Blue By Ninety - Paul is HoMe

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

Justin, Kailen & Zach recap the Battle for Paul Bunyan...Michigan absolutely dominated the game, but the brawl in the tunnel overshadowed the whole thing. They break it all down for you. 

This is a presentation of Blue by 90. Find us on Twitter at Blue by 90 and shop the merchandise at blueby90shop.com. All right, welcome to Blue by 90. I'm Justin, joined by Kaitlin today, as well as our man Zach Linfield, who was on the call on Saturday. Jack apparently just died today.

I don't know. Was it too much twisted tea at the tailgate? We consumed quite a few beverages. That intro three off, I could tell. It did. I usually go Jack first. I could have just went Zach and Caitlin instead. It would have been smoother.

Jack just thinks he's dying. Thinks he has COVID. Who knew? Yeah. It was – the tailgate was quite a day. So I just still don't even have my voice all the way back between screaming at the game and at the tailgate to Clayton Anderson.

Yeah. Oh, I didn't even go to the game, man. My voice is bad. Yeah, how was Clayton? Did he perform well? Oh, my God. The tailgate was, like, on another – like, it was unbelievable. It was – we had, like, 3,000 people come through the tailgate.

All packed in those fences? Yes. It was insane. That's crazy. And we – Clayton – Clayton's let's put it this way clayton told me going into the day he was gonna like play for 30 to 40 minutes take a breather then come back on they never stopped he never came off the stage i went up to him after like an hour of them playing i was like dude do you guys want to take a break and we'll come back later?

He's like, no, we're just going through it. We're sending it. And I was just like, I love it so much. They absolutely rocked it. Did he consume any Twisted Teas or no? Oh, of course. Oh, yeah. He was drinking since he got there at about noon and started and poured himself a glass immediately.

Chugged on stage with Jack. I will say, I'll give Jack this best shotgun of his life on stage with Clayton. It was unreal. He was so fast. Documented? I'm not going to give it to him. I'm going to say that Clayton was being polite to his guest. That's true.

That's true.'s true um but yeah i went up there chugged with him as well it was we had we broke a table that's how that's how mafia style not bills mafia it's a legitimate like metal table like an outdoor like picnic table type thing and we had so many people on top of the tables dancing and stuff that the tables broke some more it was unreal those tables it was unreal um yeah we need we're we need to uh to to um we need to figure out what's going on there. But, you know what, I'm taking that as a W, honestly. Oh, 100%.

Oh, I would too. Yeah. It was an incredible day. Can we talk about the weather? Like, this is such like an old man thing of me, but all I did was talk about it. I was like, it's so nice out. This is unbelievable

i did the same for late october it was just like i mean when have we ever had a day like that in like basically november um i mean just you couldn't have scripted the day better it was nice all day too it's not like there was a breeze that made it chilly at any point like it was nice all day too. It's not like there was a breeze that made it chilly at any point. Like it was nice all day. T-shirt weather too. Oh, yeah. I was like waiting for it to get cold, and I was like, I don't think it's going to happen here. So, hey, I'll take it.

Even like I went into the game, I grabbed my parka before I went in, and like I started wearing it, and then I just didn't need it at all. It was it was still nice even after the sun went down. Honestly, it wasn't terrible. You know, so unbelievable day. The shout out to Twisted Tea. Shout out to Soaring Eagle Casino. I mean, we gave out like a million drink tickets.

We gave out a a million drink tickets. We gave out a ton of food for Slow's Barbecue as well. And Soaring Eagle was giving away just free two-night stays. Like, it was ridiculous. The things that people got for coming to the Blue by 90 tailgate was pretty awesome. Now you've got to plan quick for next weekend then, the Nebraska game. Yeah, I don't know how we're going to top this. All I want for the Nebraska game is a 3-30 game.

Can we get one 3-30 game, please? Should we not have found out today? I think we're supposed to either today or tomorrow morning probably. I mean, the Rutgers night game is just like like what are we doing here what are we doing yeah um but i will say one of the best things about the tailgate first off like you were saying clayton was just playing music all day and it just seemed to like continuously get better and better and better and better and then like right at the end he was like all right i'm done and better and better. And then like right at the end, he was like, all right, I'm done. And everyone was like, no, no, no, we still need one more.

