. McCarthy. That's okay. He's got the most live arm in the program right now, right?

He's thrown some darts, man. Yeah, some of the throws to Colson over the middle. He had the one where he had to fit it over a linebacker. That was a phenomenal throw, allowed Colson to get up the field and run. Again, the touchdown to Peyton O'Leary was a great throw with pressure in his face. Peyton O'Leary has double covered, and he just fits it in there. The throw to Tyler Morris, I think he was trying to get it to Peyton, but Tyler Morris has made a hell of a play to turn back and catch that football. But Davis Warren is,

you know, I mean, he had a couple of misses, like the one to Tyler Morris in the red zone. Morris gets a hand on it, gets his hands on it. You know, probably it's a little high,

but it's also like only where his receiver can get it. So I don't hate that throw. Like, I mean, you gave your guy a chance and only your guy a chance. Right. So like, and he didn't get a hand. He got two hands. No, absolutely.

It would have been a phenomenal catch if he catches it, but it's a catchable ball. For sure. It probably doesn't need to be that high. I think he had leverage on the, on the corner. So he's able to probably just put that up a little bit. Not as high as he did, but that's, you you know we're nitpicking at that point with with what the quarterback room has looked like all season like that's a very good throw every other game for Michigan this year and

even with J.J. McCarthy I think you're taking that throw right like I I definitely but like from Davis Warren who you know from a from a 2024 perspective where you've played three quarterbacks, you're taking that throw nine times out of ten. For sure. And, I mean, let's say it's Cornelius Johnson. He's probably catching it, right? Like, he's probably going up, big body receiver. He's going to make that catch.

I mean, I was going to say, like, maybe we should recruit, like, a wide receiver that's taller than 5'10". I don't know. I would be okay with that um maybe somebody in the portal maybe some high school guys maybe maybe somebody who's committed lsu right now who knows i i would take what i'll take what i can get at this point but no i thought honestly though you know that really kind of warped my perception of the game that that sequence that we discussed earlier i thought though you know there was obviously some plays that just went nowhere Oregon was really blitz happy in this game

and they were they were totally fine with getting downfield and not respecting the pass and then you know it opened up for Michigan as far as being able to throw the ball a little bit more downfield but I thought for the most part the game plan was pretty solid from Kirk Campbell but that sequence just really left a sour taste in my mouth and so it's hard for me to kind of overcome that and look at the game as a whole but you know they were in a position to be able to probably score you know more points than they did um but what do you what were your thoughts on the run game because this is two weeks in a row now that colal mullings has done just about nothing um and i'm not i I don't think that time Kalel Mullings,

cause he had nowhere to go 90%. No, I think it's on the offense to be able to, you know, open things up with the pass game, which is kind of crazy to say, but with the way Davis Warren's throwing it, there was a lot of opportunity for, for Michigan down the field. And they, you know, I mean, they didn't take advantage of it every time, but I thought they were more, more able to go and make those throws downfield and kind of, you know i mean they didn't take advantage of it every time but i thought they were more uh more able to go and make those throws downfield and kind of you know take advantage

of what the defense was showing but you know when you're in the stadium or even when you're just watching on tv like you can see they'll they'll have one high safety and they'll have everyone within like seven to ten yards of the line of scrimmage so it's like at what point are you going to start implementing a lot of play action to open things up so the defense has to has to be honest right versus we're just not going to run play action and so when we run the ball it's very you know very simple tells to be able to say oh shit they're running the ball which i'm just going to keep coming downfield whereas with the play action that linebacker has to you know he's he's got to kind of make that decision so i don't know why this program just continues to not want to to run play action it's something they

didn't do last year last year it's hard to complain right but if I had one complaint it's that they didn't run play action as much as they should have right you have J.J. McCarthy who can run and I know he was injured for you know a lot of the season so he wasn't 100 but like you have to utilize his ability to run. And again, I'm, Davis Warren is not JJ. He's not Alex Orgy, but he can move enough to make it a threat. Right. He make throws on the run on Saturday. It was, yeah, it was, you know, I think, I don't know.

