Blue By Ninety - Michigan Weekly: What Oklahoma Means

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

Michigan went from barely surviving Western Michigan to beating No. 11 Oklahoma in one week. So what did we actually learn about this team?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 hand out grades following Michigan's 17-10 win over Oklahoma — and the defense sets the curve. The Wolverines held Oklahoma to 10 points, forced two turnovers and limited John Mateer to 189 passing yards while making the biggest plays when the game demanded them.The offense is a more complicated conversation. Michigan leaned heavily into Bryce Underwood's legs, and the sophomore responded with 87 rushing yards and a 38-yard touchdown while protecting the football. But the passing game, traditional run game and 11 penalties show there's still plenty to fix.Trevor and Nick also give some deserved love to Cam Brown and Michigan's special teams, revisit some of their preseason assumptions and discuss what beating Oklahoma changes about Michigan's path through a brutal 2026 schedule.Michigan is 2-0. The offense remains a work in progress. The defense looks like the real deal. And the Wolverines just banked a win that could matter a whole lot in November.〽️ Michigan Weekly🎙️ Trevor McCue & Nick Coston (Big Boutros)📅 New episodes every Wednesday📺 On the Blue By 90 network

Welcome in Michigan weekly, part of the Blue by 90 podcast Network, brought to you by Feldman, Chevrolet of Highland. I am Trevor McHugh, joined as always by Nick Koston, aka Big Bootros. There were outcomes for this weekend, Nick, where we may not have wanted to do a show today. But I had a great Sunday. I've had a great week, and I've been looking forward to this show a little bit closer with our outcome. feeling than last year with this Michigan Oklahoma game. I think it's a good chance for us to take a look at the game, what it really tells us, and kind of reset because we did our season preview, excuse me, did our season preview

earlier and how many people were like, let me know Oklahoma, let me know about Oklahoma, and we're there now. We're post Oklahoma. What do we have information wise? And where do we adjust? Yeah, this game went about as well as we could have hoped for. I've heard so many different takes after the fact like the season is back, like the season is resuscitated, revitalized, revived.

You know, you just said it. When you and I previewed Michigan at Oklahoma last year, there was, the vibe was different, the predictions were different, the confidence was different, and didn't go Michigan's way for so many different reasons. this season, God, what a roller coaster coming into this game. You could reasonably expect any number of outcomes. And I think that Michigan absolutely pulled up its pants.

And what's the rest of that metaphor? I don't know. Put its pants on, put its big boy pants on. Okay, yeah. I thought we were getting like an old school, George. Well, listen, listen. The first couple weeks of the show, we've gotten a lot of good feedback.

It's been very crisp. It's been very like chapter one, chapter two, segment one, segment two. And I don't know about you, but I'm a little bit giddy. Like this game went a lot better than I thought it would. And almost, I dare say, maybe this kicks off the whole conversation. It almost went better than the pre-Western. expectation of this game. Like it, we were hoping after Western that Michigan could find its pride and find its

discipline and find something to play for and like put up a good fight. And instead, you got certainly a Michigan defense that is way ahead of schedule. And a Michigan special teams, I've been picking at that SP Plus number all summer, projected 113th or whatever it was. And Michigan's punter, Cam Brown, probably the third most important individual Michigan player on the whole day, right? Jeyer Hill, Bryce Underwood, Cam Brown.

Maybe... You could swap Hill for Snowden. Snowden, yeah. There's a lot of good guys to choose from, but he's certainly top 10. Yeah. But anyway, I guess my... My mind is bouncing happily because I really felt that Michigan played an A game against Oklahoma.

I was so impressed. I cannot even articulate how impressed I was with all three phases of the ball. And yes, it includes the offense. I know that the score was 17 and not 50. I know that the yardage was 280 and not 500. I get it. But, man, what a great performance by Michigan. And I'm going to say this not to pat myself on the back,

but I am in a slightly different seat because I was incredibly confident Michigan was winning this game coming into the season. Yeah. Right? Like borderline, there was no doubt in my mind. Michigan was going to win this game for a host of reasons. I'm not going to relist. And then the Sunday and Monday after West,

I was and even on our show, I'm dealing with this conflict of, okay, is this Fresno State? Is this indicative of what we are actually going to see from Michigan? Where am I going to believe the things I'm hearing behind the scenes about what the week of prep was? And the coaches, again, props to the staff for accountability being public, not only of their players, but of themselves. can it do a detriment sometimes, but like literally admitting like, yeah, we made the wrong game plan.

Wow, we didn't realize how much we used Rhino. Like you had defensive end coach, Louis Powell, basically admit here I'm in the fourth quarter. And I haven't rotated this position the way I wanted to, right? They were really caught off guard by this game being close. And we also talked about like, that's not good either, right? Like, it's not like, okay that you didn't take this game seriously. Yeah, yeah. And those mistakes happened, but what do you do with them?

Yeah. The excuses were true, which is bad, but at least they were true. And I told you off air mostly, like things I'm hearing in practice. And it's like, I don't want to run to the message board and be like, guys, they're practicing really physical and everything's great. You know, but it all became reality. And by the time of our show Wednesday and even more so by Friday, I had talked myself into, look, I'm not going to let this one Western game derail everything else that I've bought in from this offseason, et cetera, et cetera, right? And you're right.

Aside from, I can still do the same thing I did with the Western game and say, man, these penalties that were either drive killers or drive extenders were massive in this game. And Michigan could have won more comfortably. The close plays, there's still some execution, missed assignments, right? where, you know, Hyder's keeping the ball when he shouldn't or, you know, when you watch the tape, you're seeing some mistakes with the offensive line, how they're blocking.

I thought the back shoulder throw by Bryce to J.J. B. Canaan where he cut the other way, probably will never happen again. That's a communication thing to you guys knew, playing together. You throw in JJ's toe tap that was almost a catch, Mason Bonner's that was almost a catch. The one play people are calling a drop by JJ

that isn't categorized a drop, but I know you're seeing. The PI that takes, that takes a lot of yards off the field of Mars. And I mean, this game could have been even better with a lot of those close calls. So you kind of just step back and go, okay, this is a team that was ranked 11th, came into Michigan with what should be, could have been. We'll see how it plays out the rest of the year, but a top three defense.

Brett Venables embarrassed Underwood with the things he did last year. Like, that story for me, like, I know the narrative and we'll get to it is obviously now switching. with a media that has bass Michigan, but Michigan had to hear all week that they should basically feel bad for beating Western Michigan, right? Everything that was out there and the comments that we talked about too with Bryce and is he going to get benched? Like the narratives were crazy.

And now here you are. You're 2 and 0. You have the win against Oklahoma. And we're back to talking about getting to 5 and 0 before the by week, playing Penn State and the college football playoff. So last week at this utterly pivotal juncture, we were previewing this game, we were talking about past seasons that we wanted to possibly compare this to. And we'll get to the margin. Like we have a margin of victory sort of card later.

But I'm still chuckling to myself because I thought, well, what if this is 2007, but Michigan escaped Appalachian State with the game winning field goal? and then Oregon came to town and dropped 39 points in 600. And now it's, I'm smiling because it's like, what if two, what if it was 2007, but Michigan opened two and oh, Michigan won both of those games. What kind of comparison?

It's not really a comparison anymore, is it? Yeah. So the other thing, okay, let me, let me stop grinning. You have literally been smiling since we started. I know, it's a big smile. One of the, one of the, the lines that was stuck in my head after Western Michigan

was that the other guy gets to say. It's something that coaches will tell you. You can be confident in your game plan. You can be confident in the superiority of your talent. You can make as many assumptions and presumptions going into a matchup as you want. It's a 28 point spread. You're going to waltz all over it.

But the other guy gets to say it. That was true in week one. And that was what made that game so close and so devastating until the miraculous finish. Because Lance Taylor is a great coach. And they have so much returning talent. Like they came into that game to win. They got their say. But what you just said about the Oklahoma post-game analysis, now Michigan is the other guy.

Michigan gets a say. So much of the national reaction to Michigan beating Oklahoma. it's been like, well, I guess Oklahoma just sucks. And you know what? Sure, maybe we'll find that out. Maybe we'll revisit this in 10 weeks and Oklahoma's 5 and 7 and we'll go ha, ha, ha. It doesn't matter. That doesn't matter yet.

We're not at that point. Like, that's not what we're talking about. Here we are after Michigan flipped. What was the line on this game, the line on Michigan hosting Oklahoma in Vegas before the Western game. Right. Was Michigan favored at home one and a half? And it flipped so hard, just like I flew. You stayed steady.