We still need one more. And he like threw out some options and they were kind of like looking at each other like, which song we're going to do? And Jack, just from the background, he goes, do you know I'm blue? And Clayton just goes, hell no. It was the most immediate hell no of all time.

So they played Mr. Brightside. Yeah, they did go Mr. Brightside. I was like, bro, how do you expect a live band to play I'm blue? He's a country artist. Yeah. He could have put a nice acoustic acoustic twist on it there you go i don't know i'd be interested not a beat on yeah it was it was incredible mr brightside

was elite um and then he also like he was like one more song like six times in a row like it was literally there was an encore like people chanting uh core uh core brought him back and then he played like five more songs it was unbelievable that's a win so much that it made me late for the game and i was like still fine with it so just ridiculous um tailgate was like i again like best tailgate of all time for me. It really was up there. And if we ever do anything like this again, listeners out there, you need to come because I promise you we're going to have Clayton back next year.

I promise you that. I will do whatever we can to get him up from Nashville again. And knock on wood, he's an Indy guy. Plays pregame shows for the Colts. If we make it to the Big Ten Championship, I will be setting up a tailgate in Indy with him playing. I promise you that.

Electric. We need to get to Indy, just for that. Oh yeah. Then years to come. Exactly. Um, all right. So that's the tailgate. There's this football game that we want to talk about. I, nobody's even talked about the game because of all this.

There was a football game on Saturday night. I know. Honestly, it was like nobody's saying a word about it which is annoying to me that's like the biggest like obviously we can get into you know all the stuff about how shitty it was and and all that the most annoying thing to me is that we kick the shit out of them and nobody's talking about that kaylee you want to go first well i mean yeah the i thought we actually probably played our worst game and still destroyed them which is kind of awesome um yeah i mean i don't know what you want to talk about first or whatever but yeah i'll let zach you can give your your opening remarks there i think for me if i'm going to talk about kind of piggybacking off you,

Kalen, that was the red zone offense and just being within the MSU 30 yard line regardless. I think we entered, I had my stats, I don't know where they're at, but 36 of 39 inside the red zone, but over half of those are field goals. And it just got statistically far worse this past weekend i don't know what it is with the lack of creativity inside the red zone because that first drive where we scored the the first field goal that was a really detroit lions-esque play call on third down from the eight like a probably a four yard scat pattern to Ronnie and the only receiver that was

in the end zone was Roman it just kind of puzzled me and of course I don't want to say too much about it because of my alliance with the team but I don't know it just seems a little bit odd that they aren't throwing the ball to the end zone anytime inside the 10 yard line from first down and goal until third down and goal it just seems weird that they're not taking shots with these talented receivers because it's not like the receiver room is empty it's got a lot of depth to it too and the starters are pretty darn good and Schoonmaker has been such a threat lately but I don't that's my main qualm with what happened on Saturday night yeah Yeah, I would agree.

I mean, obviously the red zone issues are like the only weakness to this team. You know, I felt like it's absolute domination outside of that. You know, I will say to your point, like, why not? Why have we not once thrown it up to Scooney on a fade or Andrell Anthony on a fade and see if they can go get it? You know, like, to be honest, if I was Andrell, I'd be pretty frustrated with that. Like, you know, especially with what we know JJ can do with the ball, you know, a little, you know, play action fade

or something to the corner of the end zone. I'd love that. You know, I also also it just felt like everything like got super tight when we got into the red zone like you know there's sometimes when we threw the ball in first down then it didn't then we it goes nowhere well then everybody in the world knows we're running the ball on second down and and then it runs we run it and go nowhere and then it's like third and goal from the nine and and it's like, okay, now what do you do? You know, so I don't know.

It definitely felt like we got tight and zero creativity. I don't know. I felt like actually like props to MSU's defense. They played us pretty well. I'm really surprised that we're kind of the only team of the year that didn't just throw whatever we wanted to on MSU. Yeah, that was surprising to me too. I will say in this game, I probably saw the most of like JJ putting some deep shots out there or putting the ball in a place for like mostly Ronnie Bell to, like, make a play.