I think that we've come a long way from the beginning of the year in terms of what this coaching staff has, like, done to utilize what they have on this roster, right? Like, they didn't know what they had, and they didn't know what to do with it in the first three, four games. That was for sure, right? But I think that, you know, you would hope they figured it out before nine games in,

but it still feels a little bit like you're trying to fit, you know, a square peg into a round hole. You're trying to make Davis Warren, JJ, you're trying to make the 2024 team, the 2023 team, instead of being like, hey, let's utilize what we got and do it well. I think, you know, one of the most frustrating parts of the game to me was the touchdown from Oregon right before half you know you're down 21 10 right um it's still very much a ball game because Michigan had moved the ball for the most part in the in the first half I thought I mean I know you punt three times I get that um but I thought, I mean, I know you punt three times. I get that. But I thought Michigan was, they were in it, right? Like it was like, it was not a blowout by any means in the first half, but you just let up one bomb, right?

And all of a sudden they're, you know, at the 34 and they just, you know, they gash you again. I don't know. It felt like with when, when did that drive start? That drive started with 147 to go, 140 to go. You know, you can't let up a touchdown with 140 to go with them starting on their own 20-yard line. Yeah, no, I'm with you. I just – I don't know exactly – I don't know.

So, something that – and we probably talked about this in our group chat, but there was a quote yesterday from Wing Martindale's presser talking about this defense can be a quick fix. I'm like, what more do you need, right? Like, you know. What you need – you've had nine games and you have four first round draft picks i'm i i right and like people are like oh well will's hurt yeah well the defense didn't look that great when will johnson was playing either so let's let's you know let's let's be honest will's had a

had a down year to say the least right yeah um and obviously you you miss rod more but you know you knew you were going to be without him so So, yeah, I don't know, man. I was really disappointed by that. You know, Michigan kicked the field goal. I was at the game, so I was like, well, I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to beat the halftime crowd. And then, you know, I pulled out my phone on YouTube TV because when you're in the concourse, you actually get some service.

And I saw the one-handed catch. I'm like, you're kidding me. I'm mad. I'm upset going to the bathroom. And I'm walking out. And I guess, you know, they had the illegal man downfield that negated it. But then, you know, I come back up to see Dylan Gabriel just running. Like, it looked like J.J. McCarthy against Nebraska last year.

It did. It's just like, and, you know, somebody posted this. The way they lined up with their alignment on the defensive line, there's nobody from basically like the center to the right tackle. They're the left tackle, excuse me. And where does Dylan Gabriel run? Right through that hole, right? So that was –

He's good. You got to give him that. He is very good, right? He's very good. Obviously, they're the number one team in the nation. He's a Heisman favorite for a reason, right? But I just – I think it's a winnable football game if you tweak a couple different things.

You know, I put out there, I think it was Sunday or Monday, that Michigan could be 8-1 right now, right? And I got shit on. That's okay. I'm okay with it. But I truly believe, like, with Davis, you beat Washington and you beat Illinois. And would a couple different things go Michigan's way? Or they, you know, they have no personnel issues, right?

They have no penalties, you know. I don't know. I just think things go a little bit differently, and Michigan could – there was an opportunity to win the game against Oregon. I'm not saying they should have by any means, right? So I want to talk through some coaching points. Go for it. And just some different moments in the game, and I want to get your perspective because, for me,

I had thoughts inside the stadium. I had thoughts when I got home, and I've had thoughts over the last couple of days. I travel for work, so I had a lot of time to ponder. I think there was something else going on this week, but, you know, I don't – who cares about that? I care about Michigan-Oregon, man. Exactly.

And so I want to get your thoughts because I have some notes, but also there was one that I feel like you could go either way. So Michigan has – they get short field, and they've got it at the 47 of Oregon. And they go negative three, incomplete, and then they get it to Samaj on kind of a tall screen, and he gets eight yards, and so it's fourth and fives at the 42. I wanted to go for it. What do you have to lose?

Tell me what you have to lose there. Right. Bryside, maybe Tommy Dan's best punt of the season pins him at the six problem is give up 94 yards in 10 plays and it's 21 to 7 so i mean do you do you go for it in that scenario i do i absolutely i mean does dan campbell probably i i think you have to be aggressive at some point i know that at that point are you very confident in your you know offense probably not but like are you confident in your defense are you confident i mean your defense gave it up for 94 yards anyway right so like you know i feel like in these types of games, when you are clearly outmatched, you have to, you know, take advantage of when you have those opportunities of a short field. You have to take some risks.

