Blue By Ninety - Michigan Weekly: Oklahoma Retest

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

Michigan's Week 1 escape raised plenty of questions. Oklahoma is about to start answering them.Welcome to Michigan Weekly, a weekly Michigan sports conversation on the Blue By 90 network with Trevor McCue and Nick Coston, aka Big Boutros.This week, Trevor and Nick briefly revisit what went wrong against Western Michigan before turning almost entirely toward Saturday's showdown with Oklahoma at the Big House.The matchup puts Bryce Underwood immediately back under the microscope. Kyle Whittingham made it clear that he expects improvement from his quarterback, while Underwood responded with confidence. Now Michigan gets a much different test against a top-10 opponent.Trevor and Nick break down the matchup, Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer, Michigan's turnover problem, what needs to change offensively, and the three things they'll be watching most closely Saturday.One game was a data point. Oklahoma is the retest.Michigan Weekly is a deeper weekly conversation about Michigan Football, basketball, recruiting and the biggest stories surrounding the Wolverines.〽️ Michigan Weekly🎙️ Trevor McCue & Nick Coston (Big Boutros)📅 New episodes every Wednesday📺 On the Blue By 90 network

All right, welcome in to Michigan Weekly here on Blue By 90 Podcast Network. I'm Trevor McHugh, joined as always by Nick Koston, aka Big Butros, looking like little bootros. Look at the disparity between you and I. I can lean forward. Sorry. You're good. We are here to hopefully cure your hangover and move on and start drinking the Kool-Aid again. maybe not.

But yeah, no way around it. Obviously, this is not obviously the show we had thought or envisioned having coming into this week and recapping Western. You all saw it. You all know what happened. I think that conversation has been beaten to a pulp. So we're still going to address what matters from that game as it relates to a Wednesday of Michigan football and looking ahead to Oklahoma coming into the big house in Michigan

now being a home. underdog in that game yeah look all around the country much blood and mucus has been spilled over what to say about this game we're not this is not going to be that pod trev very generous with this time as is allowing me to open so my recap of the western michigan game is going to be a completely unrelated story so everybody just crack open a cold okay this will have a point just bear with me. When I was in seventh grade, I had a history teacher named Mr. Davidson, John Davidson, may he rest in peace. Mr. Davidson had two specialties as a history teacher. One was pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and the other was the American Civil War. He was a very dedicated Civil War reenactor

in his spare time. But this wasn't his spare time. This was a class assignment. So one day, in our seventh grade history class, the first category got a term paper assignment. And we were to do a proper research paper. You know, seventh grade is sort of when like academia really starts, like expectations of an assignment go from, you know, crayon to like real work. And so the assignment here, the prompt was simple enough. It was basically do a research paper on the different, choose a theory of pre-Columbian European contact in the Americas and see it through.

So one famous example is Eric the Red, the Viking who discovered Greenland. did he make it any further west or any further south? So just take one of those threads and pull on it. Now, I loved history and I loved Mr. Davidson and I was a perfectly good student. But for whatever reason, this task just went in one ear and out the other. I just didn't. It was very clearly communicated that this was a serious project. He gave us two weeks to do it.

Those two weeks came and went. I blew it all off in the morning of. I took like a yellow piece of lined paper and I scribbled. in pencil, 60 words. Oh, I don't know, maybe it was a Portuguese. And class started. I took it up to the front of the class. And Mr. Davidson looked at this yellow piece of paper that I was handing him, like a turd.

And he was like, okay. 24 hours later comes back to me with a red pen, F equals. Not only F minus, F equals. It's like he wrote F minus and then asked himself, does F minus even exist? I noticed as I was turning it in, I looked to. around the classroom, I saw all my classmates with like laminated cover pages, table of contents, bibliographies. I went, uh-oh. Now, that could have been the end of the story, right? Mr. Davidson had no obligation to give me a second chance. Again, the nature and the structure

of the assignment was very clearly communicated to all of us. Everybody else understood the assignment. Everybody else turned in a proper paper. I just didn't. I just didn't do it. The synapse didn't fire. But in his grace and in his wisdom, he gave me a second chance. I had the opportunity to do the project completely from scratch, as if the first one never happened. And I got an A. And in that same red pen that we gave me the F equals, he said, Nick, this is comma, of course, comma, a vastly improved effort. So I tell that story because it's our prayer and our hope and what's possible. These are young people.

They've spent all summer working towards this thing. and the afternoon and the evening arrived where it was time to put, you know, your money where your mouth is, and the synapse just didn't fire. Like the game that everybody expected ourselves included, Kyle Whittingham included, Bryce Underwood included, it just didn't happen. And that could be for a million different reasons. And so all we can do now is look ahead to the next game and hope that Michigan football is operating under the sky of Mr. Davidson. and Michigan football does not waste the second chance that it got.

I was wondering where you were going and then I kind of figured it out. Got there in the end. Yeah, so what we have is Michigan turned in a yellow legal pad sheet. That's right. Which is especially bad. It would be one thing if it was, you know, a college rule. Yeah, no, I just tore it off my dad's desk or something. Yeah, yeah.

You had like two weeks to do it. America Vespucci. Like I said, I don't want to get into it too much with what are the excuses. Yeah, and the things that we've heard. For me, it's very similar to 24 with the Fresno game. And I spent the entire week going, they didn't take them seriously. And this isn't the offense. They were running vanilla.

And, you know, I've heard a lot of the same things, right? That they spent some of the week or a lot of the week potentially. doing game prep for Oklahoma and that, you know, they obviously came in and everybody was excited the night in the Mays jerseys and thought they could come in and do one thing and the other happened and whatever, because what I hate about those excuses, that's not good either. Correct. Right? Like the idea that we didn't take our opponent seriously and we weren't properly, like,

that's not good either. So whatever. The one thing we got right is that Lance Taylor is a superstar in the making. And so if you roll into Saturday night saying like, I'm just going to, I'm just going to urinate all over Lance Taylor. He's, remember, the other guy has a say. And look, I think, I think what Western Michigan did matters in this game. And I also think there are. you know, cutups film review is on the channel.

Toski and Darnell went live last night and they got into it. Bryce mentioned it today. There's five or six plays that are like potentially massive explosive touchdown type plays with mistakes that are correctable, not like this isn't a talent thing. It was just execution, plain and simple, right? Again, I don't like that. I don't like that you didn't have your execution right. Different thing.

There's, there's something huge on this sheet that. that I think is part of the problem, but I'll let you kind of talk about this slide a little bit. Yeah, I think that there's a head-to-head number that's so extraordinary, which is Western Michigan had a single drive that almost matched Michigan's time of possession for the entire game. Western Michigan had a single 14-minute drive to Michigan's 20 minutes for the entire game. They ran 20 plays on this drive.

Michigan ran 48 for the entire game. So the one thing that we got right, you know, I remember saying in the preview pod that Western Michigan is a great opponent for Michigan because they have a pulse. They have a great coach. They're going to test you. I didn't realize they test you that hard. But part of what I said philosophically, and I sort of stand by, I mean, the defense only allowed 12 points, four field goals, no touchdowns, despite the exhaustion, is that Western Michigan, their plan A is possession to the 99th percent time. And they ran their plan A. That's the thing. It's like Western Michigan wants the game to look like you're playing a service academy. Like Michigan played in 2019 against Army. Another insanely close shave that Michigan probably could have or should have lost.

But what I thought was the safety valve of playing. Western Michigan instead of a literal service academy is that Western Michigan runs its offense in a more conventional fashion. They don't have like 270 pound offensive linemen doing cut blocks the way that a triple option offense does. So I was half right and half wrong. I was half right that Western Michigan was going to have a great plan A under Lance Taylor. I just didn't know that they would execute it flawlessly. And Michigan like, you know, that one second aside paid the ultimate price. And I was shocked in the first half.

They threw it a ton. They did, yeah. I think he finished with, I think Brock finished with 21 attempts. It was almost like a West Coast offense to start with. Yeah, that was really surprising. That was, I would imagine sort of, you know, Mark D'Antonio also always used to have the, they called it the summer drive, right? that was I think Lance Taylor's like summer prep was okay we threw I think they threw maybe like

their attempts per game last season were like 13 or 14 it was right absolutely bottom of the country and they they had a a zig to the zag that Michigan was expecting now I will say before we bounce around too much I really do again out of all this mucus that's been blown out about this game I really have no, I have no criticism of the defense. I think that they. I've been surprised by some of the criticism of the defense. Me too. I think that they, if we're doing percentiles,

I think the defense probably put it up like an 80th percentile performance. Maybe you'd like to get a turnover. Michigan did get a turnover, but it wasn't granted because of a questionable flag on the same play, an interception by Jair Hill. So that one's fine. We'll get to the special team. Special teams was pretty good.