And he didn't quite make all of them, right? But I kind of like just seeing him give the guys a chance, right? You know, put the ball up there and let the guy elevate and make a catch. I just feel like I don't see that that often. But I did see some of that. I mean, that's all they did with Coleman. Right. Yeah, and that's what they did in 2020 when they beat us too because they had Ricky White, the receiver, just 50-50 balled us to death,

and that's exactly what they did with Keon in the first half. He had four catches. Then I think he had just that long one in the second half because him and Reed really didn't do much in the final two quarters, but they 50-50 balled us to death in Tucker's first year. They obviously kept it on the ground with Walker last year. And then this year they did it in the first half and then they kind of went away because Michigan started bracketing the safety.

You saw that on the first long throw of the half when Rod Moore almost picked him off. He should have come down with it. But Michigan eliminated that, and I was really impressed because I did that little segment that was posted last night, and I was really impressed with how the DBs were in the run game. They were everywhere because I was never a big Jeff Okuda fan with the Lions. I just dogged on him because of his Ohio State background.

But the way he played last week at Dallas and was in the run game, I was like, you know what? I would really like to see the Michigan DBs do that too. And then all of a sudden, Saturday night, Rod Moore, McCurry, Page, and J'mon and DJ have been pretty involved as well as Will Johnson, but they were all over the run, especially on that fourth down and, what, one from inside the Michigan 10. That was super special for me.

Yeah, I thought – I mean, I honestly think Macari Page has come a long way. There were times last year that he looked at lost, you know, and he hadn't gotten much playing time, so experience is a big piece of that. But he's come a long way. Obviously, Rod Moore is absolutely balling out. That dude is legit. You know, and I think Will Johnson, you know, coming on in the second half on Saturday as well.

You know, I know they've been trying to get him on the field as much as they can. And, you know, after Coleman did a lot on, on Jamon in the first half, they made a switch and, you know, I'll applaud Jesse Minter on being able to, to, you know, make adjustments that Jesse Minter has, it's, it feels like Mike McDonald laid a really good foundation for what a good defense in the big 10 in the year 2022, 2021, whatever, was last year. And now Jesse Minter seems to be perfecting it because, you know, we were worried about this defense. And I know they haven't gone up against any high-profiled offenses outside of, like, maybe Maryland so far this year. But, you know, they have done their job. And to hold MSU to essentially, you know, seven points and like, you know,

the tweet that Matt Burns put out today that I retweeted, it was like five plays for 150 yards. And then the other 48 plays, I think it was, went for like less than 100 yards. So it was a masterpiece on defense. I think Minter's kind of also taking that blueprint you talked about, Justin, in the second half especially because I don't see any other school or team that has had the second half adjustments that Michigan has had all year because the Iowa

game they did look suspect oddly against a really awful Hawkeyes offense in the second half but I think it's just three points in the second half of the last three games Indiana was tied 10-10 at halftime Penn State kicked the field goal Michigan State didn't score in the second half so I mean one field goal is what the defense't score in the second half so I mean one field goal is what the defense has allowed in the second half that's insanity to me that's just crazy adjustments that he's making yeah I don't know what his view looks like from the sideline but like I just imagine he like sees the matrix or something It's incredible. Yeah. I, you know, I, I wonder I, I, I, I really love it. I don't know. I wonder how you know, what exactly he's doing. I don't, I'm not seeing it and, you know, not

really in his brain, not in practice, but I think, you know, it's such a breath of fresh air coming from, we all have PTSD from Don Brown, I think, who doesn't know what the word adjustment means. And so, you know, I think that – It's all your problems with aggression. Exactly. You just hit them harder and it should work. So, you know, I think that's what I love. And for, you know, this defense too, that went from star power, star power,

star power to roll guys, contributors doing things, you know, it's, it's very different. Those are two different kinds of teams to coach up. And obviously Jesse Minter wasn't here last year, but being able to adjust after losing the, you know, Hutch and Ajabo and Dax Hill and Josh Ross and on and on and on. And Vince, yeah. And Vince. I mean, Vince is a huge piece of that too. I'm really impressed.

Now, you know, looking at the offense again, you know, I know Jim probably wanted to just run the shit out of the ball. He knew he could win that way. He knew that there was no chance they were going to put up double digits points after like the first quarter. And, you know, he said, we're just going to hold the time of possession forever and ever and ever not give them a chance. And we'll, it'll be super boring and I don't give a shit. And you know what?

It's not sexy, but it wins football games. Could they have sped it up probably in 142-7 or something? Yeah. But does it look the exact same in the W column? Yes, it does. If it ain't broken, don't fix it. Do you think there's value in maybe, like, getting J.J. more game reps or something like that? Yeah, I do.