A lot of times it doesn't work. But, like, I would never, I'm not going to, unless it's, like, super stupid, like the fourth down play in the red zone. But, like, I'm not going to fall to coach for trying to be aggressive and beat a team that's clearly better than them, right? No, absolutely. I mean, if you go for it, you don't get it. Hey, it is what it is, but at least you had the stones to say, you know what, we are going to try to win this game.

When you're down 14-70, you're going up against the number one team in the country, and your offense clearly isn't on that same level as them, and your defense is not what it normally is, I feel like you need to go for it to try to win the game you've got to get points when you like if you have an opportunity to get points you got to go make sure that damn well that you get points yeah so i i didn't like that um you know they also uh again we already talked about the the tyler morris uh incompletion you know would have also, again, we already talked about the Tyler Morris incompletion, you know, would have set them up with, would have been first and goal.

Right. And so they kick a field goal and it's 21-10, and then Oregon goes down and scores, which is like, okay. So, dude, I mean, do you want to go through the drive chart for the first half? It's disgusting. It is. I was just looking at it. Go for it's it's disgusting it is i was just looking

at it go for it 12 plays 63 yards touchdown it is six places for oregon yes this is not for michigan six plays 75 yards touchdown they punted michigan did force a three and out um they punted 10 plays 94 yards touchdown um right before half seven plays 80 yards in a minute 12 to go up 20 to 10 um second half was was cleaned up a little bit i want to talk about some things in the second half that really pissed me off you ready all right the special team's penalty cannot line up over the center i know that rule i'm just i'm just a dude. I play NCAA. I play college. 99% of high school coaches know that rule. And so, yeah, if you want to point to Trey Pierce and say he should know it, yeah, he should know it.

But guess what? You know who else should know it? Somebody up in the booth and say, hey, we got to call a timeout. Otherwise, they're going to get a first out. Correct. Same drive. 10 men on the field. He had to burn a timeout.

Same drive. 12 men on the field. Penalty. You're subbed when Oregon did not. Which is the 12 men on the field you had to burn a timeout same drive 12 men on the field penalty you subbed when oregon did not which is the 12 men on the field what are we doing what is michigan doing in practice like i i don't i don't get it man so that's all three coordinators having massive blunders in a game that michigan should be in offensively defensively as special teams you have a special teams coordinator whose sole job and responsibility is to coach the special teams unit he does not recruit what is the fucking point it's absurd this is I think this is where

like you want to even pre-2021 a lot of people shit on Jim Harbaugh, right? He couldn't win the big game, blah, blah, blah. He never made these types of mistakes. Right. The details, the details would, you know, were always, they, they made sure, you know, maybe they were out talented sometimes. Right. You know, maybe they didn't have a QB, right? But, like, they never made these types of mistakes.

And, in fact, what they did is they took advantage of other teams making these mistakes. And I thought that this, that sequence that you're talking about was the coaches letting the players down. And, honestly, that was the overall theme of the game. Because I thought that our – Five minutes, dude. Right. players down and honestly that was the overall theme of the game because i thought that our five minutes dude right i thought our players our players played well enough to win the football game against the number one team in the country when they're five and three and could have very

well thrown in the towel right absolutely so i want to give you know i i'm i'm frustrated with our coaching but i want to give our players a little bit of love because any of the Mason Grahams, the Kenneth Grants, the Colston Lovelands, you know, you could have thrown it in at this point and been like, hey, I got my natty. I'm going to make $30 million in about six months. I'm good.

Let's just kind of ride this out. Don't really give a shit. These guys are playing hard. Absolutely. Look at Desire Stewart. He gets banked up, and guess what? He's right back on the field. Yeah. ride this out don't really give a shit these guys are playing hard absolutely look at josiah stewart he gets he gets banked up and guess what he's right back on the field yeah also real quick just to let me uh i had another note that that yeah did you see josiah stewart line up at linebacker what are we doing why what is the point oh man, really, really frustrating.