The punting was good. It may have saved our bacon. it was really all about this offense, man. The two offenses had plan A's, and Western Michigan gets an A for its plan A. Michigan gets an absolute F equals. Well, and I think there was opportunities, and this is the part I was going to circle.

We'll go to the next slide. There was opportunities for Michigan to get back on track. Right. And penalties. You and I talked about what I want to see, and we discussed all the possible ways Michigan could play and outcomes and whatever. And the one thing I wanted was a team that was clearly coached better. And when you have two, you know, formation penalties when you're trying to pull off the rhino

and you have too many men in the huddle and you have two unnecessary holdings, questionable or not, you didn't even need to do them, right? Four penalties that caused first downs to come back, you're looking at this time of possession. that's 12 extra plays at least assuming they don't get any first downs assuming they don't get into potential scoring range and kick field goal score touchdowns whatever and at that point this complete game completely changed the drive in the third quarter felt like okay michigan getting back into a groove yep and then again they killed themselves and whittingham made the right decision in my mind on fourth and five to trust his defense and punt that deep and then we see hey cam brim brown has got a good leg. Nice little wedge shot inside the tent. And that's when Western said, okay,

no more passing. We're going to our bread and butter. And damn near wasted a quarter worth of clock. And now Michigan has been playing with their food or whatever cliche you want to use, trying to get back on track. And they look up and they're losing in the fourth quarter. Yep. And now it's too late.

Right. So I thought penalties were just absolutely killer and prevented. Again, you could play this game 10 times. whatever outcomes. I think without those penalties, and we can talk about, obviously,

the bigger picture with Bryce and, you know, the reverting back and blah, blah, blah, but man, just absolute drive killers on offense. And your defense, again, on your note, why I don't have a problem with the defense.

Michigan had three and outs, five plays other than the bookended, the touchdown drive at the beginning, which was great. And obviously the Hail Mary drive, offense did absolutely nothing. So I'm fine with the defense. But yeah, about as bad of a win as you can possibly get.

Yeah, it's incredibly unnerving that the prevention of a more comfortable margin was the things that we never expected to see. Right? Yeah. The bringing in Kyle Whittingham was, as we've said, verbatim so many times, like the adults are in charge. The adults are back in the room. And what is proof of that?

Like, how do you measure that on the field? It's penalties. It's pre-snap formations. It's muffing punts. Like, the most extraordinary high leverage mistakes that were so reflective of the chaotic Sharon Moore era got worse. Now, again, the hope is that this was just freakish, right? I mean, it's not, it's not, it's not out of the realm of possibility that this is just an absolute gack.

And they, they survived on, you know, again, not to go on a tangent, but I think the other thing that's really unfortunate about this clock controversy is that the final play was, was very impressive. I mean, it was extremely impressive. The way JJ was lagging behind and got in front of the defenders, incredibly well executed. Did Michigan earn the win? No, we've talked, you know. We can, we can, till we're blue in the face, explain how much better Western Michigan looked than Michigan. Fine, we all understand that. But you got to play, and both the offense and the defense had a chance to execute an extremely high leverage plays.

It was a whole night of high leverage. And on the last one, Michigan executed it. It wasn't a tip drill. It wasn't a fluke. It was a laser to the front line of the end zone exactly where it needed to be high pointed. and JJ Buchanan did what he had done all night. So I think that some credit is earned for the play, not the night, not the game.

No. But, well, and to come back from already thinking you lost. Right. And go out there and run that play. No, I agree. And it'll never get the credit it deserves now because whatever. But, yeah, before you get into this chart, real quick, in terms of the optimism, there's two paths here.

This is Fresno State, 24, and it's indicative of reality. And that will be present against Oklahoma and as the schedule goes on. And then now we start to hope things improve as the year goes on, which honestly, I think with the staff was probably going to happen anyway, that we would have to see gradual improvement. Or it's Notre Dame who lost to Northern Illinois and ended up being national champion runner up that year. Now, Notre Dame beat Texas A&M the week before. and now we're hoping Michigan can do something similar but beat Oklahoma and kind of reset, right?

That's it. I lean towards that scenario because, one, I want it to be that. Just be honest, right, in optimism. And two, again, to my other point, this isn't a talent issue. And, you know, we were dealing with Kirk Campbell and Sharon Moore and a lot of first year situations with not many data points. I don't think the data points were wrong in terms of Whittingham and Jason Beck and Jim Harding and like, you know, J.J.B. Cannon, Andrew Marshall, Jordan Marshall, Sabian Heider. I refuse to believe all of those things are wrong and when there's a pattern of success. So I think they could still lose this game and make a drastic step forward. That's a different conversation.

But for now, I think there is potential that, man, they really just really drop the ball and getting ready for this game. But I mean, this, if you want to get into this chart, this is shocking. Yeah, there's not, so as you can see, there's not really a precedent. Like, we don't, we have, we have no ability to predict what's going to happen next because there's no Michigan team since Jim Harbaugh became the Michigan head coach that can really match this moment in terms of a one point miraculous win at home against a MAC opponent. Michigan has had two opening season losses in the last decade, but they were at Kyle Whittingham's Utah,

which ended up, I think, a ranked team, and at Notre Dame, which also ended up a ranked team. So the closest thing by far is last year's New Mexico. And I think as to your scenarios, you know, which one is it, is it last year, or is it the Notre Dame team that lost to Northern Illinois? I've made the playoff. I have a third scenario in mind, a third team to compare it to, and I think the gut reaction will be one of dissatisfaction,

but it actually wasn't that bad of a team. Basically, imagine if on September 1, 2007, Michigan lined up for the game-winning field goal against Appalachian State, it gets blocked and returned, and then it turns out, oh, there's a leaping penalty on App State. So Michigan's going to line up for the game. and they make it. Okay, so they're 1 and 0 by the skin of their teeth.

Everybody's upset. They wanted the historic upset. And then the next week, Oregon comes in and beats Michigan 39 to 7 on 650 yards of offense. Like, we have talked all summer about the difficulty of this schedule. That was always going to be true, no matter what happened in game one. Unfortunately for Michigan, they have put themselves in a position where they have to speed run. a callous and a source of resilience. They have seven days to find the steel in their spines that they need to be competitive with Oklahoma,

because they had a 41-point spread hosting U-TEP to open their season, and they covered it by 10 points. They beat them 51 to 0. Oklahoma is not coming into this game with the same number of questions or weaknesses or fresh doubts. So I think there's a scenario not to doom, let me reset the table here. This is going to be a really hard game, but that doesn't mean that the season is lost

because the same thing happened in 2007. That Michigan team started 0 and 2 and looked completely rudderless, and they rebounded. I think they had eight straight wins, including some tough ones on the road, and basically they were a Chad Henney throwing shoulder injury from winning the Big Ten.

The season finale there was at home against Ohio State. He couldn't throw. He was in the snow. It was 14-3 final. But ultimately, that team was able to turn the season around. So that's the comparison that's sticking in my mind right now. I would love for the Notre Dame scenario, obviously.

Watching the game, I was thinking about that, like, Abstate. I'm like, is this worse? Am I just living in a moment thinking that? And I decided it was because Abstate felt like, okay, at some point this is going to stop. Like, and Michigan will pull away and everything's going to be okay. And then even to the point, because of the blocked field goal, people forget about the deep ball of the Manningham that set up that field goal.

Right. And the relief of there we go. We're going to get out of this. Oh, my God. Okay. It took 59 minutes and 59 seconds. Right. Okay. But I also think, too, just in terms of where the program was and where we were as a fan base. Yep. People were already kind of done with Lloyd Carr at this point. Yep. And 2006 is the game of the century, one versus two. And Beau dies the night before.

And Michigan loses that game. And there was, even though national title hopes for 2007, it felt like this end of an era with Lloyd, right? Where people were just ready and done. And this was the opposite. This was the new era, the refresh button. Like, we want to see the newness, right? And the reason to believe again. So that part of it almost made it worse in my mind.

But, yeah, weird conversation. have in in the moment not what we expected yeah for sure so yeah three three things that we said we would watch and and how they inevitably came out yeah so god this is we're torturing ourselves we so let's go we wanted to track brys underwood's first 20 drop back the first drive was a success it was a touchdown now there's been some like joel clatt uh observation, even on the first drive, like he got away with stuff. I don't know. Again, we're medium ball knowers.

I don't know enough to comment on that. But we certainly know enough to comment on, you know, the backfoot heaves, the interception, the fumble. He had 15 turnover worthy plays all of last year. He had five in this game. PFF score of 30, the lowest of his career. This was a disaster. whose fault it was, I can't say, but this was a disaster.

