Blue By Ninety - Paul Stays Home | Michigan Beats MSU...Again

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

Justin and Tanner break down Michigan's win over the Spartans in East Lansing and discuss the state of the program midway through the season.

All right, welcome back to Blue By 90, presented by Feldman Chevrolet of Highland. It is Tuesday, October 28th. I mean, we're still a lot better than Michigan State. So four years in a row, four years over both arrivals, eight in a row over Michigan State and Ohio State. I mean, listen, I'm not too, like, thrilled about the way that we won that football game. um but i'll take a win i'll always take a win right absolutely you know there's some things that need to be cleaned up um you know especially on special special teams uh not a great performance um but you know they were able to i mean i think michigan state is just horrible like that

they're a they're a terrible program i mean you know they had the one drive in the first half that michigan i think i think j do posted it um They just don't fill the gap where the run goes, and, you know, he's able to bust out like a 50-yarder. I mean, it just, you know, and then they even, you know, it was kind of back and forth with penalties at the goal line. It really kind of took an effort for them to score. You know, I think defensively Michigan played pretty well, you know, Sands a couple of plays here and there that allowed them to, you know, to get into scoring area, like on the third of the marsh. But overall, I thought Michigan, you know, took care of business, you know, give up a garbage

touchdown. But, you know, they were, the run game was a lot better in the second half. Yeah. Haines and Marshall really did their thing. So, yeah, man, it was a, it was, this game always gets weird. That's why, like, when I see people get upset, it's like, it's okay. It's, it's, it's all right. This game is, is always going to be weird.

It's always a weird game. It's, it's on Halloween weekend, essentially. We're like a week ahead of time this year, but it's always spooky times. And anytime you, listen, first of all, I will not apologize about winning. That is like my one rule of, you know, especially college sports, but let alone sports at all, if you can get a win, you take your win. Obviously, you would love to look incredible and win that game 38 to 7, which in my mind it should have been i think michigan was that much better and like they shouldn't have been in that

game michigan state should not have been even close in that game so that is like i mean i don't know if disappointed is the right word but just in general i'm just like the whole time i'm sitting there in spartan stadium and you're just like waiting for michigan to be like all right let's break this thing open and it finally did um you know in that fourth quarter uh when we we go up 24 to 7, then you still let them back into it, which is like even more annoying. But either way, I mean, I'm not going to apologize for winning. I think that any time you can go on the road to your rival

and beat the shit out of them, that's a dub. You take that 100% of the time. Yeah, absolutely. And there was some execution things. You know, I thought play calling was maybe more so to protect Bryce again. And I wonder if you look at the home versus the road split, with the offense, with Bryce in general, if that is just a concerted decision from the staff to really protect him.

But especially, like, you know, early in the game, it's like, all right, well, you know, they're not really, really connecting on some of these passes. But in the second half, it's like, I'm, you know, like I saw people like, why aren't we throwing the ball? And it's like, well, you're up 24-7. Like, the one way that you let them into it is by turning it over. And, you know, unfortunately, Michigan tried to do that.

Justice Haynes had a fumble. I think he got a little banged up. but there's been a lot of rumors. I don't know if that was the play that it happened. And maybe that, you know, caused him to fumble. But, you know, overall, I mean, dude, Jordan Marshall's last touchdown, like, you could see, like, that was the most predictable long touchdown run. I think I've seen in a while because, like, the three or four runs before that,

you could just see he's one, one breakaway away from taking it to the house. And then he finally did that on the 56-yarder. So, yeah, I thought the run game, you know, you leaned on it in the second half, made some adjustments. Sharon mentioned that explicitly at right before halftime on the kind of the exit interview. So, you know, they made some decisions to change up the run game and it worked out for them in the second half. Yeah. And obviously, like, Michigan's going to be Michigan. It's Sheron Moore. You're going to run the football. That's going to be the basis of your offense 100 percent right um but here's where i do have an issue michigan went up 17 to 7 and basically decided they

were just going to run out the clock for an entire half of football and like as much as like that is kind of jim harbaugh like all right we don't have to do anything sexy let's just get out of here with a win i think you have a chance especially like in 2023 i know this is not 2023 i know this is not 2023. It's hard for us to even to compare those that season to pretty much any other season. But he was like, all right, we're just going to demolish them. And we know

that we're better than them. And I would have loved to see like an extra gear from Sheron Moore in this offense to be like, listen, we know that we're a thousand times better than this team. Let's bury them. It's 17 to 7.