The number of times that we've seen somebody that is lining up at, like, edge or linebacker that absolutely shouldn't be is shocking to me. They are more impactful at the position that they play than they are at another position. What is the upside to having Josiah Stewart play linebacker? You don't have the threat of the pass rush. If you want to drop him into coverage, that's totally fine. Jesse Minter was fantastic at that.

Wink Martindale is not very good at that. He's not very good at, like, disguising things or, you know, confusing offenses. And I saw he took a shot at the 2-7 New York Giants, and I'm like, buddy. Dude, what are you doing? Like – Get your house in order. You're 5-4 four and you're taking shots at the your old they fired you for a reason the baltimore ravens fired you for a reason i am

i like i i'm sick of wing martindale coming in here and thinking like oh i'm just you know gonna be able to do whatever say whatever no dude you stink your team your. Your unit stinks. I want – listen, yes, but I also just want you to, like, be professional and own up to shit, right, and be like, listen, we – you know, instead of the Matt Patricia, yeah, we've got to be better, we've got to coach better, we've got to play better, we've got to do this. Like, actually tell me, like, what you're going to do better and show me progress, right? Oh, dude, tackling is not an issue, though.

How are you going to sit there with a straight face and tell me that tackling is not an issue? If I'm honest, if there's one thing to point to, tackling has been the issue for this defense. Yeah, tackling, coverage, being out of position. Those are some of the ones i notice i um i also what i have a play uh that really really frustrated me as well um it was i believe it was late in the the second quarter i want to say um we rolled davis out i believe, or sorry, rolled Alex Orji out and the only route was Max Bredesen on a,

on a corner route to the end zone, Max Bredesen. I love him more than life itself, but he should not be running any routes. He's a full man. It's not, it's not his game he was double covered so you still i he like there was no shot but that was the only option for the route so what was the plan there like i i just i didn't understand it at all and again i think it's overthinking like let's have davis warren throw the fucking ball to Colston Loveland. Right?

Like, you have Alex Orji trying to throw it. I was like, oh, shit, Orji's going to throw. And then I look out, and the only receiver on that side of the field is Max Brannison. Somebody's got smartest guy in the room syndrome. Dude, I'm just like, what are we doing here? It's crazy to me. Very frustrating.

Yeah, I mean, I could probably go on and on, but, you know. Some good to take, some bad from the game. Number one team in the country. Should have been a seven-point game with eight minutes left, and it turned into a 21-point blowout. And so I want to say this about the – I'm sure people have their opinions on the touchdown on fourth and goal when michigan wasn't calling a

timeout um i'm of the belief of if you don't want to get scored on stop them but i'm also of the belief that if hey if you want to use that as fuel for when michigan goes to austin in two years then i'm all for it like get fired up beat their ass like out because i'll you know i want to like i again you gotta stop it so i'm not mad but also like i'd love to just absolutely beat the crap out of oregon in two years right so like let's you know you have this fuel i'm with you 100 i like i i don't want i had a couple people say to me like are are you like there's nobody talking about landing running the uh the score up we got bigger problems we got bigger problems also i don't want to be the person that's mad about somebody running the score up on us we were the six months ago 12 months ago we were running

the score up on other people we can be that it was just michigan state i understand but like we we were good enough to put up a 50 burger week in and week out right and like you know we were running up the score on people with our backups but i'm just saying like that's a to me that's like a soft it's a soft comment i honestly because like be better we 100 i'm i'm with you like you you have enough talent if you want to talk about running up the score because it's you know you're playing an fcs school in week two right like all right i can get on board with that they're obviously out talented you know it you're playing it's a pay game right yeah but like michigan's the fucking reigning national champs dude right we should we cannot complain about anybody running up the score

on us i just have to say this if i take my biases aside really stupid in my opinion from dean leaning though to have his starters in with 10 seconds left there's really no reason more like what are you doing dude what it like if if dylan gabriel goes down there you're the dumbest person alive like what are you doing um again it doesn't matter i mean 31 17 38 17 doesn't bother me we got a fetty wop out of it um you know true so i'm sure a lot of our viewers remember fatty wop uh flash is he r.i.p no no he's still around all right all right i i don't know what happened to him but um all right we are not we but michigan is headed to bloomington things are not getting easier i mean it's like this is one of those ones at the beginning of the year you're looking at the

schedule you know when when people were like oh michigan will be eight and four at at worst right like that's myself included right like if you're looking at the schedule pre-season you know you're looking at this as a win i believe michigan has won the last like 46 of the last 48 meetings or something like that in 60 years. And all of a sudden, Kurt Cignetti has this team rolling. And Michigan is a 14-point underdog, which is shocking just to see that on a screen. Yeah. Indiana has basically dominated everybody they've played.