I mean, I think there is some – like, there's definitely an argument for that where it's like, hey, you know, I would have loved to see us throw a deep ball, like, before three minutes left in the game. You know, like for me, I'm like, why not do that in the second quarter and see what happens? You know, I know you're like still there. It's still a game at that time and you want to control everything. But I like what does that hurt you to try one of those deep balls? Because at that time with three minutes left, like those guys were going to commit pass

interference just so that they didn't get beat. Right. They did it on, you know, they held a shit out of Roman on the flea flicker. They're just trying not to get scored on to like get quote unquote embarrassed in the, you know, in the final seconds of a game. So like that would be the only like criticism, criticism I have then is, like, if you're going to do that, you know, in the fourth quarter, what's the hurt to try it, you know, a couple times throughout the game?

Yeah. I think Michigan's offense has been very vanilla, but also, like, a unique way. It's a little bit odd. It's like a really rich vanilla where they keep it simple. And like I said, if it ain't broken, don't fix it. But the way they've used Schoonmaker since Eric Hall announced that he was done for the season or it was figured out that he was done for the season is special

because not a lot of teams use their tight ends like that. And to be honest, the only other team that really does is Ohio State and Iowa. But I think I've seen Michigan do it the best. And if they had Eric Hall, like, of course, that'd be incredible because he's such an important piece of the team. But those first half receptions, I think he had all four of his in the first half, and they were all extremely productive. They all went for first downs, five catches.

So I think at least four of them happened in the first half, and they almost all went for first downs. But going back to that time of possession, it was also something I brought up on that clip. Michigan State entered fifth worst in the country, and I think maybe Coach Harbaugh and his staff saw that stat or have been watching them. Of course, they watch game film, and were like, you know what, let's just blueprint, hold on to the football, like you said, Justin, and if we just do that, Michigan State's not going to score because

Michigan had it for 21 more minutes in the second half than Michigan State did. Well, to break news for those that maybe don't know, there's only 30 minutes and a half, and that's insane because Michigan State ran six plays on their first two drives of offense in the second half. That's not going to win football games, and that's why I don't think at this point they're going to make a bowl game because they can't hold on to the football for long enough.

I mean, let's talk about Michigan State for a second here they've got to win three out of their last four and they've got they're going to Illinois who you know Illinois looks like factory maybe the the fourth best team in the in the conference right now right now yeah like third pretty good right now, yeah. Like third or, you know, probably fourth behind Penn State, but they look pretty damn good. I still don't know how the hell they lost to Indiana because Indiana is like the worst team ever. They should be undefeated.

They really should be undefeated legitimately and like probably a top 10 team. Now, we set this precedent by saying they play in the big 10 West. So it's. Yeah. Headline right up here. It's the JV schedule, you know, but they're still like analytically.

I was talking to the guys at PFF this weekend and they said, analytically, Illinois is about as sound as it gets. Their defense is very legitimate. They play Jim Harbaugh-type football. They run the shit out of the ball. They protect it, and they play great defense. Coach Bilema's a lot like Jim Harbaugh is. Super tough, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's Bilema. Come on, Bilema? Yeah. We'll get to the prep next week. Yeah. You got Justin correct in your language now.

Listen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they've got to go 3-1 at Illinois versus Rutgers versus Indiana at Penn State. You know, I assume they win those two home games against Rutgers in Indiana. I think they're toss-ups at this point. Who knows where this program goes after what's happening with them, which we will talk about that in a second. But I just don't see any way that they're going to win one of those games

at Illinois and at Penn State. So, you know, to me then you're ending up five and seven at the best. Tuck ain't coming. Tuck ain't going to a bowl game. So, yeah, there we go. All right, let's talk. Okay, before we talk about the tunnel stuff, I want to talk about something good, and that's Jake freaking Moody,

who is unreal. And I think that is part of the game plan jim harbaugh knows he's got an absolute stud of a kicker so it we talked about this last year i think leading up to the ohio state game we were like we and i think a lot of people were like is it almost like a bad is does it almost hurt them sometimes in the play calling knowing that they have Jake Moody in their back pocket at all times because there's no like super aggressiveness to get the ball in the end zone? I do feel like that's still in the back of their heads sometimes.