Even if you are just going to run the ball, like let's go and let's not because they really I mean until that fourth quarter like you you don't really break it open until late and so that's like you just left something to be desired which is I think like the only unfortunate thing about that football game I mean that's kind of been the end of this team the entire year is leaving things on the bone right like there's there's a lot of meat on the bone when it comes to offensive play calling and execution but again I think you know the way the defense was playing at that point you know you know, and you eventually do go up 24-7, late in the third, early in the fourth, I can't remember. But, you know, you get out to a three-score lead, and then it's like, all right, like, this is going to be where we just kind of run the ball. And I thought the offensive line, especially the right side, Guarnara and Sprague, pretty dominant. And I don't know if that's an MSU thing, but I do think you're seeing, like, those two guys, I mean, they've got, they've got three more years of eligibility. Like, I don't know.

In MSU's D, I will say this, their secondary is not good. Their offense is really bad. Their front seven is not bad. I would, like, they're not good, but. I think it's better than it has been. I think, Dan Serman, like, he's been kind of rough the last few years, and I thought he was actually, this year's been really, really solid for them. You know, they did have an injury early on to one of those guys up front.

But, yeah, I mean, Michigan ran for the most yards that's ran for in this rivalry since 1994. I was not born yet. So that's, that's really impressive. two 100-ard rushers, right? Like, I think from a, just from a, like, hey, we can, we can do this to teams and just run, to your point, it is very Jim Harblask, where it's like, hey, we know we can just run the ball and have success. And, yeah, they came out.

I mean, I will say that drive coming out, you know, I don't know if we want to talk about the off-sides, the whatever. Here's my take on the off-sides. Yes, it's off-sides. Or, sorry, no, it's not. off sides probably it is incredibly close you have what i what i don't understand that people forget about is the officials in that scenario don't have a frame by frame like goggles on that they can just like and there's no red line that's sitting there perfectly right like he's calling that

in real time in in real life i think people forget because of social media and tv and how advanced everything is now like he jumps the snap and in real time it 100% looks like he jumped off sides right and it's very close right so like I think either way you call that you're probably like all right like whatever you call on the field I saw people who were complaining that it was called like a minute after I think that was just actually the TV booth not you know knowing what was going on because I saw the flag you could see the flag was right away yeah they they the reason it's called way after is because the play goes obviously, like crazy, and then the refs have to huddle up and figure out what's going on.

So, I mean, yes, it's close enough to not know definitively on, you know, after the replay, it's not a reviewable play. So whatever they call on the field is going to be it. Is that correct? Yeah, yes. Yeah, I mean, you can't review that. At least the rules state you can't now. Yeah, right.

In my mind, that, if there are any penalties, like, no, you shouldn't make holding reviewable and passing refraudence revealable because it's all judgment calls. That one is like, those penalties should be revealable. The off sides are false start because it's like, it's, it is blatant, you know? Is this hand not over the ball before it snap, though? Like, it's like a, it's like a millimeter. I don't disagree. If you review it, can you overturn it on the field?

Probably not. And then we have people complaining about that. I got to tell you, he's a lifelong Michigan and Lions fan, the Bucks game, I had a lot of people text to me like, oh, you guys are getting, you're getting a rough job going on over here. And I'm like, hell yeah, dude, I've been waiting this my whole life. You know, and save with Michigan. This is amazing. I love, we should do this every week.