The other thing we were looking for was the line of scrimmage by Q3. Because, again, the one thing that we got right was Lance Taylor and the style that he wanted to play. And even as an underdog, we knew that in that service academy style, he would want to impose his will. Did we let him? Well, again, on defense, not really. I'm going to give the defense a passing grade. They were on the field the entire game. on offense clear F.

We, excuse me, I don't know if we do we on this show. Michigan, I don't care, did not control the line of scrimmage whatsoever. I'd say that the defense held serve. The defense didn't dominate. The defense did its job. The offense did not do its job.

This was another F. Now, the one bright spot that we were looking for, hoping for special teams was good special teams on the coverage on the punting Andrew marsh as a returner did muff a punt I say you're being more kind than I would because of that that was because we had this whole debate about putting your wide receiver one back there and I said look if he's your sure handed and gives you the chance of explosive return you do it and then he must it and I'm like oh no you know I just know if that's an isolated thing on a good night I probably chalk it up as whatever but because it was just part of everything else where

I'm like, I need to see more. Like, it was frustrating. I don't know what to say about it. I don't. I don't know if. It's another benefit to the defense, though. Yeah, absolutely. Another short field.

I think that started on the on the plus 20 and they only got a field goal out of it, right? Yep. Yeah. Did they even score out of it? Did we move them backwards? I don't even remember now. Whatever. Yeah.

So, okay, if you want to give special teams like a B because of the muff, that's fine. You know what you're right. But at least the repeatable stuff. Yeah, I was impressed with the coverage. That's fair. I thought it was okay. Yeah, the Underwood thing, I know people are picking on the opening drive now, too, but I was ecstatic with the opening drive.

And the thing, too, is like the revision now of, oh, none of it was true. No, like all the progress, the mechanics, all of that can still be true. Two things can be true, right? I said the one thing we don't know when something bad happens when the pressure comes or whatever are we going to go with what we've learned and the progress and the new muscle memory

or we're going to revert back and that first scramble out where he forces the ball into Marsh and it's only not an interception because it's tipped from then on it was like bailing out of clean pockets locking on to receivers throwing into multiple coverage. Without getting into it too much,

Western figured out, like, we don't really need to create pressure once he's rattled. So Michigan's coming out with seven, eight, nine people on the line. And Western's bringing four and either causing enough disruption or actual pressure. He's only pressured five times, but he was one for five on those pressures. The one completion was the Hail Mary. Right. So the flip of that is, I have seven. defenders on two or three targets. Right.

So Michigan's an ability to run the ball in those scenarios. I thought they were going outside. It's so funny. I feel like for years and years, it's been like, stop running up the middle, only the A gap. And in this game, I'm like, oh, my God, run it up the middle. Right.

Like go north-south with Jordan Marshall. What do we do it? You know, so Bryce is dropping back and feeling rattled and looking for two receivers among seven defenders. and I thought that first drive, his average depth of target was like four yards. Quick, easy throws, get them comfortable. They had 44 yards of yards after catch on those five targets. Perfect.

Get into playmakers, let them make you plays, run the ball in a shorter situation. Great. Don't even give yourself enough time to get nervous. Right. Snap. The rest of the game, his depth of target, 19 yards. remember the days of a JJ where his depth of target was like 10 or less and we're like, oh my gosh,

go downfield. So he's just constantly going downfield off the back foot. The big red flag, I think, where I set back and just, ugh, the play to Hider. Yep. The little screen pass that.

Yeah. Again, he has plenty of time to get set and just deliver a nice, easy throw. There's literally one defender and it's about to be blocked, but I think it was Channing Goodwin. Hider's scoring a time. touchdown on that play.

Yeah. A completely self-destruction of mechanics. Right. So that was obviously the, oh my gosh, it all came back. And that was the really hard part because now it's never been about his talent or his technical skills and all of the progress made with mechanics and the coaching and everything invested. If mentally the switch is just going to go off in a negative way every game and that can't

be fixed, then there is no fixing. That's, that's the worst part of this is like, okay, right. Is there an unflippable switch here or whatever? I don't know how I want to phrase that. So you get where I'm going. I do. You know, this is all very bleak and an audience member might say, well, like, well, how do we fix it? So I would remind everyone that in the summer, Jason Beck and Kyle Whittingham both publicly pledged that if the passing offense is not pulling its weight, they're going to run Bryce Underwood. So this is, this will be a week from today will be a really interesting opportunity to revisit this conversation because if we emerge from Oklahoma at Michigan and it's another,

you know, 28 dropbacks, 28 call passes and one or two called runs for Bryce Underwood, then we're going to have a fresh, skeptical conversation about what we hear and what we believe from the staff. This is the opportunity to get everyone right, including Bryce Underwood. There are, you know, again, he's 6.5, 2.30. You've made this pledge. This is the time to take a page out of the team that nearly beat you on Saturday, Western Michigan and run your quarterback. It's not a snap downfield read, how is my pocket? It's a completely different mental load on the player.

You need to get running success if this offense is going to do anything. This is what I'm looking for against Oklahoma is, does everyone have the conviction of their summer pledge to do what you got to do to get yards out of your offense. Yeah. I, and again, the first drive, the opening drive was not good, Trev. It says the expected points added on that drive was plus 6.7. So literally almost. It was meant to end in a touchdown.

Yeah. Almost a perfect drive. Yeah. So you go five for five with that type of yak and execute a touchdown from the red zone. That's about as good as it gets. This will sound like I'm being. That's what made the contrast so frustrating. That's how good that drive was. I strongly agree.

This will sound like I'm being glib, but I'm not. This is a sincere thought. So much went wrong on Saturday. I don't, there's not enough gas in the tank to pick apart the one successful drive. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, 100%. So. the tapes

okay um let's see here so we're here it's it's in the past it is what it is shout of Josh Henski reference Oklahoma at Michigan who is unranked because

again this game is being treated like a loss I think it you know I think the the Mac knew there was no chance this game was getting overturned it was the PR argument because they know Western's playoff hopes are potentially hinging on this. I think our nine and three scenario we've discussed is gone because a nine and three

Michigan with wins over with a win over Oklahoma or one of the other three top we treated that the way this Western game is going to be treated is crazy. Yeah. They have to win this game. And ideally not dominant in the sense of score because like you're not blowing out Oklahoma, but a game that just resets the way you look at this team because. narrative is reality when it comes to college football. Obviously, it's a long season.

You can move past it. But this was going to be a big test anyway. And now to try and get narrative back, it's just massive. You know how confident I was coming into this game. So it's really tough for me now because it's just reset how I felt for like the last six weeks. Yeah. I thought Oklahoma looked really good in week one. Sorry.

Pause. No, yeah, me. I get it. You can only say so much, Trevor, I respect that. I'm not worried about losing my access. My bills don't count on it so I can be truthful. You tell him, Flint. I don't know why people have this crazy thing all the time about, oh, like, I can say what I want.

Like, this isn't an access thing. We're here to have conversations. We've said negative things before. like you can call me out on a lot of stuff that's not going to be the one right like it was a good drive i'm sorry you don't agree i don't know what to say anyway go ahead yeah i just i just think in very broad strokes i think oklahoma sort of revealed itself to be the better team i think that they didn't overlook their opening opponent the way the Michigan did. I think that whatever excuse you'd love to make about looking past Western and straight

to Oklahoma, like, again, the other guy gets a say, and Oklahoma could have had a slow start against Utep, and they simply didn't. So I think the stakes here are really extraordinary. and probably unfair. I think that this is going to be a tough Saturday. But Kyle Whittingham has been a head coach for, what is it, 21, 22 years. Like, this is why you hired him specifically. This is not Sharon Moore in over his head after a promotion he shouldn't have gotten.

This is in a vacuum. or hypothetically, like this is, this should be the best suited man to tackle this challenge. And, you know, Rod Moore told the press today that he and the captains called a players-only meeting on Sunday. It's some sort of, that's got to be a record for fastest players-only meeting. I posted it on the board on Sunday when it happened. And I think I just was like, oh, yeah, they would play it. And then I thought, I'm like, oh, my God. But hey, they said it went well and response was good.

But yeah. So I think you and I are like a million people right now, which is absolutely clenched, absolutely holding breath. There is no reliable way to predict which Michigan is going to take the field against Oklahoma. If you told me, if you said I'm a supernatural being from the future, and Oklahoma beat Michigan 77 to zero. I'd say, okay, sure, I believe that. If you told me that Michigan beat Oklahoma 49 to zero,

I think for somebody I'd be like, I kind of buy that too. Like, there's no way, there's just no way that the Michigan team that played Western Michigan is the real team. I have such a hard time accepting that. Yeah. But I don't know. We're all just going to find out together. I mean, how do we fill the next 35 minutes of this conversation?