I didn't stay steady. I went with the tide. And Oklahoma became a healthy road favorite. Michigan did the work. Michigan won the game. Oklahoma didn't hand Michigan this game. Michigan won this game. We all saw that with our own eyes.

And so when we set after Western, the other guy gets to say, that applies here. Jeyer Hill picked off John Mateer. Nate Marshall, John Henry Daley, Smith Snowden, all these guys. They shut down the Oklahoma offense. And yeah, it could be a few weeks from now, and it's a national story that the Oklahoma offensive line is a disaster.

But do you know what a really good defense does to a disastrous offensive line. It's what Michigan did, right? You, just because you face a test and it's an easy test, you still have to ace it. And this Michigan defense aced this test. They crushed this game. I was so impressed. I have sterling report card for basically every player on the defense.

I was floored in a good way. You know I'm someone who's obsessed with either narrative. viewed as reality narrative becoming reality whatever that that you know dichotomy i like obviously when it goes well on the michigan side right and i know a lot of fans and people that watch us were quick to say oh fall hype they lied again these people don't know what they're talking about whatever it was there in oklahoma i would say you know we're talking about mature and the way the narrative has flipped on them nationally i said last year that more so than any other top quarterback in college football,

John Mateer is dramatically impacted by pressure. His completion rate drops significantly, sometimes below 50%. He throws more turnover worthy plays. His time to throw is completely off by a second. Like, it's there. If you pressure him, he will make mistakes or at best not complete passes, right?

Huge impact. He gets sacks. So your job is to pressure. Right. And this Michigan defense, when Jay Hill was first hired, I got 2023 vibes. And Jay Hill has openly talked about as a staff. They've watched tape of Michigan, 2023,

and that they see so many similarities with this defense. And without getting an exes and those, it's creating pressure up front and telling your secondary to be man-on-man and lockdown. And they did it in this game. Jire Hill, Smith-Snowton, targeted seven times zero receptions allowed. Yes. Rocky Beers had a good day, but Rocky Beers is a tough assignment for anybody.

I know some people have picked on Chase Taylor a little bit, whatever. But everyone now like, oh, we've learned John Mateer. No, Michigan did what they said they were going to do as a defense at a very high level, like you said, and did to John Mateer exactly what happens to John Mateer when you pressure him and have great coverage. Can you fact check me? I think I saw. Oklahoma wide receivers.

So not beers. Obviously beers had a great date, but wide receiver position had two catches for 13 yards. Yeah, I'll look exactly, but I'm pretty sure that's very close. So I want you to highlight this comment by David Prudent. This David Prudent comment, I want you to highlight this, pull this up on the screen, the backtracking where everyone's clamoring that Mateer is suddenly the worst QB to exist

when a week ago he was going to be college football savior against you of him. This is exactly right. Yes. They talked about how he was. he was a Heisman frontrunner until he got hurt last year. If you go around, particularly the Oklahoma boards and post-game threads and podcasts, they are not giving the other guy assay. They're saying, wow, Meteer blew it.

Meteer stinks. Meteer's the worst quarterback. We should bench Meteer. For who? Are you kidding? You want to bench your 23-year-old, fifth-year-s senior. He came as a package deal with Ben Arbuckle from Washington State, the offensive coordinator. These guys have a mind-meld.

You know two, three, four weeks from now, that same John Mateer is going to drop 400 yards and four touchdowns on some unsuspecting defensive heads. He's going to win a game. And this moment is not giving the other guy his say. This is pretending that John Mateer was playing a game against dummies, right, against action figures. as if he did it to himself. No, the other guy gets to say, and the Michigan defense had its say against John Mateer. They made him look like this.

He didn't show up just ready to poop his pants. The Michigan defense pressured him, sacked him, picked him off. It was fantastic. I wanted to use this as a shameless plug moment for over at bluebyn.90.com. My postgame grades, I do grade session. So this was Michigan defense, and there's some interactive elements, and one of the things I highlighted,

for people watching, I know a lot of people are listening, but for those watching, I'll try and speak this through, but to your point, Nick, Oklahoma's top receiver targeted eight times, only two receptions, right? Snowden O for four, Earls, O for one.

Bull was allowed one for six, Zeke Berry, the one for three. And then I believe I had what you were looking for. Was Sotania the guy who popped off last year? I mean, a lot of these guys are returning Oklahoma talent that cruised against Michigan last year. So we know Matir and these receivers

have performed against Michigan. Yep. So the three receptions for 35 yards is what the corner's allowed. Okay. And then you have 13 targets. Yep. Linebackers and safety got picked on a little bit, especially on that first drive of the third quarter. But again,

I, if Rocky Beers has that kind of day and Oklahoma can't run the ball, John Matier doesn't beat with the legs, and other receivers have an impact. Okay. Like, I'm taking that trade. Like, sometimes good players make plays. Right. Yeah, it's college football.

You're not going to pitch a shutout against, I don't care what Oklahoma's record is in January or by the end of the regular season. Like, they came in here top 10. They fully expected to win this game. They were shook. Not shook. I shouldn't say shook. weren't like intimidated or whatever. They got,

you know, David said it again in a blender. Frustrator. Yeah. We're on the, we're on the defense, so I should have slid up a little bit. But yeah,

only 100 rushing yards for Oklahoma, Meteer 45 of them, sure. Three of three. Yeah, and I think, or 313 on third down, fantastic.

I believe of the 100 and of the 45 by Meteer wasn't the very final drive. Didn't he have like some, sort of inconsequential 20-yard scramble at the end. Right. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And then the snap into his nuts to end the game. Yeah. And Nate Marshall, man, like, I don't want to get off the rails here, but like, I think the story of Nate Marshall and how Kyle, both Kyle Whittingham and him have handled that publicly is the most clear, tangible thing about what's different from Michigan before to now with Kyle Whittingham. Well said. Yeah. I mean, just.

You want to quantify or specify the maturity and the gap going from last year to this year. That's absolutely the bull's eye example. Yeah, Nate Marshall is essentially taking out of rotation in spring and summer, five-star recruit, not babyed at all, because he's late to class. And almost military-like punishment where you do it again and your position group is punished. You do it again. The entire team is punished, right? And I told you, we've talked about before. People kept asking me, why is Marshall not getting in hype?

I'm like, nobody's talking to me about him. I don't know what to tell you. He's not getting any chatter. It's weird. I don't know. And then we find out this is why. And then in fall camp, Wittingham publicly says, hey, I challenged this kid. He answered the call off the field and on.

We're super proud of him. He might be our best peer pass rusher. And what does he do? at that moment, the most key play of the game at the end puts Nate Marshall out there to go get the quarterback and seal the victory. And he does it. He rewards him.

And Marshall comes out and tells everyone how thankful he is for Kyle winning him and how much he feels like he's grown. And it's just like, this is exactly what we want. So sorry. Massively. No, not at all. I totally agree. The two takeaways, the fumble,

Hill's Interception, which a great bounce back. after his penalty prior. I think the strip from Nichols, where he's getting held like crazy, was also a fumble. I don't know how that's an incomplete pass, but whatever. Oh, yeah, that was that was Materia's hand going back, right?

They called that an incomplete. Yeah. Yeah, I thought that was a clear fumble. And we've made a lot of progress with that, like the hand going forward. Yeah, but if the ball is already loose, it doesn't matter those hands going forward. I was kind of surprised by that.

the JJ catch or non-catch with his toe tap. I tweeted this. I'm like, look, I'm just happy we're debating at that point of the catch and not whether he dropped it when he was rolling around on the sideline two seconds later. So like we've made some progress with the what is a catch review. But anyway,

yeah, only 115 yards for Oklahoma in the first half. They had that one drive in the third quarter where they scored their touchdown. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess I want to be. What a defensive master class here. I want to be clear about one.

thing. This is, for the time being, a rear-facing conversation, right? We're talking about the Oklahoma game. So we're not making any promises about what the defense can or will do against Oregon or Indiana or Ohio State. But I do think it's worth, I'm going to use, I hear this at work all the time, double-clicking on last year, a huge percentage of our preview of Michigan at Oklahoma was, ooh, the Oklahoma offensive line is all jumbled up and stinky. Ooh, this is a great opportunity. And they paved Michigan.