I mean, it shouldn't. I mean, you should be trying to get the ball in the end zone, and Moody should be your backup plan more so. Right. I mean, you can depend on him, but, like, you know, when you're going up against Ohio State or something like that, guys who are a lot more aggressive going down the field, deep into the end zone, you got to do the same thing, you know, to compete.

Kickers are funny because they can either be your best friend or your worst enemy and when he's out there five six times a game in a game against a rival where you want to blow him out sometimes you can be your worst enemy now trot him out against Illinois let's say it's a close game down by two you're like okay Jake time to be our best friend now but I just think kickers are really funny in that sense. And, I mean, I know Blue by 90 has got a good relationship with Brad Robbins. The dude hasn't touched the field more than twice in a football game the last two weeks, which is just – Wait, hold on.

He's the holder. He's the holder. He's the Hody. Yeah, that's right. That's right. He might not be the Pody, but he is the Hody. And the Mody. And the Mody. And the Mody.

Mustache of the year too, right? So, yeah, you know, that right there, like, I don't think people – in the college game, I don't think people realize how valuable good kickers are. College kickers across the country are trash like they stink they they blow games more often than not and there's no dicker the kicker or rodrigo blankenship yeah like just going to be able to be able to go did your cat knock everything down oh my god she's just jumping over here she's like you guys talking shit about jake moody and like jumping over here

oh my god um yeah i you know i i think that like people got to realize how valuable that is i get it it's frustrating when you have to resort to five field goals because you're um because your your offense in the red zone isn't great. But instead of being frustrated, just be thankful that your guy goes five for five and hits a 54 freaking yarder. My God. There are probably, I don't know how many kickers in the country, a handful of kickers in the country that can do that. Normally, you're going for that on fourth down. It's four-down territory.

I mean, Michigan State has made one field goal all year. Is that true? Okay, somebody tweeted that at me, and I didn't even look it up. That's insane. Yes. One field goal all year. And they've had three different field goal kickers this year.

Eight games. Have they only made one? They've only made one. I'm pulling up my stats right now. Give me just a second. Maybe I can just show you guys. Let's see. The glare's pretty bad, but let's see. Place kicker.

Stoners 1 for 3, Patton's 0 for 1. Four field goals a tough team. I mean, you got to just have, like, zero confidence in your kicker at all. At least the special teams coordinator doesn't really have all that much to worry about when it comes to kicking field goals. Yeah. He does need to worry about his long snapper, though, because there was trouble with the snap on Saturday.

There indeed was. I don't know what happened to their primary long snapper because their backup was playing. I guess their primary was out. I guess. We're using our backup. Shout out Greg Tarr. Greg Tarr, there's been like zero.

I love Willie Wag, so I'm, you know, nothing against him. I wish we had him. But, like, Greg Tarr has been able to step in there, and I've seen no difference. Whereas, like, obviously there was the first one that was like, he caught it here, you know, and saved the day. And then the second one went over and then the third one was like a floater that took about 10 seconds to get back there because

he was shitting his pants about about throwing it over his head through an ethos at him you can tell that sean mcdonough on the abc broadcast was just fiending to say it. He was waiting to say it. He had that written on a note card set up on the mantle in front of him just in case it was going to happen because that's the same broadcaster that did the game when O'Neal dropped it back in 15. I was like, what are the odds? He did a piece – he did an interview with Angelique before the game about like 10 years since the call or whatever.

Not 10 years, seven years since the call, right? So, yeah. I mean, it couldn't have been like more perfect that we had a little trouble with the snap on Saturday. I wish it was more like dramatic or something. I wish we would have returned it for a touchdown and been able to stomp on their face. Yeah, we didn't get a ballless free.

We just got trouble with the snap. It's scooped up by Cornelius Johnson. Yes, absolutely. All right, let's talk the tunnel. This is like, I don't even want to, you know, I'm addicted to Twitter. I no doubt am. I have been. That's like probably the only reason we have a good following is because I'm just addicted and on it all the time.