Also, we have, I don't know how it was, like, I will say calls were going our way in East Lansing. Calls have literally never gone our way in East Lansing. in the history of strip sack right like that that in 2021 um you know i don't know if that would have changed anything because kenneth walker just you know dog walked us uh yeah but you know maybe changes the complexion of the game but yeah man i mean you know it is what it is and then you know it was it was funny to me seeing all week about you know like from ms u pressers like oh they're going to try to they're going to try to get us to do stupid things and then michigan did try to get them to do stupid things and they did the stupid things and sometimes it wasn't even

Michigan really necessarily doing anything I saw on the on the 15 yard personal foul after the touchdown like oh he's he's pulling he's pulling him down it's like dude he tried to karate chop i don't know i don't know what you want yeah i mean also that that stuff to me is like if you were in every pile of every football play it's gross it is terrible there's some gross things going on down like there's some weird shit there's some grabbing there's some punch in there's it's obviously like it is definitely escalated in this rivalry um but if you think either team is innocent of that stuff like you're you're just dumb like you know i also enjoyed and i'll make a greater point about this little conversation after this but um when was it trey pierce that got

hit in the back like away from the play and yeah it's not a penalty and i'm like what are you talking about um but this week every year is kind of dreadful right um like this rivalry has gotten to a point and and i feel like when i was younger i don't remember it ever being like this and maybe it's social media has amplified it but like man it's just like and i know they weren't really up for it this week but man every week for for this game every year is just like it's the same thing it's the leading up to it it's all the you know whatever trash talking and then after it's like the complaints about things that happen in terms of officiating or whatever um you know like oh michigan's a bunch of victims what you know they play the victim games like dude so i'm just always

happy to get a win to your point but i'm also always happy to just get through this week and just put it in the rear view yeah because it's just so it's so dumb it is not like fun rival re-banter at this point. I mean, we talked about this in the past. Like, Ohio State is a fun. I mean, I know we, you know, the trash talk gets crazy, but, like, it's, I think it's way more fun. Yeah. Well, it's, it feels like it's legitimate, you know, I don't know why, like, I don't know if that's even the right word, but like, every single piece of trash talk, and I'll even, like, on both sides, to be honest, for this Michigan, Michigan State rivalry is just, like, pettiness and, like, there's no, like, real

grounds for it it's just you know people take it like I saw I don't remember who the Michigan State player was made a made a really just in my opinion gross comment about one of the you know more infamous Michigan Twitter users and and I just

um Chris Gray I think it was personal yeah personal shots like dude um for what you know like if I for a football game I'll tell you this right now if I actually was a former player in this and what

like Chris Frey, Frey, I don't even know how to say his name. He's three and one in this rivalry. You could, I would never interact with anybody that didn't play in this rivalry ever. Like I wouldn't. So I, there's just, I don't know, they're just weird, weird pieces to this. And it's, I don't know, man. It's like, you know, former players are on social media and so that you have more access to them so you can talk trash to them. And it's like, did they play in the game?

Like Chris Fry, three and one played in the game, made big plays, right? So he gets to talk his trash. But like taking it to like a personal level. stooping that low is something I would expect from like sparty 4269 not a former player you know in the rivalry and like you know Taco Charlton was talking some trash and I saw people who didn't play in the game who were like what was your record and it's like brother he played in the NFL his first round pick yeah his life was pretty his life's pretty good um and he won his senior year like so yeah man this whole thing is just I don't know it just always

boils over this year was a little less uh it was more tame I guess uh than than past years just because there wasn't that thought that they could win. Last year they thought they could win because they were like, you know, I think there were like five and three or something and Michigan was looking rough and they weren't able to get done. They just meet Iowa, right? At the time. They smoked Iowa last year.

I was like, yeah. I mean, you remember we did a live pot outside the pretzel bell? I'm like, man, I don't know. Like we, this might be, this is going to be a dog fight. And it was, you know, Michigan pulled away at the end last year. But yeah, so this rivalry, man, I'm just always grateful to get through it. You know, it just is one of those. those things where people can be anonymous and say whatever they want and I just you know again

old man yells at cloud I do this all the time but like I just think that part of society has just made us so much dumber um you know people used to get punched in the face for saying things like that like there's violence into but like now there's consequences because you're on a burner well I think that um uh big cat from barstool had this like a few years ago had this idea that every for one game a year like one time a year an athlete should be able to go into the stands and fight a fan

that's like talking shit for that. Let's get it like that would immediately stop everything. If you could just like have the scare tactic part of like oh I might get my ass kicked by a college or NFL football player. I think that's a genius

move because otherwise it's like they've the fans usually have nothing to lose. The players got all of it to lose you know it's all of that so i'm with you um let's talk about sparty for a second just in general like i mean is why is jonathan smith still their head coach right now uh i can be 34 million reasons there's yeah man there's no momentum behind that program and like usually i would take this as like totally taking a shot and a chance to like bury them it's honestly at this point because I do like it better when this is a good rivalry.