It proved nothing. It proved the opposite. So if you're not giving the other guy his say, if you're not giving the Michigan defense, it's due credit in this game, because you're assuming that the Oklahoma offensive line is like the worst in the power four. what would a better defensive line do? You know, riddle me that. I think that Michigan showcased

such an exciting combination of depth and productivity from the defensive line in this game. Now, again, I don't know, like, Leia Aya was particularly playable in this matchup. I think a number of people have pointed out like it's not going to be that juicy for him every every week. But again, I say, okay, well, if you do get that opportunity, what are you going to do with it?

He crushed it. Everybody who got their shot in this game hit a home run. And that's how I'm writing my report card. It's not like, oh, yeah, well, you know, maybe Oklahoma sucks. Let's see. Like, you play one game at a time. Game one, you barely escaped that F minus. Show me what you got.

They showed us what they got. I was really impressed. I, again, I hate to try not to come off arrogant. This was one of the, look, I'm not always right when I am. I've been telling people this defensive line when everybody had a concern. I'm like, no, I got in a debate with some friends of mine in a chat that I said, I would take this group over 2021. And they're like, what?

Hutch and Ajabo? I'm like, yes, purely because I'm like, now keep in mind, OJabo came into that year with one career tackle. We didn't know what he was going to become, right? I said purely from a depth standpoint, John Henry Daly is not hutch.

He's not that far off either. I'm sorry. If he wore 97 with that spin move, I think you would have gotten confused. You know what I mean? Like, he's close enough. Dom Nichols is ahead now. of where O'Jabo was at the start in 21.

And then we already have, again, props to the staff. We already have Nate Marshall taking Cam Brant's role in terms of Repshaer in the second week of the year. Oh, yeah, a five star who is rated on par with Colin Simmons, Carter Meadows, coming back this week. Benny Patterson getting on the field, Boney, too good, not to play. Interior, Pierce, and Edda have both taken the step that they need to and have been phenomenal yes, I butcher his name every time.

I just call him Jonah from Utah has been even better than I think some people expected. And they're doing a good job of utilizing defensive ends on the interior as well. That snap count went up as well where they're plugging in a Brandt or a JHD or a Nichols into a three tech to have three ends out there when relevant. So the linebackers aren't the concern they were. The secondary is somehow better than the high bar we set. I'm with you. this defense, I had high expectations and they're exceeding it. You have to look at them.

You're looking forward. It's a part of the equation. I made the joke earlier, like, this is like 2007, but what if Michigan were 2 and O? Yeah. You know what game this reminded me of, this Oklahoma game, was Washington, 2021. Michigan was still not back yet. That was the second game of the 2021 season, where the first game was obviously more

comfortable than this year's Western, but Ronnie Bell tore his ACL, and he was sort of our only proven wide receiver that year, and it was like, oh, here we go again. Michigan, you know, there was still this fresh rearview mirror of the two and four COVID season. So Washington came in. Now, granted, that was the Jimmy Lake Washington. That Washington did end up in, you know, pretty bad. But it didn't, it didn't matter. I mean, this, I feel like this speaks to my point that if you remember the start of that Michigan run from 21 to 23, and you remember it sort of really kicking off in earnest against that Washington team, you don't, you don't, it doesn't matter that the Washington team ended up below expectations

or that Jimmy Lake wasn't a great coach. That game mattered. And it looked similar offensively. I remember Cade McNamara was, you know, he was like 8 of 17 in that game. It wasn't really an advanced passing offense yet. Blake Quorum got going. The defense was disgusting. And the feeling coming out of that game was such a mixture of, like, relief at the floor being raised once again.

And this sort of newfound electricity. Which is even evident in the crowd, right? Like, that's a smart comp for me, too, is the atmosphere. The crowd is a great example. So who could blame the Michigan Stadium crowd for coming into this game ready to boo, ready to grumble, like, afraid of a mistake, afraid of a loss, taken over by Oklahoma? When the gates opened, because the Oklahoma fans were so excited, they were the first ones in. So, like, the first 20% of the stadium as it filled up was all red, crimson and cream.

Oklahoma fans. And a lot of people were like, oh, this is going to be embarrassing, humiliating. And then, and then it turned out the Michigan Stadium crowd brought it. It was one of the great energy performances of a Michigan home game in many recent years. I, boy, if you can't tell, I just think this game was awesome. Yeah, it really was. I'd say outside of 21 and 23, Michigan, Ohio State noon games, this had to be the best crowd environment for a noon game. Yeah. And which is awesome because again, answering the call from the previous week and all the talk that was out there. And part of that's just, look, Michigan's a destination.

So when a program that has a great fan base like Oklahoma gets a chance to come to Michigan Stadium, that's a destination game for them. But obviously the ticket prices that were out there, there was a lot of narratives. And it was cool to see the maze out work and the Michigan fans be great. I wanted to touch on this. We talked about it a little bit at the defense before we, move on. But again, coming out of last week, I thought the defensive performance was very good. And the one thing Jay Hill said was we didn't get turnovers. We got to get turnovers. Again, another

2023 thing, like how important turnovers are to nearly three in this game. And I mean, fair to say the difference that resulted in the victory, especially the Jerry Hill interception late. How do you, how do you need a Hail Mary to beat a 28 point underdog? You give away the ball three times and you take it away none. How do you beat the number 11 team as a home underdog? You take it away twice and you give it away none. Boom. That's it.

That's it. That's the complete thought. I mean, it's true. It's really that simple, right? In a close game where those things matter, that's what mattered.

So yeah, I'm with you. And I think it's going to continue because I just, I don't know. I'm not making any promises. I don't know what's going to happen next. I don't want this to be clipped like, oh, Nick is calling 12 and 0. I just think that you, when you give a team a test,

because remember my story about the history teacher? Remember my writing assignment from Mr. Davidson? Fantastic. It can be an easy assignment. You still got to ace it. It's still on you to pass that test. And that's what happened to you. Yeah.

I'm excited about Jire Hill indeed looking like he's taking the other stuff. Smith Snowden having Mikey-esque vibes out there in terms of not only in coverage, but his ability to set the edge and then impact the run game. And Chris Bracey, I don't think we've even mentioned yet other than him having the strip, how good he's been. Rod Moore still looks like a guy that hasn't played football in a couple years in terms of missing some tackles and stuff. But my concern for Rod Moore was could he play, practice, and play, and he's been doing it. So one of the notions, all good. One of the notions of this chapter in the NIL era, and I also been around for a while,

but now you're in the lawsuit era and the free transfer. And one of the roster or personnel or on-field takeaways is like it really hits depth, that teams power programs that could previously stack two, three deep on their depth chart, it doesn't work that way anymore. And this, I think what's so exciting about this Michigan defense, what you saw in Oklahoma is the ability to rotate. You're playing your second nickel. or your thirds, like,

Shamari Earls is Michigan's CB4. He probably has the most natural physical NFL talent out of all four of them. Right? Yep. The defensive line group, the edges, Nate Marshall, because of the disciplinary issue, coming into Saturday,

Nate Marshall was Edge 4, and he looked like every bit of the five star that he was coming out. like this is throwback depth. This is this is starters who can really pick behind and depth that has minimal, if any, uh, quality drop off. I was just so pleased. Absolutely.

And you're right. I think depth was probably where I was maybe, I don't want to say wrong, but like I said, like I really like the top end talent of this defensive lot. I'm concerned about injuries because of depth. but you're right to that point it's like huh defensive line depth is there in linebacker too that was a huge concern

and now it's like stealing and bowls are looking like studs and NOBs out there making plays and chase taylor's making plays and even moa has absolutely excelled in his sam type role so yeah yeah that's that's actually a really good name drop moa has been completely playable like stealing snaps of him to no detriment it's sort of the opposite of like in 2019 when Don Brown was playing Jordan Glasgow at defensive tackle, like this gimmick deployment, you're trying to steal these snaps.

Well, Moa's not really stealing snaps. He's just playing defense, you know? So defense, you gave basically the highest grade you could, right? Yeah, I gave the defense. So if it's a report card, if it's, if it's academic style, I'd give them an A plus. if it's that tier thing like you see an anime okay the ass yeah yeah yeah i don't really know

i think it's from video games or anime or something but like when you're better than a it's s it's super yeah offensively i've kind of gone back and forth with dennis a little bit because he was saying like he's giving back a huge grade offensively because he went back you know he spent all year with thinking about what he was going to do and here he is changing his plan for oklahoma and i was like no this is the offense i expected against Oklahoma. This is the game plan I expected.