I don't know. Oklahoma's got a great 50-year quarterback. You know, they might have some trouble running. I think if there's maybe a unit or a head-to-head matchup that's Advantage Michigan, it might be Michigan's run defense versus Oklahoma's run offense. So if you can build the house out of that and give yourself a chance, let's find out. I think this is I've talked about this a little bit with Dennis too

Oregon didn't look fully prepared Oregon was in a similar situation or actually they were trailing Boise they were 27 point favorites I believe and then end up winning late and everyone's like oh I trust Oklahoma you know I trust Oregon they're going to be fine about one

like I get the point but you know why because Dante Moore had a career day right I think when your offense plays at a level and you win with a decent score, people are way more willing to be like, oh, you'll figure it out. It was, you know, first game, blah, blah, blah, blah, when your offense can't do anything and you win the, you know what I mean? Like if this, if Michigan had won 34 to 27, it'd be a completely different conversation.

Oh, yeah, I totally agree. In fact, I had that scenario in my mind. It's a good reminder. is like if this was a shootout and the Michigan linebackers were discombobulated all night, I think everyone would be like, well, we could have told you that would happen. You know, this is an amazing rush offense with crazy run fits. Like, okay, let's have some shootouts this year. Okay.

But nobody was prepared for this. Yeah. So, enriate, so if we're willing to hope, believe, think like this isn't, Fresno. Like you said, even New Mexico last year, where I keep bringing up Fresno just because that felt like that carried longer into the year because of the quarterback issue.

Yeah, I agree. You know what I mean? But I get with what you're saying with New Mexico because Ack is put on a pedestal. And I'm not saying that in a bad way. He's a good coach. We both agree. He's probably the head coach at Wisconsin next year.

And we're tracking New Mexico and how well they're doing for the rest of the year. Like, see, they were a good team. Right. Right. Um, and then actually, as we've pointed out on other shows too, like there was progress with Bryce in the two games without more. And then even after that, it wasn't until the Michigan State game and then obviously November. Right.

So all my reasons for being confident in this game are still true in the sense of the coaching staff changes and upgrades. The fact that as bad as this game felt last year because of the turnover margin. Oklahoma only won by 11 and it felt like Michigan was still there potentially night road game Bryce's second game ever home game at Michigan et cetera but that's what makes like the penalties from last week so brutal for me and and losing the turnover margin by and right right and Bryce reverting back like we've talked about because that does pull the yeah you know I I do think the offensive line is is better and will be better. The rotation at guard I did not like. And I'll bring it up because, you know, I'll admit when I was wrong. Something I was told, you know,

I said I knew something when we talked about it last week. Something I was told about the offensive line guard rotation turned out not to be true. And they did heavily rotate. In fact, it wasn't until the fourth quarter that the exact same offensive line formation was used for consecutive drives. that bothered me

and then I know freaks me out yeah well yeah because here's the immediate thing if Norton and a phobia you're battling a little bit at right guard then you're you're still maybe unsure there

the fact of phobia also moved to left guard at times he spent half of snaps 11 left half at right so we saw a phobia and link Norton in link Norton and a phobia three different formations

that screams you don't have any guards or know who your guards are, right? Like that's, that's really concerning. And that's probably, I think we joked about it. Is that the first lie that we've, you know, caught this staff in? Babelow is, you know, not going to be in this game. I still don't know what his long-term look is, obviously him healthy. Maybe that results in something else. I don't know.

Sprag is a beast in run blocking. I know the guys talked about it on a cut-ups, how they did a little tackle swap when they got into the red zone on that touchdown drive and Blake actually moved to right and Andrew to left. What does that mean? You know, and is Andrew at, is there some weird world where it's Babs at left and Fraser it right and sprag at right guard down the road? I don't know. I'd like to think Avery Gatch is a guy that probably got more run. The rhino thing is so interesting because Witt acknowledged maybe there was too much of it. it's funny i i get why people hate the formation but ironically beagle and hoffman more so in the second

half than the first half actually played pretty well yeah it wasn't necessarily their fault now there's mistakes in terms of you know going in on a fraser's guys and whatever but yeah i mean it it felt like a massively failed game plan um what did you say we talked about one thing we loved about urban the 11 best players yeah yeah so this part i agree with and it's not me bag on beagle it's just no right this okay thank you for reminding me michigan in in its 20 minutes of offensive time of possession right michigan ran 48 offensive plays the whole game. 48 snaps.

31 of them, or 51 snaps, 48 plays. On 31 of them, Manu Beagle, is it Beagle or Beagle? It's Beagle, I think. Manu Beagle. It's on the field as the rhino. So that, do not disturb on. I'm so sorry. That snap share, that percentage of offensive snaps, that's essentially like RB1 or receiver

one. That's a full-time offensive starter. You're telling me that Manu Beagle is one of your 11 best offensive players. That's simply not possibly the case. It's not that can't be correct. I understand if the Rhino position is a fundamental part of your offense. I'm not going to tell, again, medium ball knowers. We're not going to tell Jason Beck how to learn an offense.

but something like recruiting coverage, tracking signings, that's become a fairly standardized math. That's pretty trackable. And you have a deeper receiver room than the program has had in 20 years. You have not one, not two, but three running backs that are all starter caliber. Bryson Kuzdahl was like a, 500 yard back last year as RB3. You have a super duper five star in Savian Heider and a returning starter in Jordan Marshall.

And you are distributing snaps that have to go to those guys, have to. Right. To a guy who has just taken on this position, switched sides of the ball. It was a defensive lineman last year, has massively changed his physical body composition, right? I mean, I think he dropped 40 pounds or something, right, to play this position. He's supposed to be an interior defensive lineman. Now he's like a pulling guard.

And didn't even play the sport of American football until a couple years ago. I just, I mean, it's a red flag. Yeah, and I get, you know, we talked about, I think people saw Rhino and just assumed

6-0 linemen. So, yeah, thought it, thought it would be gotch, who's like a high four star, thought it would be Babelola. That's why when we started talking about how they like it being a more athletic position, and we saw, I mean, he went into motion even on the Hill Mary. He might be the right guy for it, but I'm just at the point where it's like, I would rather if he's so good at, because he was moving dudes, especially in the second half, then make him play guard.

Yeah, yeah. And give me Zach Marshall, who was supposed to be your Titan one and a captain leader, who got what, eight snaps or something. And you know, and everybody else who knows me at all. Five snaps. The president of the Jalen Hoffman fan club. I love Jalen Hoffman. But I was just surprised how much those two were on the field.

And that meant it wasn't Mola. It wasn't Johnson. It wasn't French. Did Hoffman get like nine targets? It was less than that, but he was second to J.J.B. Cannon. Oh, my God. Yeah.

So, yeah. The interception was the out. to him, which that's another. Not Bryce's fault. I mean, maybe physically, but I think that's been beaten to death as well. It's a terrible call. Everybody has pointed out what an indefensible play call that was. Yeah, because it does absolutely nothing for you.

So is it down to five and a half now the line? Because it was six and a half at open, right? Yep, yep. So what an interesting thing that is. Yeah, I guess I'm not terribly surprised. So just for everybody's context, right? So in the summer, and I guess up until whatever, kickoff this past Saturday.

Michigan was a home 1.5 favorite versus Oklahoma. I thought it reflected a lot of faith in Michigan, the same way that the 28 point spread against what we both knew was a great Western Michigan program with a great coach. We both said, wow, that's really respectful to Michigan. Look where it got us. So Michigan opened as a 1.5 home favorite. And with, you know, pretty remarkable. remarkable context. Neither team losing a starter to injury, neither team losing their game,

flipped a whole touchdown. So it was Oklahoma six and a half this morning. It's crept back a little bit. You see that the prediction market is about two-thirds, Oklahoma. That has also crept back. So like nine o'clock Pacific this morning, it was like 80-20. So I do think there's a little bit of calming down. I think that there was just such an uproar in the immediate aftermath that everybody scrambled to throw a million bucks on Oklahoma by 50 points.

And that's, that dust is starting to settle. But the line still flipped a lot. I mean, that's a crazy flip. That's usually... The full touchdown. Yeah, that's the kind of thing that would happen if like both your... starting and backup quarterbacks both broke their legs, you know?

Yeah. That's a really good point. It'd be one thing if that was just the straight open, but we know preseason movement. It's pretty drastic, right? Yeah. And so at that point, like, I can't go to 11 or something insane like that because I think people know Vegas wants to make money, right?