Like, you know, you always want the Big Ten to be good. And, you know, I love when in 2021, even obviously it didn't go our way. But like a top 10 Michigan, Michigan State game is awesome for the state of Michigan and the Big Ten. And they're just in a, they're at a terrible spot. Yeah, I mean, it's not the same as I don't think as many people thought it was a slam dunk as the Luke Fickle hire. But I thought it was a good higher.

I thought it was a very sensible move for them, you know, for a guy that had really kind of tapped out, reached a plateau at Oregon State, you know, all the conference realignment really kind of, you know, neutered any upward movement that Oregon State might have had as a program with Jonathan Smith and, you know, bring it over Aiden Childs. I was like, man, this seems like this might actually work. And it felt like it would. Yeah. I think they're one in nine in their last 10 big 10 games. It's just not... And Aiden Childs, Aiden Childs, too, has done the same dumb shit

in basically every game that he's played. I mean, he tried to throw a pick six on the first play of the game, and Jeyer dropped it again. Jeyer dropped it, and then he fumbled the next play. Yeah, right? So two of the first three plays on that three and out, or I guess it's technically a three and I don't know, well, turnover.

But two of the first three plays were turnover-worthy plays, right? And that fumble was not even like a good play by the defense. I mean, it was like, it was a, he was just tackling him. It wasn't like a great punchout. And so it'd be in fear, if I was a Michigan State fan, it would just be infuriating to watch the same shit happen over and over again. And obviously, you know, the opponents in the non-conference are not what they're playing in the big 10. But, you know, the first few games was like, okay, like, you know, think he can, you know,

he's kind of taken the next step, turn the corner a little bit as a passer. And man, it just was, I mean, it was really bad because against Indiana, I think he had a little bit of success. I know they didn't, you know, play well as a team, but I thought he overall didn't look horrible. And then, man, he's throwing it behind. Like, the going back to the officiating, the one on Zeke Berry, like, I think the reason he's probably early is because the ball's like five yards behind him. Yeah.

I mean, it's not catchable, so you can't really call PI there. So, yeah, I just, he played, he did not play well. The offensive line didn't play very well. Nick Marsh made some plays, but dude, that forward progress play where he, like, steps back. Like, I don't think I've ever seen that. That was happening twice in one play. He had the first down twice in one play and still didn't get it. But my match is coaching at that point.

Yeah. So, yeah, they're in a tough spot. I think with this new landscape, I mean, you know, with the house settlement stuff, I'm sure more, they have a higher percentage of that money going towards basketball than maybe some other programs would. For sure. But I think it's just a difficult era for them right now in terms of NIL. Their biggest donors are professional.

sports teams owners so they can't participate in the NIL stuff like they're just kind of it's they're in a weird spot right now for sure it's it's like it feels like they're in purgatory they're just like churning the wheels um and you want to know i think the worst part and this one i am absolutely taking a shot at the Spartan fans is they're trying to already turn the page to uh basketball season when tom iso and then they look down the road and dusty may is a like a top five team and they're like oh fuck yeah i saw that i saw them complaining that uh michigan like rose on some brand it was like a you know like college basketball report twitter accounts rankings after you know they lost to cincinnati and it's like well okay so you know

michigan basketball shout out real quick because we won't really dive into this today but michigan basketball did go to the garden and beat st john's 96 94 it looks like yaxil and Mores and these guys are absolute ballers. Yeah, I'm excited, man. We got Oakland on November 3rd, I believe, is the first game of the year. So definitely excited to talk some college basketball. You know, I feel like we didn't talk as much the last year of Jawan. We didn't really want to get on podcasts.

They were like, oh, they lost again. Yeah. So it's exciting to have, you know, in their defense, the college basketball is awesome, man. So I love this time of year. I woke up to the World Series going 18 innings. Yeah, Shohay Otani is absurd. They walked him four times in a row at extras. Well, why not, man?