I would say there's still execution issues and that, you know, we've had this conversation about the difference between play calling and result, right? But Bryce, quick throws, short throws, allowing guys to make plays using JJ Buchanan and Bonner in this case too as a way to test deep using Underwood's legs as well. And the rhino probably still deployed more than they want to. I think they probably again are going to be like, oh, that's still a lot of rhino. But the things that I downgrade on are the offensive lines still not getting to the second level for the running backs.

And that part of the running game still needing to improve. But game plan wise, exactly what I expected. And from a positive standpoint, Bryce's mechanics looked clean. He looked comfortable. I thought his body language, even the little laugh after the Marsh DPI is how this close. Like, just everything about it felt better that the pace that you still had a couple formation penalties. Again, there's negative that's out there. But, and I don't think you want Underwood being your number one running back every week, right?

I think there's still things that can change there. But the adjustment to me is Western was the anomaly, not indicative like Fresno was. This is what we thought the offense would be. And now let's build on and correct these mistakes that are still there. Anomily is an interesting word. I am willing to buy. Well, I just mean, in the application of the two offenses that we've seen in these two weeks, I think that the staff saw Bryce Underwood in practice in camp and had a certain expectation.

And when the ball was kicked off against Western, you know, just something. something else sort of takes over. So I'm willing to give Beck and Bryce and Whittingham the credit of adjusting and what I say downshifting on the fly from week one to week two. I think that in a way it's, I'm actually paying them the bigger compliment because that's a lot harder to do in season after a whole offseason of one expectation, getting something else and then saying, okay, what are we going to do about it? So here, I'm going to drop a credential on Okay. We're talking about the offense. So after this game, I chatted with a man named Kyler Kriegel. He's one of the Michigan online communities, great ball knows. You and I, we pride

ourselves in this show on medium ball knowledge. So Kyler Kregel is one of the tip-top ball knows. He's like Colin T.J. or Manuel X.L., Space Coyote, Boehnergis, if I said that right, Dewar, T-Fist, Tosky, all these guys. All right. We're blessed. We're blessed. So he's a former D3 All-American Center at Wheaton College, former offensive coordinator.

And the name that he dropped when it came to the week one to week two offensive shift for Michigan was Lance Lippold. That was what he saw on Saturday from the Michigan offense against Oklahoma was Lance Lippold has kept his job at Kansas for six. or seven years now. He's basically running a 500 program, but it's not because he can't run the ball, right? That's the thing, that's the straw that stirs the drink. Like, Kansas is a moribund program. It's, it's had the lowest of the lows. We've seen how low Kansas can go under Turner Gill and Charlie Weiss. Lance Leipold understands what you can do with a certain set of circumstances,

a certain personnel. He is, he spams QB power. Okay. He spams QB power. And so what I feel was, what Kyler feels is the reflective of this downship from week one to week two is, okay, week one, this is the, the debut of sophomore upgraded, downloaded Bryce. We're going to make him a, you know, NFL quarterback and make him scan the field and read the field. And it just, like, for whatever reason, that didn't hit. out of the gate, right? You've got, this guy is still 1819. He's the age of a true freshman. He didn't get to red shirt the way that a lot of guys would have. What do we do? How do we adjust, how do we downshift this on the fly? Simplicity, simplify the output, and put him in a

position to succeed. And that's what happened here. So it wasn't, it wasn't accounting stats outburst. This wasn't 500 yards and 50 points. We understand that. But Beck and Whittingham, whoever deserves the credit, Bryce himself for taking this sort of modified role, the offense was put in a position to take care of itself, to do, to participate to a win, team win, right? As recently as three weeks ago, I think a big conversation was we don't know what we have with this defense. There's a lot of new pieces and new faces and names.

There's so much continuity on the offense, it's going to have to carry the defense through the first couple weeks. And we're seeing that the opposite is true. But week one was that not happening and week two was that happening. week two was resetting the floor, resetting the capabilities, and that is what you can build upon. That, I think, is a credit to Beck,

to Bryce Underwood, to Whittingham, for recognizing in the course of seven days, like, we have a huge game to win. We have to win this game. What can we do to make that possible in all three phases? And I think all three phases made their contribution to this win. Well, so the framing you see on the screen.

Like, there are some offenses in football, whether it's college or NFL, that drive fans mad because it's about perfection of execution. This was always a very common criticism of the Iowa offensive brain trust when their numbers were so bad going from Greg Davis to Brian Ferrence and all these different offensive coordinators was. Yes, hypothetically, if all 11 offensive players perfectly execute this, then you'll get a successful play. That's not what we got in week one, and it's not the way that a lot of college offenses work.

Lance Leipold is a guy who understands this, right? You were getting missed assignments these first two weeks from the offense. There's more catching up to do than perhaps the staff realized. And so how do you account for that on the fly? this is how this downshift and it worked it worked i think and even i probably caught myself up in this because the offseason progress of bryce mechanics and everything and fall camp was real and i think what we did was we had floor and ceiling to your point talking about the floor we had floor and ceiling and i think we brought the ceiling to week one and that went against kind of the discuss

of look we're throwing away last year last year was zero for Bryce not only was he forced into playing early but everything around him was dysfunctional if anything last year set him back right so that we're starting from scratch this year and then we kind of forgot about that right so the things that Bryce hasn't done yet I think he will but what we saw in this game that's important again if we're talking about progress was he didn't revert back. And we say no turnovers, but he did have the fumble that he somehow recovered with his butt, right?

And was it another fumble or? I'm thinking near pick, but that wasn't this game, was it? What was the other year turnover? Bryce, I know for some reason I know what you're talking about. I think he may have put the ball on the ground twice as a runner. But once he was down and there wasn't really a controversy to it. I can't remember now. I can't be recovered by himself or a teammate.

So I think it was like one sort of one true ball security issue and one sort of after the tackle. There was an ear pick. There was an ear pick. Yeah. Okay. Well, regardless. You know, my point was those moments. No, I know.

No, you missed your, you left some dead air. I'm going to fill it. We talk about things that we talk about things we forgot. I'll tell you something I forgot. When Bryce flipped from LSU to Michigan. Oh, yeah, the bad pitch. That's right. That's right.

That was the two ball security issues. Thank you. The fumble and the bad pitch. Yeah. Thank you. How do we say your name? Rene Evan. When Bryce flipped, we understood in terms of historical recruiting ranking and the reference point,

there were only two quarterbacks. that matched. They were Trevor Lawrence and Vince Young. And for whatever reason, we all just drifted to Trevor Lawrence. Like, oh, yeah, true freshman he's going to take over the job. And that wasn't fair. Vince Young redshirted his true freshman year. He didn't play for a whole year.

His redshirt freshman season, he split time. He didn't start, he didn't take over full-time starting quarterback until late in the year for, I think it was Chance Mock or Chase Mock, the guy's name. that was ahead of him. And then red shirt saw for Vince was fully unleashed. And so it's like, I just, I forgot that sequence of events. That's on me. Like, you are going to have to bring Bryce Underwood along. The Jordan Palmer stuff doesn't matter as much as

Saturdays matter. And now we've seen that. Beck and Whittingham and Bryce himself, I'm sure they're all, they've all briefed to sigh of release after week one. Like, they didn't didn't pay the ultimate price for learning that lesson the hard way, but then they applied that lesson in week two. So I said B minus, but it's relative because this was a necessary downshift and it worked. Well, and also Trevor Lawrence was able to take Kelly Bryant's job in week five and was on an AP number four team that had a championship roster coming into the year, right? So like, No, but what I was getting at with those mistakes when you took my air, we saw last week with Western, those close calls and those mistakes, body language changed.

Mechanics progress gone. Everything reverted back. And that didn't happen here. And that, to me, was going to be the huge thing. Like, the entire conversation about Bryce that was crazy was they're not giving up on him unless he becomes uncoachable or there's no path to development anymore. And there's clearly a path to development and he's clearly coachable. So like he's allowed to get better as here goes on. I think there's one more thing I want to say that you just reminded me where the criticism reached such a fever pitch after week one.