But like the last 48 hours has been the least I've ever looked at Twitter because it is just like a cesspool of a lot of people that don't really probably know all the facts or what they're talking about all arguing with each other it's been miserable it's been we're all guilty about we're all guilty for that too a lot of us yeah oh i'm part of it as well i'm just like so do you think you can lay the facts out for those of us who are yeah are you asking me or are you asking Justin? Not as up on the FNU. I mean, I think – yeah, let's lay the facts out. The facts are, in my opinion, and Zach, feel free to jump in. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Okay, wait, wait, wait. You can't have facts in your opinion. That's true. The facts are, in my opinion. Let's lay a simple timeline. We all saw the video from the press box where Michigan's waiting to go up. Michigan State is walking in. Everyone saw Jayden McBurroughs skip up the tunnel,

dap up a couple of fans, yada yada. You also saw on the left side Jermon Green walking up in the middle of a bunch of white jerseys. You could very easily see that Jermon was the one walking in between everybody. And I kind of watched and I was like, I don't know. It doesn't look like he's talking or really interacting. He's probably chatting it up with a couple of the guys. And like, yeah, it could have seemed like Jaden was looking for problems. And I mean, I don't know necessarily if he's a full cocky kid.

I don't know. And I'm not I don't know necessarily if he's a full cocky kid. I don't know. And I'm not going to assume if he is or not, but it looked like Jamon was just walking up with players. Like the teams have done in the past. We saw that video with Penn state where the teams are just walking up friendly amongst each other and chatting probably football or life or where they're from after the game, because a lot of the guys,

they know each other. But to move a little bit more forward, it became obvious with that new video that came out at about 3 o'clock today with Brad Galley posting the full ESPN footage of it. And it's clear that the Jermon Green incident happened first, where it's very obviously Cary Crump in the number 14 jersey swinging his helmet. It's very obviously number four, Jacoby Winman, that's holding him. And he's certainly not trying to pull Jermon Green away from Crump.

It looks like he's holding him down. And no, I'm not going to fully assume, but I would assume that with that video, Jacoby Windman will probably see some kind of suspension or repercussion for it. And then in that same video, you can't see what happened with Jayden McBurroughs, but I'm going to just connect the dots here and say, he obviously saw what happened with Juman, and he went to go help his teammate they're both

defensive backs they both work together every day and he got into some kind of physical altercation with the MSU players and that's when he was dragged up the tunnel and thrown into what is a media tunnel that's not the locker room that is a media tunnel there's bathrooms right in front of where that incident happened and you could read the jerseys. You could see the numbers, see the names of everyone that was somewhat involved. Now, I put out a tweet that had players listed. And now, I'm not fully sure if a couple of those guys were throwing punches or kicking. And that was wrong of me to assume that all those guys are doing so, especially Jaden Reed and Trey Mosley.

Although, at first, of course, I'm heated. I think that they are both involved, and partially to an extent, I still do. But obviously the three guys that got suspended were the ones that you could see in the video wrongdoing. So I think that's where we're at. And then just to kind of push it a little bit further, when Michigan went up the tunnel, you can see 33, German Green,

his twin brother of Juman. He was one of the first ones in the Michigan locker room up the tunnel. And he walked into the Michigan locker room. And to paint a picture, you walk into the locker room, almost straight across the hall is the training room. And I would assume his brother was probably on one of the training tables bloodied up. That is what I would probably assume because German rushed out of the

Michigan locker room and had to be held back immediately. That's just what I saw. And, I mean, I don't know, that's just kind of the timeline that I put together throughout the rest of the day since about 3 o'clock. Yeah. You know, that's just kind of the timeline that I put together throughout the rest of the day since about three o'clock. Yeah, you know, I think the biggest question that everybody wonders and it's I don't know if we'll ever figure it out, is what happened between Jaden and Juman walking, you know, up through the tunnel and then all of a sudden there's a fight something happened there's you know like you said there's probably words exchanged or something was going on there

like something led up to that and i think that's like the biggest question to me is like you know who started the chirping who's you know blah blah blah but like i i put it out on twitter on the blue line id account like there's just such a difference to me in, like, a push and shove and a yelling match than, you know, ganging up 10 on one and beating the shit out of a guy with a helmet, you know, and, like, that's where, like, it just felt, it just felt like, you know, there was just some really bad actors from the michigan state side uh and and i think like i don't think there's like zero faults on the michigan side right because like yeah there's chirping throughout the game there's like you know there's you can say