So they position these appropriately for that. I think in our scenario, the good side, like that this isn't Fresno and indicative of a season long problem and more of a hiccup of ill-prepared and poor execution that can be not dramatically 180 fixed but improved coming into this week. And a lot of the pauses we hope we would see would still be there without a strong week one. to also build off of. I'd say this is probably how I feel that like a Michigan being closer to what we expected is still

not going to, like they're not going to come in and blow the doors off, right? So being a less than touchdown dog does seem appropriate. And a potential score. And again, it's a potential score that if Michigan

plays well and Oklahoma is just, the better team and it's not the penalties and and bryce seems to have shown the positive steps that like there's some positive like maybe a path we can talk ourselves into like growth blah blah but to your average fans point if they lose by 30 or maybe even the points don't matter if it feels like last year felt then it's a very dark cloud around the rest of this year yeah sorry wit welcome to michigan but like you got you'd better win this game or it's so much pressure for a week two game it's so much pressure so the the in the in the live comments your average fan if they lose by 30 what happens

I don't know this you know maybe like four and eight and we don't see what next year I don't know we've talked about this already too like and I think it was very evident post game like Bryce is under more pressure than winningham is right like we we knew that anyway in terms of like a poor season but again that was more of strides everywhere Bryce doesn't flip the switch but it's like okay like yeah right um so so now I think it is a little bit of both um I still don't think there's a scenario where is where Bryce is, you know, or um, Witt is fired.

The, the Tommy car conversation. I know this isn't on there and I'm getting off track so I can ignore it if you want. No, go ahead. Oops, wrong one. Tony Elliott. Tony Elliott was on the verge of being fired at Virginia not that long ago either. So that's kind of funny that he's like become a hot name again.

You're very pro Tony Elliott. You were pre-Sherone or, you know? Well, yeah, so Tony Elliott has been a roller coaster. Yeah. When I forget the timeline, if it was to replace Gattis as Michigan's offensive quarter, but there was a time, it was like 2019 or something. Maybe that's what it was. I remember you being very pro, Tony. Yeah, five, six years ago, I was super pro Tony Elliott.

And then it looked like I was wrong because he got off to a terrible start of Virginia. But now I'm right again. So yay for the long tale of Tony Elliott. I like Virginia being good for some reason. I think it could be the blue and orange. I love the blue and orange combo. Yeah, it's a fun program when they're good. Whenever Virginia is good, they tend to be good in really sort of exciting ways.

Sort of like pinball offense good. Yeah, yeah. It's not often that like Virginia wins 11 games with, you know, stifling defense. It's usually more fun than that. So the conversation around the Tommy car thing is interesting to me for a couple of reasons. One, you bench Bryce. That's the end of Bryce permanently. There's forever.

Yeah, you're not coming back from that. So that's a decision you're making. That's the end of Bryce. You would never see Michigan. You'd never seen Bryce at Michigan ever again. But I also feel like you're saying, hey, starting Bryce Underwood as a freshman was a mistake and potentially has broken him. So our answer is another. freshman who is physically right not where Bryce was in terms of being ready and I don't I know the

rankings don't really mean anything right but like because I've said on other shows too like I was very pro-tomacar when he's still committed to Miami I had a high school coach tell me he didn't understand why Tommy wasn't being recruited by bigger schools and that when they played saline he's I'm not telling you CJ is going to be or Tommy's going to be better than CJ but I'm telling you at the time we played them i thought tommy was better right so i was super intrigued when they were able to flip them obviously brady's injury was a big part of that they needed another arm in the room but like are you potentially ruining whatever future Tommy right was in that situation you know or how far i i felt like witt's comments were more about motivating brice

than they were saying look i think we're going to bench him soon or that we would be super willing to not that he wouldn't i'm not saying that but i just i struggle to think they're entertaining that because the other options aren't great either and again there's nothing to do with tommy i'm just talking about a freshman quarterback coming in so i don't know kyle wittingham personally i don't i can't speak to his short medium or long term position for his career at michigan do you know what i mean like i like i could kind of that yeah yeah i yeah i've heard it too i um We all thought when he took this job that the idea was he wants to prove that he's got gas left in his tank. He wants to win a national title.

And you have a window to do that. Like you want to do that with sophomore junior Bryce Underwood, five-star talent. Like you're coming to upgrade your talent on paper and you're bringing these elite young coordinators, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so look, if this team craters and if Bryce Underwood craters. Michigan is going to pay a heavy price on the recruiting trail. This is a recruiting profile that cannot bust, has never busted, right? The only comparisons to Bryce Underwood as a high school prospect were Vince Young and Trevor Lawrence to college football Hall of Famers.

And when you're in that stratosphere, regardless of position, the bust rate is exceptionally low. So even if you have faith in Tommy Carr as the future of the program, however long you plan to be here, you owe it to your program. You owe it to Tommy and like for the sake of his development not to not to not to create a third crater if that makes sense. Now, again, this is the most bleak scenario, right? It's like, well, if everything goes wrong, then obviously nobody's going to have a good time. But my only comment on the Tommy Carr situation is if Bryce Underwood is healthy, you can't, you cannot bench him for Tommy Carr. Like, sorry, but you can't. If you had, if Tommy Carr were 240 pounds, different story.

If Braden Fowler, Nicolosi had an incredible camp, and he was the clear QB2, that's also a different story. But if you're only talking about benching a healthy Bryce because he's bad for a 170-pound three-star true freshman, it's not an option. Sorry, it's not. And if you do that, then you're only telling the whole world that those 20 years at Utah were completely in a bubble. And you really. Well, and it's somebody's a fan of Tommy Carr and does think he potentially has a future as a starting quarterback here. I, what that does to him to be the guy that they're putting in place of a healthy Bryce too, right?

There's, yeah. There's so many dynamics at play that aren't football and it's just reality. This is going to sound bleak, but I swear to you, this is like medium case. If this season really hurts. win loss. You just have to bite down and get through it and let Bryce make the best decision

for himself. And next year, clean slate, red shirt freshman Tommy Carr with a year of strength and conditioning under his belt. If the whole premise of Tommy Carr is that like he reads properly,

he processes properly, great, that's not going anywhere. That's not going to diminish. But let his body catch up, let the schedule take care of itself. Let's cross that bridge when we get to it. But, but this was supposed to be Kyle Whittingham coming in to essentially a peak roster. He brought Utah upper class, but he brought J.J. Buchanan, Smith Snowden.

He brought Jason Beck and Jay Hill and Micah Simon and all these guys. Detmer. Like, this team was supposed to, even though we've talked about the difficulty of the schedule, this team was supposed to look proper out of the gate. And like Mr. Davidson gave me a second chance. You've got a second chance here. You've got to perform well against Oklahoma. But failing that, if this season goes off the rails, win loss-wise, you have a duty to a player like Tommy Carr and to Bryce as well, frankly.

A quarterback room is, it has to be managed. Let's see what this says. all it takes is Tommy gets in a quarterback then starts having freshmen struggles like any other freshmen and the Michigan fans who wanted him to start would start yeah exactly you it's your nobody's more popular than the backup quarterback

it is your yeah then they'd start calling for Braden Fowler Nicolosi it's your duty as the head of the program to protect your players and if you bench Bryce Underwood for Tommy Carr simply on the basis of poor play you're protecting neither player that's my take

that's a good button. I appreciate that. Yeah. And I'm not making these excuses for, for Bryce this time, but like part of why we were so optimistic for improvement from the team and Bryce as a whole was a line play. And the running game was obviously going to be elite

with Marshall and Hider and the weapons that have been added at receiver. And we see a game plan where there is no run game. The line isn't as physical as we expected on those great weapons. aren't consistently on the field. So again, I'm not saying, like, I saw the mechanic struggle still there. And I saw the body language and all of that. That's why I'm like, I'm not trying to make a cop out for Bryce. But like, it is frustrating.

If everything else had been the improvement we expected, but only Bryce reverted back, it'd be even more frustrating, maybe, or it'd be more direct. But it's like, we're still talking about the same things as the offense as a whole, too. right so i guess my point with that is Tommy car is not fixing all those other issues either right right so um I I apologize Nick I've gone completely no this was that's totally fine this is I think what this was this is productive I think because there's in the off season we already sort of previewed Oklahoma just like very brass tacks position by position

the Western Michigan game reset the whole conversation. Like whatever we thought we knew or whatever we thought we could preview is back to being an open question. So I don't really think this has gone off topic. It's that the Michigan team has given us a new topic that we didn't think was going to be on the table on Wednesday, September 9th.

You know, I thought, I thought that a bad Western Michigan game would be like 21 to 10. You know, a severe underperformance against the spread. You let the Western offense dictate too much pace. You only get three. Like my worst case didn't come to fruition. It was so much worse than anybody anticipated. And so, you know, Michigan doesn't have any guards.