Some of which was whatever. Like you could watch the game and see where the take was coming from. Yeah. But one of the takes I found one of the takes that has become so funny in the aftermath of the Oklahoma performance was. Bryce isn't even a good runner. Did you see that around? I saw that. I mean,

Bryce's rushing performance against Oklahoma was so smooth and really the engine of the offense on the whole day that even though I've said earlier in this episode, I'm not, I'm only rear-facing celebrating. I'm only celebrating the Oklahoma game. I'm not projecting anything, but that is an elite Oklahoma defense. They brought back so many guys, particularly at the linebacker Venables, is a demon. He knows exactly what to do against that,

and Bryce carved it up on the ground. So I am willing to not only say test passed, but like give us another one. one. Bryce on the ground is a formidable weapon. Is he not the smoothest running 6-5, 240-pound quarterback you've ever seen? Well, that's where the, again, that's where I was like, oh, yeah, I forgot about Vince Young. Yeah.

He hit 20 miles per hour on that touchdown run. Which he had the seven fastest. Long run. Yeah. I thought that was fascinating. Yeah. Seven fastest registered speed in college football. I thought that was fascinating that he got that, that he got that top speed on a run with two jukees in it.

and only 38 yards to pater. Like those top speed, those 22 miles, those are usually for like 60 plus yarders. Right. I think the problem without getting into a much larger social discussion is people have compared him to Cam Newton because big tall black quarterback. So he's Cam Newton because he can run.

And he's much closer to a Josh Allen when he, reaches his full development. And he's always going back to high school hated the dual threat category because of what that tries to box him into. And what it is is he is athletic and physical enough to run the ball and punish you. But he is a quarterback. Right. So like I get maybe the Vince Young is a, Vince Young was so.

You're putting me in a funny spot because my life hold like, proposal is sort of the opposite. It's sort of like run him until everything else gets downloaded. But part of that, but part of that's the Utah plan too. We saw what they did with Devin Dampier. I'm not saying, I'm not saying that you don't need the designed runs or that not to take advantage of it

or not that he can't be a running quarterback. But especially now, because you're still testing some of those deep throws, right? It kind of reminds me of the 2015 year, with Jake Rudok. It felt like, especially at the beginning of the year, Michigan would call their deep shot when it was there and then just miss it. Right. But they kept calling it.

And as the year went on, they started hitting some of those deep shots, right? That Marsh play, which was basically an intentional foul, right? They do got burned. Yeah. Tackled Marsh, right? But otherwise, that's a deep bomb. It's a great throw. It's probably a touchdown or potentially a touchdown.

Whatever. I hate. Everything's a touchdown if there wasn't a penalty. Just run the touchdown play. Yeah, just run it. But that throw and the deep sideline throws to JJ and Bonner show that they do trust him when the moment's there to call the play and take the shot. But they're still running an offense that doesn't encourage what we saw against Western was him consistently locking in deep, right? His depth of target was like 17 yards after that first drive.

So I think they've got him, or at least what we saw in this Oklahoma game. was look, this is the offense we're going to run. We're still going to take those shots when they're there and we trust you to do it. But we need you to do these quick throws and to run when called upon and to run when your options aren't there. Go through your progressions. Run. We talked about that before the season started, right?

Cut the field and half. Level one, level two, read, read, run. And I think they'll continue to expand on his passing part and the running will maybe evolve. Also, Jordan Marshall and Hyder struggling or the office. offensive line struggle again not getting into that too much but the run game itself not getting going put more on bryce as well um but i just i'm only saying that to expand the potential of what bryce is and can be that's all yeah and because i feel like the cam newton thing can kind of put a cap on him in some ways or at least that can be the unintended consequence of that that's i don't is cam newton as a comparison and supposed to be an insult because

he was he won the he was a terrific yeah i think i think quarterback. I think it limits Bryce has more potential as a passer. Okay. So what the staff have done on the fly, and I'm giving them all the credit

between week one and week two is I think in week one, what they tried to deploy was like fully fully formed passer Bryce. And it's not there yet. That's fair. And so

part of Kyler Kreegel's Leipold comparison is that in season you can bring the passing game along when you have the baseline of QB power because it's a numbers advantage in the run game. If you're 11 on

11, now we've seen Bryce in the open field. We've seen Bryce as a decisive runner. Not trying to scan a secondary, but Bryce with an instruction to run and make one defender miss because everybody's got an assignment. So as long as you've got that baseline,

that is what you can build upon. Rather than trying to build from scratch some sort of NFL passing offense. Yeah. No, and last note before we get to special teams, the offense also too has to, again, from an assignment standpoint, execution standpoint, be able to run the ball from a different base

so that the wide receiver three role actually matters. And so that Bonner plays more and Zach Marshall plays more. And Jalen Hoffman is allowed to be more of a receiver, which is better skill set for him, right? Because again, against Western, so often Bryce is dropping back and they're bringing four and dropping seven against a rhino. And there's literally only two options for him to throw to, right? So expanding that part of it's crucial too.

That's a good point. My last offensive thought, what you just reminded me is, boy, Savion Heider is a very natural looking pass catcher. It's unreal. And I don't, I say past catcher, not receiver. I'm not proposing that you split them out wide or whatever. No. But as a safety valve, and I think the way I, the way I said it on Sunday was,

if you got a time traveler and you came back this week and you told me that Savian Heider ends this year with like 40 or 50 or 60 targets as a pass catcher, I'd say Michigan just had a really good year. Michigan figured out its offense because Bryce looks comfortable like checking to him. If you're talking about helping develop Bryce into a multi-reed quarterback, Savian Heider, he catches the ball with his hands, he catches it with like body momentum. This is not, this is not a small thing.

thing. When you throw in the flat to a running back, their angular momentum, upfield versus sideline, it's very consequential, right? Because it's a lateral pass. You can get going upfield or you can catch with your body and spin the wrong way and take a three-yard loss. Savian Heider, he looks extremely natural. He's got a magnet in the right direction. and I think that's one of those in-season things that we can see. They've got their receiver one. Great. Job done.

J.J. Buchanan, no notes. They got to get Marsh involved. Fine. TBD. Like, that's the homework assignment. But I think the comfort level that I witnessed on Bryce targeting Heider and then his like what he can do quite naturally quite instinctively when he's targeted as a pass

catcher I thought that was probably the second most impressive thing about the offense number one was was Bryce running and number two was hider as a as a pass catcher he has instincts beyond where they should be at his age as up just anybody with the ball at any point and I thought the offense was like, we've, we've got to get him the ball in space and get creative. You don't get compared Adrian Peterson and LT and some of these guys without having an incredible skill set. So yeah, I don't think it's signs of like Ripstar points out like scat back type thing. I don't think that's where that's going.

Hider's going to be a running back and he's going to be a very, very good running back. Yes, I agree with that. I think it's a lot. No position switch. Nothing, nothing. The staff knows he's a home. But like, he's a third down. running back. I mean, you can, I won't, that's all I'll say. Jordan Marshall better pick it up.

Well, and again, not getting it too much, watching some of the tape. I'm not as hard on Marshall now as I am with some of the old line stuff, but it'll get there. Yeah. The potential's there. I think at some point we're going to talk about this duo the way we expected to. So I, I love the special teams conversation because again, going back to our SP Plus conversation, special teams was something that was highlighted as wow they've got this what 104th or whatever in the country one 13th preseason even worse okay it was way down on michigan and it's not that i don't understand why i just there wasn't enough of a corrective projection yeah so what if michigan's kicking is better and we had the the muff from marsh last week right but

return better and more importantly what if the punting is consistent. Not only consistent, incredible. Like what a performance from Cam Brown in this game. Like you said, he's probably what the third star of the game? Yeah, I think this was the single best punting performance in terms of like like raw yardage and placement and down at the one and inside the 20, but also contextually. I think this was this was the best individual punting game I've ever seen at Michigan. Because if any of these are a shank or if any of the inside 20s are at the 40. I mean,

the, you know, Michigan probably loses the game. So I was, I was just stunned. I mean, I thought this, I thought this young guy,

Cam Brown crushed it. And he's from, he's from a beach town on the gold coast. Absolutely beautiful part of Australia. It's so interesting to have him in Ann Arbor. You know, I hope he's ready for the winter.

He's from a surfers paradise. I just, I was, I was amazed. I like, I don't know if, do you play golf? Are you a golfer? No. Okay. I probably play golf like twice a year. So I was never a long hitter.