But just they got so much talent that Freddie Freeman's up and hits a home run. But yeah, I'm like 45 an hour from Dodgers Stadium right now, you know, been traveling for work. And I woke up and was like, oh, an 18 innings. So, but yeah, it's a great time of year. Football, basketball, baseball, you know, hockey. Real quick, I got. I got two other things I want to talk about.

I know this is a short one for us today. Unfortunately, with you traveling, just a lot of stuff going on. But Bryce, I want to talk about Bryce and then I want to talk about our defense. So we'll end out a positive note for sure. What's your concern meter with Bryce right now? One. Okay. Sorry, I'm with you.

I'm with you. I just, you know, I see a lot of people out there with it. a lot higher than that now i'm not even talking about 971 where they're talking about like he's overrated worse i mean i i love john jansen i love doug cars and those guys on there um it's a it's a bad network i mean they're you can listen to that stuff yeah in the era where you can pick what you listen to there's so many other options it's absurd yeah um so anyways i think that i bryce i thought that michigan state actually for whatever reason defended us well on on Saturday at least defended the pass well there weren't a lot of guys

open so whether that is them playing well or our receivers just really still struggling to get open um i thought there was that because like they did give bryce the chance to throw early on and it just wasn't working now i still would have loved them to continue to try that in the second half because I believe you only had one possession in, or sorry, one pass attempt in the second half as a whole, which is insane. I think we had, he had a couple dropbacks, which ended up him scrambling or, you know, something happened. But I don't know. It didn't, it obviously, Bryce was not at the top of his game. That's for sure. I think that is partially the game plan of just like, hey, we took what they were giving us and that was running the ball all over.

I put this out on Twitter. Would love to see him pull the ball on RPO's a little bit more. I mean, it seemed like I would take him versus a corner one-on-one 10 times out of 10. He's either going to stiff-arm that guy, make one move, or fall forward for five yards. You know, so. Yeah. Yeah, I thought, you know, the, I thought the first couple drives were actually pretty solid in terms of play calling and execution. you know, you're able to get inside the five on that first drive after the fumble.

And I thought, and I think someone posted this video, and I thought watching it live, I'm like, why did Samaj like stutter? He like, it's a scramble drill and he just kind of like stops and then goes. And it's like that ball would have might have been caught for a touchdown if you just keep sprinting. Yes. You know, he has the throw to Marsh that's maybe a touch high. I mean, I think, did you tweet this out that it would have been a touchdown? It would have been a touchdown 100%.

It wasn't even like a. slight at Bryce it was like hey yeah he's still eight games into his freshman career yeah he's going to in next year in the year after get that pass so that it's a touchdown that's like it's a learning point yeah no he he's just going to continue to get better i think again i i wonder what the the road versus home stuff really is what the reason is behind it um but yeah i mean he makes a great great play on the uh the touchdown run that he has in the first quarter makes the end really puts him in conflict you know the way that he kind of his footwork he kind of makes him commit and then he gets he bounces outside um yeah and to your

point man i would like to see i mean with how michigan stayed especially in the second half like they were just not setting the edge like the guy that was responsible for it and hayton scored twice because of this would just bounce in um trying to watch this on there he was essentially playing like middle linebacker by the time that the play got to the line is so he It means multiple times to be able to score because you can just, you can bounce the outside. So I definitely think, you know, depending on what the defense is showing, and I'm sure the reads are much more advanced than what we do on the video games, you know, just reading the end.

And like they do, they have like one animation that they use, right? So it's hard to know what he's going to do. But, yeah, I'm not concerned. I think against Purdue, going to get back on track, get to a buy week. I think, you know, the first buy of this year, he made a big improvement, you know, into that Wisconsin game. And so I'd like to see another big jump from him as we get to the long stretch. I agree.

I think that it, and this is not shocking because, again, he's still very young. Like, I don't think that they, I don't think he's reading defenses super well at a high level quite yet. And I also think it's a combination of that. And they're not like allowing, I don't know if allowing is the right word, but like, they're not putting that on him. They're trying to make it as simple as possible for him and only have, you know, one to two reads.