How is that going to work against Oklahoma? Bryce Underwood, all this offseason work with Jordan Palmer, with the new staff, Beck, Detmer. What happened? So it's sort of back to week zero. And, yeah, in a football perspective, there's, from the Oklahoma game, there's going to be, we're going to look for three things again, the way that we look for against Western, Bryce's first 20 dropbacks, F, line of scrimmage by Q3, F, F, and special teams good coverage with the with the marshmallow so this week turnovers

Michigan was minus three against Western it was a complete disaster it probably prevented it probably prevented what would have otherwise been my worst case scenario right I think without those covers it probably would have been like 24 to 9 not a big deal Oklahoma was super clean against UTEP they turned them over and they didn't get any of themselves

so obviously something to watch for So last year, Oklahoma could not run the ball. So they just spammed Materer runs against Michigan. The first half, I think the first half was 14-7, right? Striking distance, ugly game. Second half, they basically completely unleashed Mateer. They knew they couldn't run with their running backs. So they just ran him.

It worked. They scrambled him. They called design runs. Is that going to work again? Let's find out. And then finally, we saw Jason Beck's unique offensive construction against Western. He didn't deviate from it in-game. The rhino was the rhino all game long.

So there's going to be a couple of guys who are back that were not available for week one. So we noted that Zach Marshall only got five snaps. if Hogan Hanson is back, does that change? Does that, does that, does more tight ends change something? We, we saw so much Rhino because we didn't have our sort of designated extra tackle, six off offensive linemen, Adjubabalola. He'll be available. What is that, what difference is that going to make?

We have to find out. Yeah, and unfortunately, I don't think he will be. Okay. Yeah, I don't expect Babelah will be available. So the question is still, what do they do there? Do we see steadiness from the guards? Do we see?

Because even Avery Gatch was playing, I can't remember what number they had him in when he came out there. I think was it 89 maybe? But he took some extra snaps in that technically, you know, in line, tight end role too. So,

yeah, how that works. The Meadows thing is such an extra interesting piece too, because we've talked good about the defense. So there wasn't a lot of, spotlight on that. But like Dom Nichols was the hype translating that I absolutely expected to be. He was fantastic.

JHD obviously wasn't fully healthy, but when he was out there, doesn't always show up in the stat sheet, but he was doing great. And then Camp Brandt played heavily in rotation. And Nate Marshall got some, a few reps and got at least a half sack credited to him. But great play his first play out there. But talking about six, seven, eight guys on this defensive end. spot that could potentially play and we don't see lu guard at a pay we don't you know meadows is out obviously and tarich bony and benny patterson and maybe that's because this game was closer right obviously blowout

win we're going to see naturally bench guys put in but i was curious what the rotation would be and even a normal game and they did not go deep on defense even linebacker like staling and bowls were clear starters right and then beyond that chase taylor played a little bit and then it wasn't nob it was Moa who played the LB4. And he was used as like a Sam linebacker in Hills 335 sets. And he lined up primarily as an edge player. I think it was like 85% of the time he was out there as a linebacker. So that that was interesting too.

So yeah, the reinforcements piece beyond that, just the rotations in general is going to be very interesting to watch. Yeah. I thought if there was, we didn't learn anything from Western. If there was one unambiguously pleasant surprise, it was the linebackers, deeper and better than we expected. Yeah. I, Bowles is a guy, I think you've heard me buy into just from the simple fact of, again, a fourth-year player who looked good in his role of the year last year, the two years he spent at Georgia, his dad's a football coach, like blah, blah, blah, blah. I felt like Bowles was going to be good.

However, that speed burst he had on that one tackle for loss. I was like, ooh, yeah, impressive. That'll play. And Staling is one of those just really high floor guys, you know, just reliable. And that's the funny thing. Like, I know everybody wants to pretend like everything we talked about this fall isn't true, but the vast majority of it was, right? Smith Snowden is a dog.

Jare Hill is taking a step. Snowden did play outside corners. Zee, Barry did move to nickel. Barry looked good in his spots. Chris Bracey looked like a. smartest. I don't like using the word smarter. I don't know what the right term is, but an upgraded Brandon Hillman. Right.

Rod Moore played a decent amount, healthy. Like, good to see like that. And then on the interior, Trey Pierce was really good. Strong and Bull Rush. Good, good get off in first step. Consumed double teams. Edda looks way more comfortable in his role. Jonah, the transfer from Utah looked really good.

as well. And another thing I thought or hoped and had heard, they did play some of the defensive ends at defensive tackle, right? We saw JHD get some reps there. So they are going to be willing to move some of those guys into the interior to maybe offset some of the depth issues at DT. Can those guys prevent John Mateer from turning bad plays into extended and good plays? And those, the third and longs were brutal last year too. And there was some of that. I get there was a third and 14 on the 20 play drive. Yeah. They converted on a slant.

I think that's what everybody in the stadium are watching on TV first escaped their lips. Like Michigan's going to lose. Yeah. Yeah, that was like, oh, man, this is, yeah. Well, and before they gave up four straight third downs on that. And before that, they had been much better. The short one. Yeah.

So it's like, ugh. And they get away with, I don't know how the face mask and Shmary Earls didn't get called. that should have extended that drive too. Like, when he first grabbed the face mask and like, oh, maybe he'll let go of it. And then he turned it to it. And I'm like, oh, no. Was that the reason for the Nichols-Earls sideline fight? I've gotten no clarity on the fight.

Okay. I would, yeah. Probably. And sideline is being generous. It was like at the numbers. Yeah. True. I'm hearing this week that Dom Nichols is a psycho.

he i get he's the one which is probably what you want out of an edge yeah he's the one player i mean i think with when you can't find any of my old articles anymore but i think it was february that i wrote dom nichols was getting hype you know what i mean so like and he was consistent throughout the off season right he's a baller the j jay buchanan hype was legitimate fraser and sprag taking a step was legitimate jake garnera looking good at center legitimate again, that's why I'm optimistic the execution failure that there is this path. But again, why did you have that failure at Western? Why were you taking Western lightly?

Why weren't you trying to come out and make a great point? And, you know, why did you see more focused on the fun lights in the tunnel and wearing May's jerseys and all of that stuff than just coming out and executing? And maybe that first drive made them feel like everything was going to be easy, too. I saw that this thing. I saw that theory. I'm curious about that theory where basically if your first drive, everything goes well, does that almost affect you in the wrong way?

Like, oh, this game's going to be easy. We'll never know. I thought it was an interesting theory. But it's one of those multiverse things. If Michigan goes, you know, five plays and then it has to punt on the first drive, do they end up scoring 30 points instead? Yeah. Because they're more focused.

Hopefully we find out against Oklahoma. Yeah. I'm going to warn you. I don't have a score prediction, so I didn't even have the next slide figured out. That's fine. Because I honestly, I have no idea what I would pick right now. Is it time to pick? No.

Well, I mean, that's where we're at, but I don't know what I would put. But I think. Real quick, though, sorry. just on that mental piece. Yeah. I think I've talked about this with, you know, some of the local teams I cover at a high school level. And that's obviously not the same as a college player

who is essentially a professional now with what they're paid, right? I don't mean that in a bad way. I just mean, like, if we're being honest, they're professionals at this point, right? When you have a team that has a history of losing or like this negativity or whatever, that's out there, it's really hard to get rid of that. And you can or you can think you did it until moments arise where they have to choose,

right? And it's a lot easier to find a reason to believe the bad. And something that just really stuck out to me in this game was all of the players that we came out going, you know who played great? We're all players, not all, but generally, we're all players that were either new to the team or new starters. So on offense, who are you shouting out? J.J. B.

Cannon and that's about it, right? On defense, it's J.H.D. Dom Nichols, new as a starter. Trey Pierce, new as a starter. N. O.etta, new as a starter. Staling, new to the team. Bulls, new as a starter. Smith Snowden, new to the team.

Chris Bracey, new to the team. I'd argue Jair Hill and Zeke Berry, if you want to include them, or the two returning starters that you came away thinking played really well and matched the hype that you had heard. from the off season. So does that mean maybe you still got to work out some of the heavy negative burden that is from last year

that, you know, and the coaching staff and everything that happened because these returning starters as soon as things got rough? Because when you hear about the player meeting and Rod Moore talked about, they thought they were soft. I know that word can be so vague.

We talked about this on. Yeah, but the players used it themselves. I agree. I thought that was. fully noteworthy yes yeah so yeah we'll see um i'll put up the screen because there's more on it than the score prediction but yeah i i genuinely have no i don't even know who i would pick i'd pick oklahoma to win at this point because it it's i can't go all homer but also i've been so big on michigan all off season but yeah i mean i think even if improvements are made from week one to

and they always talk about week one to two is the biggest jump and, you know, all of these things. And maybe Michigan takes this saga that's happened with the Western game and turns that into a positive. And maybe Oklahoma's coming in thinking this game's going to be easier than they did previously. And, you know, who knows what the non-tangible impacts could be. But if Michigan won, I'd be pleasantly surprised. So I just, I would struggle to pick them, I guess. Want them to, obviously. I think that Michigan is going to look a lot better than it did in week one.