I just wasn't. I would play with my friends and it was always frustrating because they could just mash the ball and out drive me, right? But I was always very, very good, 150, yards in and especially 100 yards in. So I just figured out I had to play really boring golf, but I just had a feel once I got into the shorter clubs and wedges or whatever. And when you're playing great golf, it's not like, okay, this club, when I hit it perfect,

full swing goes 140 yards. It's you're able to take a club and know just from the distance and feel like I need to hit this 60%. Just like when you go to throw something, right? That feel of where it's going to go. And when a punter can punt like this, I think of good wedge play for him to be able to stand there and kick it into a very small area and get the exact type of spin he wants to get those two balls down inside the five at the one, six of them inside the 20 and no touchbacks. Yeah. That's not just like, oh, he's a great kicker.

That's an incredible feel to be able to pin the ball like that. so accurately. Yeah, none of them were like adequate. They were all crisp and precise. They were all terrific. Yeah. So for, again, we're not trying to drastically alter predictions, but like I can't help but think about our conversation before.

And we wondered, okay, where does the special teams part change the conversation? We haven't seen a lot from the field goal portion, yet, obviously. I know today, Coombe said that he was making like a 53-yarder and feels like he can continue to extend that. Zavada's inconsistency last year was so out of nowhere and such a drastic impact on the way we looked at this team.

And then, of course, the inconsistency of the punting. So again, Kerry Coombs, with this team, you could argue last week, wasn't a great special team's performance because we said, hey, if I'm going to put wide receiver one A or one B back there. It's because I know he's going to catch it, maybe make some plays for me. And he moff says like,

but I think in a game like this, and Oklahoma had an incredible punter as well. Right. Like that's why Michigan was selling out and getting those penalties trying to block him because they knew he was a weapon as well. So to match that or exceed it with what Cam Brown was able to do in a game,

you win 17 to 10, low scoring, where turnover is making. a huge difference and punting and field position is massive too and your defense says thank you sir it comes on the field knowing again with a bend don't break philosophy like we can give up 20 30 yards here and still get off the field and be okay yeah and the uh you know butkowski i would say like task completed you know there wasn't any sort of weather or wind 40 yards is not 50 yards But he did his job. A made field goal in two PATs means that on Oklahoma's final drive,

they could only tie with a touchdown and an extra point. So there was no, he sort of, you know, 1410 with a consequential drive at the end, it feels a lot different. I mean, you're scared of losing on a broken player, a touchdown. So, you know, check back in later on Butkowski, the kicker. hopefully given the opponent and the weather this upcoming weekend, UTAP, we'll probably not chat about Butkowski until Iowa week. And then we're going to talk about them a lot because Michigan, Iowa always comes down to kicks, always. Always.

I hope that's a, I hope that's a blowout win. And I hope the media properly credits at Michigan beating their team that's ranked above them. unbelievable um still kind of i know we're we're we're facing with a lot of the assessment but still kind of adjusting and forward a little bit here the the margin that we have here with victory right yeah so it's interesting because obviously western is bad at plus one and then you typically aren't playing in oklahoma and week two and some of these other strong seasons right particularly 21 through 23 but what what is what is this type i basically i basically i basically think that this will we'll drop this card after this week because what we're living through

is the scenario I brought up at the beginning that makes me laugh, which is like, well, what if this was 2007 Michigan, but they were two and oh instead of oh and two? Yeah. The there's rough road ahead. There's there's going to be really, really elite hard teams that Michigan has yet to play. But this one is. is now banked. You've now banked a miracle and you've banked an upset. So let's find out.

So, okay, I like that. That's a good way to look at it. I think, I don't know, the Western game is still so funny the way some people in the media want to talk about it. Like, you used the phrase restored second versus, I mean, I'm still seeing people talk about the second Michigan. got added in that game as if it's nefarious.

And it's drastically due to a misunderstanding of what happened, which was the game clock in the stadium still showtime. So whatever. But you're two and out. You've banked, like you said, the win against an Oklahoma. And when we're thinking resume in the four games we talked about, I mean, you still got to beat Iowa and Penn State. That's the buffer zone.

But you've won one of the four. And you now have the Oklahoma win, which you hope. Now at this point, you become an old. Oklahoma fan, right? Because like you said, if Oklahoma is a 10-win SEC team, one that's good for your resume, too, you have the head-to-head if those two are a factor against each other in any way. Yeah, I guess my last lingering thought on the Western stuff, controversy story,

whatever, is like if and when Michigan continues to win and win its big games, that opener will become funnier. and funnier within the Michigan circle and it will drive haters more and more crazy. Oh, that's interesting. I think, but in an enjoyable way. I think that it's so different as a controversy. Well,

it's the same thing with the 2023 asterisk thing. And I compared it to Jets fans complaining about Tom Brady, inflating the ball and the Astros, trash can stuff. Like the people without titles are the ones still screaming and they still have the title, right? this win obviously on a much smaller scale with Western, you're going to double down as long as you can

because you needed and wanted Oklahoma to win this game so badly to reinforce your narrative. Just like in 23, you needed Michigan to lose the national championship to reinforce your narrative. And they didn't. Eventually, you're going to look like an idiot still talking about that game if Michigan continues to improve and win big games to your point.

Right. So fast forward seven days from now. Michigan has just lost to UTEP. 3-0. Right. And then we were saying. Zero in a hurricane on a safe. No, and I just, I don't, I don't want to hear because I already saw and I don't

remember who it was and I don't care. I already saw somebody prominent enough that he shouldn't be saying this. But like talking about the CFB committee, are they going to consider this Western thing a loss? And it's like, if Michigan's in that bubble and we're having that conversation, I'm just going to be so. I don't know. It's just, this only happens to Michigan, right? Well, in a way, that's why this Oklahoma game mattered so much because this, this, you

won two games. Yeah, this is one of the four, like, utterly circled. This is one that, you know, you and I went over this in the preseason. What's the difference between nine and three, seven, and two versus nine and three, six, and three? Well, now we're down, you know, like, we're down. the seven and two path. We're not like, or excuse me,

the six and three path. So it's all on the conference schedule now. It's all on the conference schedule now. No thanks to Ohio State for blowing their SEC matchup. No. Speaking of kickers, by the way, so like,

Butkowski, again, not a lot of sample size, but like Ohio State's kicker had already made, I think it was three. I think there was his fourth attempt, including one from 48. This was the most closer at 45. and it would have ended the game because it would have been a nine-point lead with four minutes left.

So it would have been two possessions, not one. Instead, he misses Texas marches down the field. So, but Kowski small sample size, but he kept Michigan's lead at a full touchdown rather than four points. It's amazing how many games Ohio State has lost. because of a kick in some way, right? Right. It's still a colossal meltdown on the other side of it. But, you know, we talked about,

I don't want to get too far ahead because I want to talk about a couple more close coming games, but like how much I was like completely writing off Oregon and Ohio State at the beginning of the year. And at worst, you know, you know, people are so focused on Michigan's narrative with Western. And I said I get it. Like everyone's like, well, Oregon struggled too. They barely beat Boise. Why are people defending? I'm like, well, Dante Moore had a career day.

Yeah. Right. When you're offence is great, you know. Michigan and Oregon had very different week one close shaves and then very different week twos. Right. Against Oklahoma schools. How funny is that. Yeah.

And then you lose at Oklahoma State. So now you go, okay, what, and again, we're not playing either of these teams until November. So who knows. Who knows? Who knows, right? but now it's not completely unwinnable games and it's is dan lannan going down to james franklin path and right they have to deal with their own negativity is the point right right but yeah i think that

yeah i think that you and i when we were sort of setting the table we disagreed on eight and four nine and three blah blah blah but we yeah at the time we agreed like okay there's two automatic losses right and you know they're both still on the road but i think just mathematically it's like well we both called those automatic losses in the summer because you'd give Michigan what 5% 10% 10% and now

you would I mean the I just don't know yeah I hate the number has changed materially changed yeah it's funny to be saying that two weeks after our Western game but there is that stat that I think there's only

there are only two teams in the country who are undefeated with a win over a currently ranked team and it's Michigan and Texas. Yeah. Yeah. The strength of record, the SOR, has Michigan 2 right now. Yeah. That's why I laugh at the AP thing.

But anyway, so the season breaking into thirds and being halfway through this third, I'd say expectation, obviously, is the U-TEP game should look like we think it's supposed to look like. Well, you know me. I, so week one, I said- The weather's supposed to be bad, right? Yeah, I said, so when we were previewing Western, I was like, I need margin. I need 50 point.

This is, they're going to play this in a bathtub. So I don't care. I just want to, if it's like, if it's like 24 to zero, fine. I don't care. Just get out of there. Okay. So weather, that's a good point with the weather impacting. Okay.