a lot of things about like going up the tunnel like know, before all the MSU guys are up there. But, like, people don't understand. Like, this happens every single week. Like, every single week. There are 600 games. Yes. And every single week. And there's also, like, I don't think people realize how many people are on the

field pre- and post-game. Like, it's just hundreds and hundreds of people and like there's 200 300 like between players and staffers there's like two to three hundred people on each team that you're trying to get out and do all this and like it's just really hard for you know a handful of event staffers to to manage the whole thing now with that being said i've already talked to people you know in facilities and they said there's going to be heightened protocol they said that they tried to do more protocol you know at halftime and post game with with the referees with the referees and with trying to do more to hold the team separated and stuff like that but

like it's just hard you know you watched the you watched what happened on the field and like all the teams congregate on the field right so then like to try and separate them as you get them off the field it's like it's like herding cats there's just no way to really do it well i've never heard that before is that like a common herding cats yeah yeah that's a that's a phrase that's a phrase um but yeah i i don't know i mean it's just a shitty situation it's like you know i i will say this about some michigan people on uh on like social media and stuff. There seems to be, like, some Michigan fans that are, like, taking, like, enjoyment out of the fact that Michigan State, like,

is dealing with this type of thing. You know what I mean? Like, they're, like, you know, happy to see that Michigan State is, like, has this kind of stuff. And I don't think that's the right way to go about it. I think it sucks on both sides because there's people talking about suspending the rivalry, not playing it next year, playing it at a neutral site.

Giving them a death penalty or something. Yeah, that's like the last thing I want for this rivalry. It's so much fun to go back and forth. And as much as it is exhausting, like this is the best part about college football is these rivalries. Now I wanted to ask too, what your guys' thoughts were on the whole Mel Tucker situation, the night of the game with the video that surfaced today and his apology,

his apology today that he gave out in that press conference, that was very clearly him that punched the door. And then the post-game press conference said he had no clue it happened. And to a certain extent, I can sort of believe that because I feel like he didn't maybe see exactly what happened although it's kind of tough now that you can see him in the video but maybe he didn't maybe he was just told that a couple of his players got into a fight and he got po'd and punched the door but now fast forward to today Justin I know you and I texted about it a little bit. We were like, was that really the best that he could have come up with?

And now likely he probably didn't write the apology, but was that really the best they could have come up with? Because number one, it seemed forced. Number two, he very obviously was just reading off of the script that was sitting in front of him on the podium. So that's just where I'm a little kerfuzzled here. I think that – I think if you're the MSU PR team, you obviously write something up for him to say

because you want to make sure that he's saying the right things. But I think – I mean, you hopefully coach him up or have him throw in some personal, you know, personal stuff too, where it's, it actually is coming from the heart. You know, because I think that it just felt like it was like, all right, this is the, this is the, the, you know, the apology that they wrote up for me. I'm not sure if I really believe it. That's just what it comes off as, you know, the apology that they wrote up for me, I'm not sure if I really believe it. That's just what it comes off as. You know, now he may be actually pissed off.

I know it's not like I'm talking to Mel Tucker in their locker room and know what's going on. So he may actually be pissed off and he may actually like, you know, be really disappointed. But it just didn't feel like a heartfelt apology to me much at all. And so that's where I'm at with it. What do you think he should have said? I think, you know, something genuine. It didn't seem genuine, like, at all. To kind of make it seem like how he said it, I'm deeply sorry.

But, like, he's looking down at his script, which is obviously a script, looks up, takes a big deep breath after a long pause, and just awkwardly says, I'm deeply sorry. I just don't think that's genuine at all. Who taught him to give an apology? Because that's not an apology. Because his players, I hate calling it assault, but, I mean, we saw the video. What else can you call it?

I don't know. Yeah. I don't know, man. It's, I don't know. I think, like, I think they did the right thing by suspending the guys, you know, as pretty much as quickly as possible, I thought. I totally could see, I could have seen them, you know, we're going to wait until after, now that there's police involved. They could have totally went that route and been like, we'll wait until we see the police findings, you know, and we want to, you know, do that.

And then they wait as long as possible to do that. I'll give them props on not doing that and taking some swift action. But I don't know, man, the whole thing just sucks. It just takes away from the game, takes away from everything that this rivalry is supposed to be about. This is like, you know, do I love some pushing and shoving, like to begin the game and like get people fired up? Absolutely. That is like, that's what this is about.