I don't, I hope that's not a homer take. I think that that's, if that's not the case, if they look the same or worse, then the program is done. Like, just wait 10 weeks to turn the program over again. Is the improvement going to be enough to beat a top 10? 10 team. I'm going to say no. I'm going to, but I'm going to say a very close game. I'm going to say Oklahoma 20 to 17.

Okay. I don't know. I mean, there's a world where if there aren't significant strides offensively, Michigan doesn't score. Yes. Yes. I do think there's a shutout scenario. And again, there were five.

to six explosives left on the table that any one of those become scores right and those play calls and those opportunities can exist and simple block assignment it was a lot of missed assignment talk this week a lot of missed assignment talk you know i think that uh a realistic scenario that would really upset me is terrible oklahoma game and then U-TEP, as we talked about in the summer, UTEP is apparently so awful that, you know, you or I could play quarterback and beat U-TEP. So, you know, Bryce gets, you maybe, you.

Bryce gets, you know, four drives or the first half or whatever, and then against the U-Tep third stringers, Tommy Carr goes, you know, nine for nine with two touchdowns. not that I want Tommy Carr to play poorly. I just, I can very easily see, like, a big goose egg from the Michigan offense against Oklahoma. And then the car unit rips apart U-TEP and we're off to the races with that conversation.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. God. I want to go on record. I want to go on record. As long as Bryce Underwood is healthy, you have. have to start him for his own sake, for the sake of your team and your program, and for the sake of the development of Tommy Carr. It's not fair to put the rescue of the season in the

hands of Tommy Carr. Agreed. If Bryce is, if Bryce's performance is so galactically bad that he's just broken, you have to invent an injury for him. But you cannot, if you're a response, head coach, you can't just bench him and allow the country to sort of bay for his blood. He has to lose his teammates. Yeah, sure.

I'm just saying there has to be an injury with or without quotes in order for him to not play. I just think for it to realistically happen, right? Like, it's clear that both sides don't see this moving forward to next season because again when he benches it's the end

it's the end to end right yeah um the other piece of it again is everything the players set you know i know people like again it's like oh the michigan beat lied the players don't have any reason to lie you know whether it's private and they voted for him as a captain so and again i know there's talk about, I didn't like the laughing after the Hoffman play. I didn't like the contrast between the extreme hype coming out of the tunnel and the multiple drives in a row where he's just sitting on the bench sat. I get what the optics of that are and they're real. And again, optics and narrative is reality.

It's just part of it. Same thing with the press conference today. When you're winning, nobody cares about that stuff. Jim Harbaal was terrible at press conferences. because he hated them. He hated them because he looked at, you know, a room full of non-ball knowers asking him football questions and whatever, you know. But when you're down, nothing you do is right.

So those optics are so important. So here's what I think about the translation of camp to season. And this is neutral. This is not disparaging. I think that a lot of the team from last year lost its joy in football, understandably so. I think last year was so difficult the way that it ended and the way that that regime ended, that I have to assume the way Whittingham ran his camp was to make the sport enjoyable,

was to make camp fun and to have to manufacture scenarios where everybody was succeeding. And I think that the problem that we didn't see coming, but now in hindsight I realized was was around the corner, is that Western Michigan and Lance Taylor are so deadly serious, right? They're wired in such a way. Like, you invite us into your home. We're going to kick your ass. He's a good coach, man.

That the joyful camp ended and you begin the season against a bloodthirsty opponent. And it just, the team wasn't ready for that moment. As simple as that. And again, that's not a good day. It's not a defense of the staff. This is a veteran staff that should know better. But if we're talking about the psychological impact or the body language, all this sort of off-field mustardy stuff, that would be my, that's my theory, that's my recipe for what happened, essentially, is that it was a joyful camp. It was a camp that was a lot of fun with a lot of success that was installed.

And when it came time to play a game where the other guy has a say, he came, like, that team. team did not show up to take a loss, like a pre-approved, okay, we'll give it a shot. We know we're going to lose. It's just not what happened. I think if week one had been UTEP, probably every offensive drive would have been awesome because that is a team that, I don't know, it's just, I think that in hindsight, the Western Michigan matchup was a psychics. psychological disadvantage. And that's, again, that's not disparaging of Michigan. I just think, I've always thought highly of Lance Taylor.

Yeah. And I think that Michigan's camp did not put Michigan in a position to meet him face to face. And you always have to be careful when you're playing a team that is nothing to lose. Right. Exactly. And then you give them confidence in the way the beginning of the game goes. And you allow that confidence to build and build. then I mean,

there's former Michigan players on that team in Roebuck and Cabana, which I saw somebody, I don't remember what shows was hyping up Cabana. I think he had four carries for seven yards. I thought that was funny. But without looking at the roster in the past, these directional schools are filled with kids who grew up wanting to play for the Michigan and Michigan states

and having these giant chips on their shoulder when they didn't get there and they're at the westerns and easterns and Ferris and Grand Valley and whatever it might be, right? I don't know if that's consistent. with this roster. I'm not looking at it. I don't know where all the kids came from if they're regionally familiar or whatever. But yeah, I think that's what it was is, you know, you could have come out with that first

drive and then not allow them to answer. And then another good drive. And then maybe it's about, okay, we're playing a good opponent. I'm Western. I'm playing a really, really good opponent in this atmosphere. What can I learn from my team? How can they battle back? not we can win this football game right right i can win this football game right and that's what

happened and then the house michigan had their answer and they blew it and then western answered in a big way and that was it it was over it wasn't a cute thing anymore you know so right in that same vein i'm not worried about michigan not taking oklahoma seriously i think right i think realistically I'm not worried about Michigan taking anybody lightly the rest of the year. Yeah. Just are they good enough to win? That's the new question. Yeah, because if it's an ugly game,

regardless of score, if it feels like last year, well, I know you were taking this seriously. If anything, I'm glad to believe maybe you were preparing for them last week already. So it should be right. Breeze through a couple of these and get out of here. Camps were seven on seven. What's that about people saying? that you literally saw the video of full scrimmages so oh i think this question is about the level of

contact because uh bryce and the quarterbacks were in red jerseys all camp no camp was not seven well they were basically doing touch they didn't do when the players were getting loose and yeah they didn't do a lot of tackling but it wasn't literally seven on seven no which is funny because if you want to try and play i could play both sides of that the defense had its best tackling performance in two years. Yeah, it's not uncommon to run a camp without a lot of tackling. But I get it. Like, were they not used to getting hit or? Yeah, I think, I think, yes, somewhat. Oh, I think I did. He had Harbaugh's comments today. He had a funny quote about the Chargers. I have, somebody can put it in the comments. I have no loyalties, domestic or international to anyone but

the Los Angeles Chargers. Yes, something like that. Yeah. It's funny that... There's a character. I have some connections with the... Connections is not the right term there. I have some friends and people I follow from when Harbaugh got hired that I helped out with that. So I've got Charger people in my Twitter feed. And it's funny because they've won games since he's been there, right?

And they've lost in the playoff first round each year. But they're already, like, annoyed with his ways a little bit. that Chargers fans are. It's funny. All right. Here's the full quote from Jim Harbaugh. It's September. It's time to play our first game. And I support no cause, foreign or domestic, other than the greatness of the Los Angeles Chargers. Foreign or domestic is such a wild thing to drop in there. He is nuts, dear. He's absolutely nuts. I still love when I was on the Chargers podcast, trying to explain like crazy things he said.

The one was if, if worms had machine guns, birds would be scared of them. That will always be my favorite one. Yeah. Whatever that means. Yeah. How many QBs is Kyle put into the NFL? Oh, my God. Off the top of my head.

Smith was way before him, wasn't it? Yeah. So Smith, he was, so Whittingham was defensive coordinator to Urban Meyer for Alex Smith as a head coach. He coached Brian Johnson, who is a great coach. I don't know that he ever got a pro contract. He, what's Huntley's first name? Is it Tyler Huntley?

There's Tyler in Brett, right? Tyler Huntley is arguably the single best backup quarterback in the NFL. So that's probably the feather in his cap. No, really. He's the Lamar Jackson backup in Baltimore. No, no, no, I know. And he started in a couple spots, too. I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to say I don't care about NFL quarterback track record,

but I guess when you inherit a talent of which so much is expected, yeah, you'd like to be able to point something. So, you know, if Bryce Underwood becomes Tyler Huntley, that's not a bad thing. Who, who's the guy at this point that people, I mean, obviously, Lincoln Riley had the run there where he was thought of as a quarterback. Oh, like who puts college quarterbacks in a week successfully? Yeah, it's still Lincoln Riley, isn't it? But, yeah, I mean, when you look at the quarterbacks that succeed in the NFL,

it's such a crap shoot, man. SIG gets benefit of the doubt. So SIG just just, uh, with Mendoza. He put Mendoza 1-1. I told everybody, man, Hoover, I don't think people realize how good Hoover was at TCU. man. Everyone's like, yeah,

but Mendoza won the Heism. Like, we thought he was winning the Heism when he got there though.