Well, then whatever it is, the Iowa being, because they, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, writers are so desperate to hold Michigan back a little that Iowa and Penn State are Penn State right as we expected is being propped up and their schedule blah blah blah but now whatever UTEP hopefully feel great beat Iowa and then that road trip to Minnesota we've talked about that's also changed yeah and we've talked about PJ flex respect for Michigan but yeah that Minnesota team I mean so that could be a My needle has moved. My needle has moved a lot on that Minnesota game because we already talked about the PJ Fleck respect, but they've also looked terrible.

Yeah. So that was preseason. I believe that was 72% Michigan expected victory. I have to imagine that has bumped up because their defense is just non-existent. Yeah. So now, again, for our circle of optimism and we'll reassess again. in a few weeks there's a lot of football to be played but the goal was five and no going to the buy before the Penn State game right and if you lose to Oklahoma it not being devastating and knowing

okay it just impacts what I have to now do in my conference and maybe I even need to make my conference championship game et cetera but now it's okay five and oh and go into the Penn staking that's the clear path and it looks very realistic at this point. Minnesota, 82nd in defensive yards per play, 77th in offensive yards per play, having played Eastern Illinois and Mississippi State. Is that just like the Rossi, Rossi being gone now? The impact has finally happened. I don't know. I really don't know. But Mississippi State absolutely waxed them. Yeah. Yeah, to the point people are obsessed with their quarterback now. Oh, yeah. That guy is a future $10 million Miami hurricane. Camario.

Going to a different U.M. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's funny. Oh. I hope this happens. It will. It probably will, but specifically Miami would be hilarious. So, you had talked about checking picks or whatever the Iowa Week I guess what were you looking for there checking yeah I'm just trying to go off your notes here you said picks check versus the actual 17 to 10 and one number each to oh yeah I got Michigan score right I said we were going to score 17 points but the defense overperformed so 1710 Michigan wins I picked 1720 Michigan loses Trev picked Michigan winning 2420, so he gets the win but not the score. U-TEP, I really, I need like an inch-perfect forecast, because if the storms miss Ann Arbor, just to spend like 20 seconds on U-TEP itself, they have no defense. So if you're worried about either side of the ball would be their offense, they have a dynamic quarterback. in good weather, in good weather against Utep,

you'd really, really want this to be the absolute launch pad game. You'd want 500 yards and 50 points. If it's, again, if they're playing in a bathtub, I don't really know. Maybe like the Notre Dame 2019 sort of hurricane game, Michigan ran really well in that game. That's right. Wasn't really a past paper. That's the one where was it Spinellas?

Like went all the way to the sideline and buried the deer. So that's, I think that's what I'd like to see. But I can't, just because there's this, there's this like three service consensus that the weather system is going to hit Ann Arbor at exactly the hours of the game.

And it's going to be a deliourable. at deluge. It's going to be like two inches an hour. So I'm honestly going to say like 24 to 3. Yeah. But this time I won't be upset about it. Yeah. If I thought weather was even only a slight factor, then yeah, I'm picking like 453.

Okay. Or probably even a shutout, like something of that magnitude. Yeah. I mean, weather works both ways, right? So if they, if it's, if it's that sloppy, uh, you know, 30 Marshall dives versus U-TEP, get a 10-0 win. I don't know. This is like, after such a happy conversation, this is very doomer.

I think that- It's not domer. It's just the weather could suck. I think that the weather's going to turn it into a 10-point game versus U-Tep. I hope I'm wrong. Yeah. I think even with the weather, I don't think it'll be that. I mean, if the window's fine, this is the week.

This is the week to absolutely rip it. There should be no, there should be no, like, oh, I'm hamstrung by this read, or they're dropping seven, they're doing this and that. They, you know, they're lining up their four down linemen and an inch off. You remember that stuff from the Western game? Like, oh, they're de linemen. We're too far away from the ball. I don't think it'll matter. It should.

It should. Mac can also play a very similar style of football, too, and have athletes. I mean, we see Mac athletes, especially with the portal now. go up very easily. It would work almost like a feeder. I don't think I talked enough about the dynamic of not only former Michigan players on the team, but a roster full of kids that probably dreamed of going to Michigan and didn't even get recruited and had that chip and whatever. I can imagine, you know, the team from El Paso coming from the gorgeous western tip of Texas where the Rocky Mountains begin.

and I love that town, sorry. I like El Paso, yeah. It's my second home. I'll always love it. But, you know, them coming up to Michigan and even 60 degrees will feel like freezing. It's a different kind of business. It's a different, you know, whatever. But I think this is a game.

I mean, Bryce is a virtual lock to score. I think this is the first game. He's been favored to be the more likely to score than Marshall, but both of them are virtual locks to score. Both are basically even money to score twice. I think it's looked at that regardless of the situation and whatever happens with the passing game, Michigan's going to be able to do whatever it wants running the ball. And probably, I think, what do I have here? Yeah, defensive touchdown is plus 300.

Like, that's crazy for, I mean, I know it's Michigan, UTEP, whatever, but I don't know. We're going to look really stupid if something crazy happened. Yeah. We've hardly previewed it, but it should be that. So hopefully, hopefully it's not a monsoon because that sucks because I also know a lot of fans that go to games like this are ones that are maybe families first times going or people that don't typically get to go to games or whatever it might be.

So I hope it can be a great experience. So in their second game, UTEP played Texas Southern. They won 51 to 10, nine yards per play for. three and a half against. In their opener at Oklahoma, they lost 51 to zero, seven yards per play given up, and three and a half gained.

So it should be a Michigan win. You know, if Utep has a great young coach, I can't claim to know a lot about the program, like if they want to keep it closer. But I think the projected, when you combine the over-under and the spread, I think the expectation is like 45 to 7.

So, you know, Michigan learned its lesson week one. They came out week two and played great. I'd like to believe they will never be snuck up on again. So. Sorry, I thought they had. Hopefully they'll take them seriously. I think I must be mixing them up with UTSA. Oh, I forgot Mike Price was there for a long time.

Do you remember Mike Price? the like disgraced Alabama coach. Yeah, he was the Alabama coach for the year in 2003. It's a rolling baby. Yeah. He was at Washington State for a long time before that. So is he UTSA or U-TEP? No, no, so he coached U-TEP.

He's like 80 now. He coached U-TOP during the 2000s and then even came back for a little bit as an interim coach. No, the current coach is Scotty Walden. Scottie Walden. Second season record of 5 and 20. Yeah, but the person I was thinking of was Jeff Trailer and he's at UTSA. Yeah, no, he's a super serious dude.

You got to take him seriously. Right. And I was not that not that Scotty Walden is not. No, but I was thinking he was there and maybe he left for another job. But I just, I had the schools mixed up as all that was. So. So, um, uh, Utep hired Scotty Walden coming out of Austin P. Mm-hmm.

where he went 26 and 14 overall, 17 and 6 in the conference. He won back-to-back conference titles at Austin P. This is his third year at Utep. He's gone 3 and 9, 2 and 10, and he's now 1 in 1 this season. So, you know, program without a pulse. Hopefully they, you know, hopefully the weather, operates yep we'll get 50 i think victory that'll be it so all right we're in the rambling phase i think we're good to get out of here this this was really good i was super excited to

break down alcohol i think we should go another 30 minutes to do a really deep dive on utep i think i just got tired with the little bit we talked about their kicker sucks he's one of four and he's even missed an extra point so what a bum If weather is that consequential, we should be okay. I refuse to take this game seriously because I don't want to take it seriously. If I have to take it seriously next week, I'm going to be very upset. I'll take it. No, I think it's interesting.

So they have, they play two quarterbacks, Raymond Moore and E.J. Colson, E.J. Colson, why is that name so familiar? E.J. Colson. E.J. Manuel is a different guy from like 10. years ago. So they've got... Oh, because he, I know why. He was like the next Cam Ward because he played for Incarnate Word.

Incarnate Word. He was at UCF for a year and everybody thought he could be like... Bo, E.J. Colson? Yeah, their quarterback. So they thought he could be like the next sneaky out of nowhere quarterback, potentially. So he's off to a great start as a pass. Yeah, he's a 60% 300 yards a kid. So everyone thought he might be a sneaky recruit.

Four touchdowns. He hasn't thrown a pick yet. They seem to be a variable rushing attack because they only have three ball carriers all year and two of them are quarterbacks, which is curious. Raymond Moore seems to be like the gadget quarterback. He's got 12 carries, 142 yards, 12 yards of carry. And then running back to Boris Jones and E.J. Colson get about 25 carries apiece. Why are we doing this? I don't know. You're doing it.