No, they haven't played anybody. That's fair. But if Penn State had this schedule, Penn State would be number three in the country, as they were. They basically had this schedule. So, yeah, I mean, you know, the last I mean, they had, you know, 14.1 over Washington. They just smoked Michigan State. They smoked Nebraska. 41-24 over Northwestern.

I didn't watch that game. I don't remember much about it. But interesting that that one was a little bit closer than some of their others. Fancy's going over Maryland. So, you know. I was curious about the Nebraska game because, you know, at the time Nebraska looked like they were on the rise a little bit.

Like, you know, I think Ryola had played well for, you know, the few games before that. Five turnovers. No, yeah. Five turnovers, okay. And then this Michigan State game against Indiana last week, like Michigan State goes up 10-0, and Michigan State's at home, right? They're like, okay, what, you you know nick marsh is looking unbelievable and then indiana scores 47 straight points that is hard to do really hard to do um like i i don't know this guy you want to talk about juice like who's got juice indiana's got some juice right now man they they have like they've got

swag they're playing with fire like you know i know he brought in a bunch of talent from uh you know in the in the portal and everything but man i i don't know i is this game winnable for michigan or i think so i think there's a path to victory in this game um now what that path looks like I'm not sure I think there's probably a couple different scenarios I think Michigan's certainly going to have to force some for some turnovers um I think defensively if you can get Jair Hill back I have no idea what's going on with Will you know turf toe is a tricky injury to recover from so and again if he's if there's any doubt that he's able to get on the field that I don't blame him for saying, I'm going to prioritize my health. But if you get Jair Hill back, you know, that probably helps some things.

People will shit on you for that comment, by the way. For Jair Hill? No, for Will. Oh. Prioritizing his health i'm i mean look i mean uh if he's not 100 i don't i have no qualms with him um deciding to to not strap it up so um it is what it is he's a guy that's given lots of this program so i've seen a lot of weirdo comments out there like oh he's business decision he's giving up he won a national championship here you want a two-time big 10 champ cool i'm good you know

like that's part of what i'm waiting so um but yeah i think for michigan it's it's about you know hopefully getting jerry hill back um because he's been up and down but he's also had some really bright moments and uh you know just for his his future development you know you want to see him out there because he's he's made some plays he's had some you know rough moments but he's a guy that's a first year starter as a true sophomore he's gonna get better and he's gonna be very good and so if you can have him out there that's probably gonna help um i mean curtis rourke man you look at his stats 73 percent uh 10.5 yards per attempt 19 touchdowns three picks like dude's pretty good that's like an unbelievable i mean, honestly, I don't know

and don't care enough to go look this up. But, like, I'd be shocked if any Indiana quarterback, like, in their history has had a stat line like that. Like, I don't know, man. Yeah, I'm not sure. I mean, he was a baller at Ohio. He had a really good year last year. And crazy, you can go find a quarterback in the portal that uh you know makes your team 70 they started out 77 to 3 against western

illinois i don't care who it is putting up 77 points is impressive absolutely from that moment i was like oh they might be legit i didn't think they'd be undefeated at this point but i was like oh they're gonna be pretty good um yeah i mean the running backs you know justice ellison's got 670 yards six yards in attempt tyson lawton uh you know 453 yards they've both got nine touchdowns so they spread the wealth um the receivers are pretty balanced as well a lot of guys with a lot of catches a lot of yards touchdowns so um you know they got a lot of weapons so defensively for michigan it's really about just you know bend don't break i think michigan's gonna give up yards but if you can get down inside the 30 and you can force field goals um that's what you've got to do i i haven't really seen that unfortunately from this team like they