Right. So, uh, can wit even bench him. I don't believe he can at the moment the do. Not only do, I get why people think this with the donors. Like that's been the natural assumption with the NIL thing.

I believe it happens at some schools. But the reason Michigan was so, if you want to view it as late to the game was that transaction, right? That power of NIL donorship and, and decision-making. it's it's not the case and plus too like you're already paying him it's it's like a poker hand you know what I mean the money's already in a pot it's not keeping I don't understand the

argument of like oh you have to keep him in because you're paying him whatever dollar I don't think it matters you already paid the dollar value it doesn't matter so um in the comments crescendo and ralph rudabega I think they're right that lane's a good one lane lane uh lane Kiffin, Lincoln Riley, and Dan Lannning. Dan Lanning, I think gets a lot of... Yeah, Bo Nix. I think he gets a lot of extra credit for Dante Moore, to be honest. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and that was the other potential parallel we were hoping to find, right? I don't know if Dante Moore is sitting a year, you know, whatever. But, you know, Bryce is hardly the first freshman to struggle a little bit. But, you know,

maybe the full change wasn't enough because so quickly again in pressure that stuff reverts and that was frustrating and obviously we'll see what happens with oklahoma i don't think there was anything else earth-shattering in here no price sucks brice sucks yep i'm looking forward to michigan ice hockey well well yeah i mean if the pattern holds and then hockey's going to win the national title this year if they don't they don't they this year. Man, that team is loaded. It's loaded and all of the cross-sport supernatural energy is pointing towards it. Well, this is the weird thing, right?

Because McCoy gets hurt and I'm like, well, football is definitely going to be good now. Because the ecosystem is, again, you know, dusty left. And then well, then that's straightened out. And then McCoy gets hurt. I'm like, okay, there you go. Maybe I should bet on 11 and 1. So yeah, somebody's got to get the good swing now. Somebody. Somebody.

All right. Long show. Yeah, but who, I mean, no surprise. Yeah, no. We probably didn't talk about a whole bunch of stuff we could ever wanted to. So I didn't even mention it. I'm really bad at plugging myself here. But it's been scrolling across the bottom the entire time. Bluebyn.9.com is live now. So a lot of free articles, obviously. But premium content as well.

Club 90, our message board is filling up. Nice to see some familiar names joining back in. And we've got exciting members that are going to be coming in there as well. Some unique content. I'm really pat on my back here. The grade session stuff, the build off of my stock reports in the past, I'm really happy with how those came out, the post game analysis. I've got your stats and the PFF grades and all the stuff you're used to.

But I've made interactive charts, like the passing chart and different things. for each position group that again as a fan it was something i i would have enjoyed finding so i try to think that way like what would i want that doesn't exist and i create that so um would love to have folks join over at blue by 90.com we didn't want to do any crazy promo because i just think the like dollar thing and then ha ha you forgot to cancel your subscription is such a lame way to bring people in but we are doing a promo to get you your first month free to give us a shot um so if you sign up for monthly you can get your first month free give us a chance annual is still a great deal saves you two months free 90 bucks for the year blue by 90 code 90 ha ha 90 but yeah for this show use code m

weekly and that'll get you the promo to get the first month free if you want to give us a shot um obviously i know there's an insane amount of michigan sites out there and there's everything's a subscription service now so i know what a big deal it is to ask somebody to contribute to a subscription but yeah love you have you check it out give some feedback tell us what you think and we have the podcast network obviously is loaded um i know strak and wormley recorded today the og blue by 90 guys will be back tomorrow i'll be back with darnell we have two shows monday through friday now me and darnell and uh dennis fithian is joining us mondays and fridays and tusky with cutups live was recorded last night you can find that on the channel if you want to go back and watch his film

review. Dennis did his post game live for us. That was a huge hit again, not shocked. And then Justin and Joel Honingford back on Sundays. Did I mention Chris Wormley? I think I did. There's so many. Yes. Okay. Strak and warmly. Yeah, thank you. All right. So please like, subscribe, notification bell. So you know when we go live because there's tons of content here on YouTube. Podcasts are also available for stream. And there's a nice little podcast link on our website, too, that keeps you updated with the most recent episodes. I think that's all the plugs. Oh, tailgate too. If you're interested, Blue by 90 tailgate.

Right near Michigan Stadium, VIP tailgate packages are still available. That was a huge, that's the nice thing about the nine game, the night game. You get seven hours of tailgating. Wow. Burgers. Burgers. Burgers and beards. So obviously a little bit less with a noon game.

So, all right. Why range of outcomes for what Wednesday show next week will look like? Yeah. Yeah. At least, at least this year, we don't have the overly confident Michigan prediction. That's a good point. You know, this episode last year was the total opposite. We're going to go into Norman and squish them.

Their offensive line is hurt. Now, this year, it's like, well, maybe if we're blessed by a miracle, we'll only lose by three points. Maybe not that bad. Please, Louise. I've seen some folks, like, talking about the injuries. on the offensive line they have this week. Do you think I'm like, nope, nope, nope, after last year, I've never folly for that again.

They're perfect blockers. They switched, they switched four starters, and I think two of them were freshmen and bullied Michigan. So, yeah, I don't care what injuries they have on the offensive line. I am not buying that narrative ever again. I would love, you know, it's a stupid way to sign off, but like some people don't like,

Spoilers, right? Some people, no, don't, I don't want to, I wouldn't want to know. Who likes spoilers? I, I really would love to know. I would love a time traveler to tell me the final score of Michigan, Oklahoma. Because then you wouldn't watch potentially? I'm desperately, no, no, no, you don't want to spend the whole week thinking about it? I just want to know. I'm just, yeah. I'm just curious, I'm more curious to see how we get to the final score than what it is. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fair. well i also think a a palette cleanser would be fantastic this is just of course the stupidest few days after a game ever just the absolute stupidest and pure michigan fat you and i talked about this before we went live i'm just i'm exhausted as a michigan fan sometimes you know even though this program was so long even though this episode was so long i'm actually very proud of us that we didn't like that's not what we did was use it to just let's do it now no way no way

no way no way no because what needs to be said that hasn't been said already and whose mind is going to be changed and it's all been said everybody knows what they think and believe

and some of its bias and some of it's fair it's a stupid I'm sick of trying to explain to people it wasn't some fake imaginary clock I'm just done with it the conspiracy is so stupid all of it

it's so stupid But anyway, where does Taylor go next year? I didn't realize. Should we do another 30-minute segment? I think Lance Taylor, so I think Lance Taylor, obviously, he came into week one with me believing in him and trusting him and thinking he was going to be a power conference head coach this time next year. Now it's even more obvious.

Now, there's going to be a line around the block. I know people, I love this because he's a Bama dude. Yeah, his father played his father played for Bear Brian. Yeah. I could see that someday. I don't know about next year. I don't know if the timing works out. No, they, DeBore signed to the extension.

So I think Lance Taylor will state would be cool. Maybe Rutgers. No. I wouldn't take Rutgers if I was him. He can make it work anywhere. Yeah, there you go. No, I think he's going to get a calling for a lot. The reason I think he's going to get a calling for a lot bigger job,

to is what we've learned in the last two cycles the lane kiffin move is now the outside the norm right like everybody goes into these coaching searches with these huge big names at the top and that's not who you're getting anymore because vanderbilt can keep their head coach now you know what i mean like a lot of these programs can keep their head coaches now so you're seeing some of the bigger names have to maybe go lower than they typically would. You know, like an Auburn is hiring a G6 coach, Florida, etc. I know they have before.

It's not a great example. But like something like a Florida State or whatever the bigger jobs are, I wouldn't be shocked. Oh, Florida State is actually, they don't have any money though. I don't think, I don't know about an ACC. No, and they're going to have to spend a lot of money

to fire him too. The only reason I don't think Wisconsin would make a ton of sense. The only reason I don't think it would be Wisconsin is because of that. But yeah, Otherwise, they want Jason A. Wisconsin to be an interesting. I could see Michigan State because they just hired.

I had one Michigan State. Athletic director. Yep. I had one Michigan State fan tell me he's like, I like fits. But man. Yeah. Taylor makes a ton of sense there. He makes a ton of sense there.

Okay. Let's get out of here. All right, guys, Michigan Weekly. Thank you. If you didn't watch live, come in here live, be part of the conversation. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Blueby 90.com. Goodbye on a podcast number.

Thank you. See you guys next week. See you. Talking about a Michigan blowout win over Oklahoma, right? I'm going to, yeah, I got to get, I'm going to freeze that picture. That's fantastic. All right. See you guys.

Go blue. Bye.