I'm doing this. Yeah. Punner's okay. 41 yards of pop. He's made eight punts. Kicker stinks. They have one pick on the year. They have.

Giving sacks on the year, giving up five sacks. I feel okay. Okay. You're good now? You feel all right with this? Here's what I care about. U-TEP has some awesome throwback uniforms. I hope they wear those. Are they going to wear them?

I don't know. I hope they do. They've got different U-TEP throwbacks, and then they also have a Texas Western throwback. So U-TEP was Texas Western, in the, what was the name of that basketball movie? They won the title, 66. When they, yeah.

Against Kentucky. I can't remember. Well, I don't know the movie name, but it was the true story. Yeah, but there was a movie with that guy in it that my wife likes. Ripstar asking, how is the passing defense? Let me tell you, let me give you a, let me tell you to be Ripstar. So they are 112th in a golden road. Thank you, David.

rating. What's the name of the movie? 112th. 112th an opponent passer. All right. Monsoon or not, I want to see Bryce cooking. Yeah, yeah, honestly. D-line, let me tell you about the D-line.

Tell me about that minor D-line. I think the only way I can sort of speak to it with counting stats is let's see what share of tackles and sacks is coming from the front. So they're leading, so their top, wow, their top 11 tacklers. are all in the back seven. That's bad. That's a lot of completed passes. They have one D-Lineman with two tackles for loss

and one and a half sacks from the D-line. So thank you for asking. It should be a porous secondary and a weak defensive line. Well, and even like Oklahoma's 51-0 game I'm looking, Matera was 11 of 17 for 225, three touchdowns. They only had 400 total yards. 231 passing, 170 rushing, 6.9 yards per play.

Utep had less than 200. So I'm guessing this is just like an easy field position win, right? Like they were 6 of 11 on third downs. It's crazy. I am one thing I do want to watch moving forward. You know, Michigan had very, what I would consider few plays against Western. And then the way this game flowed again around like a 60 play mark.

And I've just kind of assumed based on a lot of things, but previous Utah offenses, Jason Beck, it's what they've said publicly that like 70 to 75 plays a game will be where this team gets to. But across college football, plays per game are significantly down. Yes. And I know they changed the clock rule last. year and I don't know if that's having like a bigger impact or what it is this year but it's it's interesting that we're seeing like 55 to 60 pretty consistently and that and that kind

of modifies a lot of stat potential too just because it's just less plays so yeah yeah so all right um awesome Nick you're the man I appreciate everything you do man man and getting prepped on here and coming here and doing this as the celebrity that Big Butros has become amongst the Michigan. Oh, I need to clip that face. That is fantastic. No, for real, though. Appreciate, man. I really enjoy the show.

Whatever. Shut up. I love you. The feedback, you're right. We've gotten from our community of friends and then our separate community and whatever, lots of good feedback. I appreciate those watching live viewership. I know this is like middle of the week at 2 o'clock, but. always really, really good feedback when we're live and people interacting with the show.

Thank you. If you're not watching live, like, subscribe, notification, bell. I know I say this every week, but please do it. It doesn't make sense to me. We have so much viewership to subscribe subscribers should be significantly higher. Our views across the Blue By 90 network are climbing very fast with all the content we have. So it's not just us. Earlier today, I believe Chris Formulian and George Strach loaded their episode, interviewing Jayhue Cheson.

The OG Blue By 90 show with Justin and Joel after the Oklahoma game was a great watch. I really love watching those two talk, but especially after win against Oklahoma. That was super enjoyable. Toski, the goat, no cap. Still continues to be a little bit more pessimistic than me, but his film review with Darnell was awesome last night, Tuesday. Of course, me and Darnell, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Dennis, so happy to have him on board with his weekly shows as well as his postgame show. so just stupid amounts of content on the channel when it's Spotify.

I'm trying really hard to ignore the amount of Wings conversation going on. I was going to say, before we. I will get to it. I will get strong opinions on this. Can we get. Are we doing it now? Okay. Can we do U-TEP predictions from you, me, the chat, and then wings?

Okay. I'll go 450. I'll say 31. one to seven. All right. Where am I going here? Okay. This is bone in or boneless?

Okay. I'm not going to be like the hard for jerk and say boneless chicken wings or nuggets, right? I mean, they are. They're ground up. Bownless chicken wings are nuggets. They're not wings. Yeah, they're not wings. I do understand situationally wanting to use a fork instead of your hands or whatever,

but like they're not like they're not wings why are they called wings it's crazy to me if you want to eat nuggets then eat nuggets and if you want to eat wings then eat wings don't eat nuggets don't eat nuggets and call them wings it doesn't yeah i don't get it it doesn't make any sense it's no and food well and if you're getting a bone in wing and not liking it then they're not good wings there's not enough meat on it they're not good they're just not good wings right what's the two are you a a drum or uh you know the two shapes flat drummer drums are flats i'm flats because i use the umbrella technique where time for me to get a real fat guy for you um no where you take your fingers here

right and you push it down push to me down like that and then you have a little umbrella of wing at the end you dip that in your sauce and then yeah um drums though i mean if there's a lot of meat down there. A good drama is good, but I prefer flats. They're easier to dip. I can do barbecue sauce and ranch or like some of the other flavors, but honestly, like real regular buffalo sauce and blue cheese when done right is so money. Just the classic traditional buffalo with blue cheese is money. I might order that. That sounds delicious. So that's the other answer to blue cheese or ranch. I can do the ranch thing, but I prefer Bowmas. I think both of those are gross. I think they gross me out.

Sauce, white, either. White creamy stuff. I'll, I'll have a spice. I'll have a spike. No, yeah, indeed, pause. I'll have a spicy wing, but I'll just eat the spicy wing. That's how my wife is. She doesn't dip in anything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. We don't dip. Yeah. Very California of you. I guess so. Yeah. What else do you want to talk about? I don't know.

I could talk about wings more. I've become very aware of this, by the way. Pizza places, not like Pizza Hut, but you're more local pizza places. Have the best wings, because BDubs sucks now, right?

Like, do you remember when BDubs was like cool and like a destination place? Like you went in and you're like, oh my God, the T's how old we are. Right. Like it was,

I've realized that because obviously I cover, I don't know, I said, obviously for those who don't know whatever i cover high school sports for a local paper as well and yeah like b dubs is like cringe to them like why you know what i mean and i remember it was the place to go there hadn't been anything like that and like they had craft beer on tap which was insane and all the games up and i still like a lot of their sauces but the chicken's gross it's just not good but pizza place i'm not because they do it in the pizza oven or what but wings from

pizza places are the best. I believe you. I believe you. And I do not have a mini fridge. I'm sorry. Sorry. That's a goofy comment. What?

Circuit City has great wings now. Oh, are you new to this lore? What is the electronic store? I worked at Circuit City when it went out of business. Oh, okay. Yeah. So there was. there was a period of time on Hale to the podcast with Josh Hensky

where I would reference Circuit City almost every week for some reason, like something would come up. So it became a thing where I had to reference Circuit City. My story is there. I just thought of a way to sign off this episode. Are you ready? Do you want me just hit the button? No, no.

This is a... We're at like a 20-minute sign-off at this point. This is a bet or a pledge. If Michigan scores more than 50 points versus U-TEP, we have to eat wings on camera. During the episode, I love that. Deal. Deal. Goodbye everyone.

Can you do beer? No. Oh, I'll do beer. No, I can't because I'll have to go pick up my kid from school. Where'd you go? Oh, you literally left on that note. He's gone. That's hilarious.

Okay. All right. Well, shameless plug before we go, blueby 90.com. All the premium content, unique articles, et cetera. You have access to it, Club 90 message board, which is picking up more and more. So excited about that. Old friends, new friends gathering there. We are doing a promo code.

If you're watching this podcast for this podcast, use M Weekly. That'll get you your first month free. I can't believe he did that. That's hilarious. That'll get you your first month free so you can give us a shot over at blueby90.com. Like, subscribe. notification bell you know the drill we'll be back in a week hopefully eating some wings and not drinking beer we've decided but eating some wings celebrating a big win michigan over utap

don't apologize for the win for western don't apologize for the win over oklahoma enjoy it we're the villains just own it as michigan fans uh for nick i'll say thank you guys and we'll see you next week on michigan weekly blue by 90 thanks guys go blue