don't really just kind of break um at least in crucial moments but i just think that there is a way for michigan like look yeah this is a good indiana team but like michigan's at least on par talent wise you would think right at least on paper now that hasn't really panned out for us that projection so far michigan has been the more talented team in every game except except for texas and oregon right yeah so um but i think for michigan offensively it's about trying to establish a run play action. Coastal Loveland should have 15 targets in my opinion. You know, I'd like to be able to get Tyler Morris, you know, some more, more throws over the middle. I mean,

we've seen what he can do. We've been saying this all year and you had a touchdown against, against Oregon this week. So. Do you still like how they are using Davis and and orgy yeah i do i think it's uh i think it's probably the best option they've got and i think what they've done with orgy i just wonder where that stuff was when he was the starter i mean maybe it's just different because it's you know it's not every time right like i get that um but i i do i do still like the changing it up thing um i just think it's the only thing i'll say is anytime you take your your actual quarterback

off the field it's one less chance to you know have him make a play, right? And I know that that means Alex Orji can make a play, and he has at times, but I don't know. I also at times am like, let's just run a normal offense. You know, like I don't just, you know, keep it going. Yeah, I hear what you're saying, but against Michigan State, you know, he gets a touchdown on third and goal, and then he also ices the game with his legs, and then against Oregon, he gets them down to the 12 yard line yeah you know so i don't hate it it certainly has its moments um but i do think there is you know there are ways that you can utilize him he is i i still

think he's one of the best 11 guys on offense right so i will say the the play where he was in motion and he kind of circled back uh some eye candy i really like that um i think michigan needs to do way more of that to try to confuse defense. I mean, these are college players, man. Like NFL teams run motion 80% to 90% of the time now. In Michigan, it feels like they do it every so often because they need to. A year ago, we ran motion on like every play. It's because it confuses the defense.

It changes your keys. It changes what your assignment is. And so when you have motion, look at the two-point conversion against Michigan State. Colson Loveland in motion ends up wide open. Right. Like they need to do a lot more of that. They need to do a lot more play action. They need to do a lot more on the motion.

Hey, we're going to fake the handoff because it seems like every time they do end up motioning, somebody's getting the ball on a sweep. Yeah. So you need to try to play off of that. I also – you mentioned it, but, like, you have to get Kalel Mullings going. You are not going to win this football game if Kalel Mullings doesn't have, you know, 15 carries for 100 yards. So I don't know what exactly is going on there i think people have figured out a little

bit like hey every time that colel is in there it's you know i'll run up the gut uh i i think we're an easy offense to figure out if i'm being honest right um but you don't yeah you you need to get him going in some fashion. So I think that's a thing. I also just, I mean, this has got to be the, this has got to be like the biggest game in, in the biggest two weeks in Indiana football history, right? This is probably one of the bigger games in Bloomington, and then they go to Columbus next week.

So, like – The following week. The following week. The 23rd, yeah. They play – Ohio State plays Indiana the week before the game. Sorry, they have a bye – Indiana has a bye week. Sorry about that. But I still think, like, either, here's the situation for Indiana.

They win these two games, which is very difficult. No doubt about that. Right. But they win these two games. They're in the college football playoff. They lose even one of these games. They might be out of the college football playoff. I even had a great, like they're not even at 11 and one with a loss to Ohio state. As if it's a blowout, that committee is a great, like, they're not. Even at 11-1 with a loss to Ohio State, if it's a blowout, that committee is going to be like, ah, you know, they would have zero wins over anybody with a single vote in the A people. Hey, man, I mean, look, if they lose to Michigan but they beat Ohio State,

you know, they're probably in because that's just, you know, that's a loss to the defending national champs. Yeah, so true. That's a team that's won two playoff games this calendar year, so it would be respectable for the Hoosiers if that were to go down that way um but yeah I mean I'm with you I think it's um yeah I'm from Indiana I I really don't like Indiana basketball like I really don't like for me Indiana basketball might be my second least favorite program in the Big Ten just you know personal preference there um but indiana football man i've never had beef with them they have beef with us from multiple years of michigan winning in the

donovan warren interception that was probably in 2009 if you guys remember this but it probably should have been dual possession which would have gone to the offense but so i have people that tell me they hate michigan that are indiana fans because of that play from 15 years ago, which is hilarious to me, which is like, I I'm sorry, but that game is like the one of the more forgettable games ever. That was my first game at the big house, but I'm just saying it was 2009. Most, most, most Michigan fans have regressed that out of their memory.