You have a little bit more hatred for them. This is like, it means more, that type of stuff. But like, it should never go that far as it did on Saturday. Especially the game was over right that was the part that really got me i was like if it was like halftime and people are like shoving right people throwing pb and j's i get it but like the game's done and you got crushed so like what is this going to achieve nothing that's where it definitely feels like uh like i don't even know what to call it but it feels like it's like uh a move that you're like all right i just got my ass kicked for a long time

uh you know and now i'm gonna i'm gonna take it out on some guy with my helmet on them like the other piece of it i'm shocked that there's not worse injuries do you know how hard a helmet is and uh take that to the dome like multiple swings as hard as possible like my god like he could have died legitimately like i will say real quick that msu's pr team on some other levels did a really good job because their athletic director that was there and their president were pretty swift to getting their messages out after Michigan had said they're going to try these student athletes

to the fullest extent of what they can. Then they're going to let the police deal with it, the Big Ten deal with it. I think Michigan, Ward Manuel, number one, that was the best thing I've ever seen from him. What he said, and Jim Harbaugh stayed tight-lipped because you could kind of tell that Coach wanted to say something, but Ward Manuel did a really good job of just laying down exactly what he wanted to say, And he was genuine about it.

And he said it was unacceptable. They're going to let the big 10 and law enforcement deal with whatever happened, but that was really good from ward manual. And I just wanted to say that I think MSU is president and their athletic director or the PR team behind them. They did a good job the night of the game after what happened and then I believe the president actually put the message up Sunday morning but I think they did a pretty good job

with that and also they probably told Mel to just not speak on it too much in the original post-game press conference I just think that's where I ended up being at for a while for sure and I think that's probably the right play always, right? If you don't know all the details, you know, it's not – that's like you don't want to say something that you regret, you know, the next morning after more details come out, right? So I think it's smart to gather all the details and all that stuff. Because even Ward, when he stood up and Dave Abloff was sitting up there at the table,

the communications guy from Michigan, and Coach Harbaugh was still at the stand. He just wanted to talk about the game. And there was one more question you could kind of hear faintly in the background, and they asked, could you tell us who was involved, the Michigan players that were injured? And Ward, as he stood up and walked away, said, you can watch the video for yourself. So. All he had to say.

Yep, I think so. I think so. I think everyone, like, for once it felt like as shitty as what happened happened, it felt like everybody, you know, handled it as they should because I think there are times when things happen like this and things aren't handled very well. They take too long or blah, blah, blah. Bad things are said.

You know, I will say Jim Harbaugh is pretty pissed off about it, you know, and I know his team was pissed off about it too. You know, these guys, I've talked to some of these guys, and they're like, you protect your own, man. When somebody, like, especially like German with his brother, dude, you're going to protect your own for sure. A twin brother at that. I mean, I'm kind of surprised there wasn't more.

More. Because I could very easily have seen Michigan after seeing Jaden and seeing Jaman, maybe they close the doors to the training room. I don't know. But you're really going to tell me that they're going to keep 100 strong, physical student-athletes inside their own locker room after seeing what happened to their fellow teammates? So somebody did a good job of making sure,

after Michigan finally got in the locker room, of them staying in there and staying composed. Because Michigan State got in their locker room eventually. Michigan got in their locker room of them staying in there and staying composed because Michigan State got in their locker room eventually. Michigan got in their locker room, and the only one that really went back at MSU was German, and it kind of looked like Ray Sean Benny too after, I believe, you probably saw Jermon and saw German all upset. So somebody did a good job of making sure they ended up staying split

after the team probably figured out what had happened. Yeah. You know what? It makes this rivalry about as spicy as possible because now there's 364 days or whatever it is until next year's game. I mean, the lead up to next year's game, if MSU, you know, is anything of value in terms of their football team winning, you know, this is going to be a very interesting lead up to the game.

So with that, we will end it here. Go follow Zach. I know that he's kind of our new guy that's been coming on the pod a little bit. Go follow Zach. I know that he's kind of our new guy that's been coming on the pod a little bit. Go follow him. Is it at Zach Linfield? At Zach Linfield. Simple. There you go. Simple as can be. For us, you can follow us at Blue by 90 on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, at Blue by 90 podcast on YouTube and blueby90.com. We appreciate you. Go blue. Go blue. Go blue.