And so I just, I expect that to continue to, you know, evolve. And so, like, if you're very upset that, you know, he doesn't have 250 yards and three touchdowns, like, it's going to come. It's going to come. It's going to be okay. The defense. I mean, a lot of people had a lot of things to say about Wink a couple weeks ago, and it was fair, right?

It was totally fair that, you know, that USC game was something, like, we've never seen that from Wink's defenses, really, before. It was pretty poor. The last two games, they've been the reason for Michigan winning. It hasn't been Michigan's offense. It's been Wink's defense that has been clamping down and allowing Michigan to slow play the game on offense and wear the team's out and run it out. So I think Wink needs his props.

Yeah, I mean, I think he, I think the Washington game is, is much more impressive than this one, what they were able to accomplish against that team, which against Illinois scored on like six of, like, I think six of seven drives, and then they ran out the clock in the fourth quarter, you know, what they were able to do to Washington was really impressive. You know, this game, you know, there was some, I think some execution things. I don't, I don't remember ever being like, because the USC game, there was multiple times. We're like, what, what is happening? But there were also plays that guys made individually that maybe, you know, like, Michigan's got to work on tempo. Like, I don't know if that. I think that just might be an NFL thing, like McDonald had issues with it early on. But, you know, Michigan, you know, they're really lucky or fortunate that Rolder, because that fourth and one where Charles tried to... Nobody was ready. No. So you got to work on tempo, but Rolder makes a great play.

Jimmy Rolder had a fantastic game. Oh, my God. I thought Jire Hill had a really good game except for. the Marsh completion. I got them down to the one yard line right before their second touchdown. Yeah. But yeah, I think with Wink,

it's just like, let your guys make plays. Like, Derek Moore was all over the field. T.J. Guy was making plays. Like, you don't need to be so exotic. Like, just play base defense 75% of the time. You're going to be okay. Like, just do what you did against Ohio State last year in terms of, like, we're not bringing five or six.

Like, we're just going to sit back and make college quarterbacks, mistakes yeah i mean you have to like i will say you know the score unfortunately doesn't look that good um but i i i mean ms u their drives right here i'm i'm pulling it up fumble punt punt punt in the first quarter that second quarter it was really that one drive you know they had a good drive uh 10 play 73 yards for a touchdown to make it 10 10 10 7 7 then punt, punt to end the half.

Then they come out in the third quarter, punt, punt. Fourth quarter started off 12 plays, 75 yards touchdown, then downs, then a garbage time touchdown. So it really, it was two drives that the defense gave up all day. And they were good drives by MSU, but that's it. You know, so I'm going to take that, even from a shitty MSU offense, I'm going to take that from Wink all day long. I honestly am more putting it on Michigan's offense to be like,

hey, our defense is balling out. Like, we got to go, when they go get us consecutive stops in a row, we have to move the ball and either give them a, you know, a breather, you know, get some yardage and obviously go score some points. I would take field goals. Let's go get field goals. Yeah, no, I agree. I thought, you know, again, it was a,

it was an interesting win, but it's a win nonetheless. and you're six and two and you're going to into a game against Purdue at night for some reason. But we'll have a good time at the tailgate, you know, right the day after Halloween. So, you know, I'm coming back into town on, I'll get back Thursday night, Friday, a little trick-or-treating, Saturday, a little tailgating.

Yeah, I mean, great holiday or Halloween weekend. Yeah, and once again, I will not apologize for winning this football game. I think you go into Purdue, who's a bad football team. Hopefully you win this one very easily at home. Then you go into the buy. And then, you know, then it's like, all right, we're in November with a chance. You know, and I think that's like, that's really all you can ask for right now in a second year with your head coach and a freshman quarterback, right? And a ton of turnover.

So can't be mad about it. Yeah, we'll take it. Also, Paul stays home. You know what? I'm not mad about that. Paul is in Ann Arbor with a buffs on with a Michigan helmet on and some yellow pants. So I love it. So all right.

We'll have another podcast for you guys later this week to preview Purdue. For us, you can follow us at Blueby 90 on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, at Blueby 90 podcast on YouTube and Blueby90.com. We appreciate you. Go Blue. Go Blue.