Ingrated in mine, baby. Tape 4CA, you you know i think i said regressed instead of repressed but that's okay uh no one knows yeah that's fine um so yeah i i mean that literally they haven't beat us i think the stat is like i i don't know when let me pull it up because it's um i mean they They beat Michigan in 2020 during COVID, but outside of that, it's been since 1970-something? It literally is 46 out of 48. I'm pretty sure.

You're not going to get the real stats from this podcast. Sorry. It is something like that so uh tell you know if you want to uh listen you hey if you're listening out there when you say that to somebody and just say with confidence they'll believe you so uh indiana has beat michigan twice uh since 1968 there you go there you go um so uh yeah you never know i mean maybe they shit the bed in their home you know who knows i don't know man kurt's kurt's that guy kurt's got juice man i'm telling you i'm telling you the shirts they have are incredible yes um you know i'm sure a lot more people are smoking cigarettes down there, which, you know, hey, good for you. Uh, he's got an awesome last name.

He's got a lot of swagger. Um, you know, and he, he kind of called it. He, in his, and you know, he was at Assembly Hall and he said, Michigan sucks. I was like, damn, this guy's, this guy's, what is he talking about? And well, maybe he knew something. Maybe he knew something. I don't know. He was onto it.

Yeah. Well, we'll see. Um. Are we getting predictions? Predictions. Do you have to indiana wins uh i got a weird feeling to be honest that like we pull something out of a hat but i've also had a weird feeling in all four of our losses this year do you never know you know you quit yours under pressure we've been you know having the same conversation for the last two months now

yeah it's fucking not fun i i enjoyed it a lot more last year when yeah or we got out here 21 yeah right like we just but dude if we can only podcast with the boys are good then who are we so sure we're front runners we're foxhole guys we're in here no matter what even even when like just we're getting air rated uh you know it's we're we're even when michigan's giving up 300 yards and eight eight uh yards per play against oregon in the uh in the first half you know yeah we're, we're there. We're there. We're there. All right. Well, I predict that I will drink a lot of Hale IPAs this weekend.

Maybe even some Trulies and Suncruisers. Absolutely. I also am going to head to Tormina's as well. Tormina's Pizza on West Stadium. You can get 15% off if you use code BB90. They have a 24-inch pizza. With that deal, with that coupon code, it is $23. It is the biggest pizza you've ever seen. Can I just talk about Tormina's?

You know, I live near Stadium, and so that's one of my favorite pizza spots. You know, I'm a big cottage-in guy. The cottage-in on Stadium, dude, I've waited a long time for some pizza there torminas i've never had that problem um they've got phenomenal pizza the cheese bread is phenomenal the garlic uh the garlic bread is phenomenal the uh the ranch really good ranch really good like pizza ranch yes so hit up torminas really good spot got a lot of different they have a really good buffalo chicken pizza they've got like a good kind of meat lovers pizza pepperoni cheese whatever and we always have it at the tailgate just you know whenever you're a little too tipsy brings you right back to life

it hits the spot after you know after you take a couple shot skis or you hit the bongzilla um and then you go straight to a greasy piece of pizza that soaks it all up. And we normally have enough to where it's like, yeah, you can, you can get in there. You know what I mean? Like I'll be walking around like, maybe I should get another slice over here. You know, just let me, let me get a little, little corner piece, little, little crust. Shout out to our guy as well. He brought like, he's like, no,

I'll bring a couple throughout the day so that they're always fresh. Like that is just unbelievable. Great customer service. They do it right over there. throughout the day so that they're always fresh like that is just unbelievable great customer service they do it right over there 100 so all right uh well for us you can follow us at blue by 90 on twitter instagram facebook at blue by 90 podcasts on youtube and blue by 90.com we appreciate you go blue go blue