Blue By Ninety - Paul Will Stay in Ann Arbor for Another Year

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

Justin and Tanner break down Michigan's 24-17 win over rival Michigan State.

All right, welcome back to Blue by 90. I'm Justin joined by Tanner today and Paul Bunyan is staying in Ann Arbor. Feels good. It feels good to get one. It does, you know, and I said this pre-show and I think it makes a lot of sense and I hope that I don't mess it up, but sometimes you play Michigan State and it's a weird sloppy game and you lose and you're very sad and sometimes you play michigan state and it's a weird sloppy game and you win and you're very happy so you take the outcome where you get to keep paul get those bragging rights you know kind of a kind of a down season for michigan thus far but that one felt nice that one was really nice to get the win i had some i watched it at home tailgate was electric on saturday i'm sure we'll touch on that but you know just when Michigan was able to run out the clock I gave a nice you know fist pump so like Tiger Woods in my my living room and was just very happy to close that one out got a little hairy we'll talk about it but he wins a win a wins a win i i love beating michigan state and i want to say this to any

you know any msu fans that are out there i i was gonna tweet this actually too like listen i'll admit it we care we care about that game we care about the rivalry we care a lot actually turns out and I love beating them I I love it so much it it honestly it the fan base over there I don't know I the the post-game reactions to everything I know there was the fight which we can get into in a little bit but like it was it was a meltdown from spartes like i man for two four and three teams in like the least meaningful game in this rivalry's history maybe at least in the past i don't know 15 years you know for them to care as much as they did was shocking is it though it's not it's not but it's just i guess not for them to care as much as they did but for them to react the way that they did he's again still not really that shocking but like i mean it was it was wild i was scrolling twitter on the way home and i was just like

man this is like this rivalry is as alive as it could get. Well, do you want to talk about the postgame stuff? Because I have a lot of thoughts on that, and I think it's hilarious. Yeah, let's get into it, and then we can break down the game. Let's start there, though, because it, like, unfortunately it turned out after the game to be, like, what everyone was talking about. Yeah, no, so there's a couple things,

and there's a couple thoughts that I have so first of all when you're kneeling the game out right and you've seen this in the nfl with greg sciano when he was the coach of the tampa bay buccaneers and his team is going low on the kneel downs and they're coming off the ball and yeah look it is football right you play till the end game's over and so when you do stuff like that i my favorite thing about this is seeing the videos where it's edited perfectly to cut out the the hand swipe right right because i'm not going to call it a punch in the same way that i don't think colson loveland should what he did should be considered a headbutt you have helmets on guys celebrate with their teammates by you know love tapping their face masks correct but it's very funny

for people to come on here or go on twitter or whatever and say oh colson loveland he headbutted him first of all you shouldn't be going you should not be acting like that on a kneel down. You should not be swiping your hand at somebody's face mask on a kneel down. And you shouldn't be surprised when you get pushed back. Right. Right. Now, I do think even Colston said, like, he got carried away, right, a little bit too. Because so, like, at the end of the day, should both, nobody should be doing anything, right? Like, he should just, you know, hey, he just beat their ass, right?

He played well. He's dominated them in the last three years. He's outscored them. He's outscored them 28-24. So, first of all, I'll say this. Colston, you can talk whatever shit you want to talk. That's how this works. If you dominate that badly badly you can say whatever you

want to say and so him saying the little bro comment like you know i personally don't like the little bro comment i wish we would get away from it but if the are you doing that on a kneel down new fits tanner it's a kneel down and i'm sure we're gonna have you know because other other fan bases watch our show and i'm sure we're gonna have you know because other other fan bases watch our show and i'm sure we'll have some nice comments or very friendly comments uh in our in our section down there on youtube but i just i don't know um i just find that it's so funny too because you know you see a lot of people are like oh michigan's playing victim again and i'm like when you say again do you mean the time that jade mcbrown's got the shit kicked out of him by eight michigan state players like is that what we're equating

he shouldn't have skipped right and colson loveland shouldn't have got swiped across the face and hit his face mask forward like yeah it was so it was so ridiculous bro it was just the most the other thing too um the couple tweets I saw were, like, Kalel Mullings clear as day stomping on somebody. Yeah, who was it? It's been two days. It's, like, the worst video ever. Like, obviously there was something going on in the middle there,

but, like, there's no way that it's clear as day that he's doing and anybody's doing anything because it's a video from up top and you really can't see much at all so somebody got stomped on that would have came out Saturday night and maybe I'm wrong and maybe it'll come out and we'll have to eat crow on this and we'll obviously change our tune and our opinion but like if somebody got stomped on and I saw people that were like oh it was a it was a female staffer I'm like okay if that happened why is that not out i was gonna say i'm pretty sure that michigan state would have had a statement about that like immediately after the game if she would have gone to coach smith and said hey this is what happened they would have ran it up the flagpole it'd be a big 10 as they should as they should for sure

if colin mollings did that then he should probably be suspended for multiple games and you know they they should take you know take action but that i i'd be shocked if it did happen and the big 10 is not stepping in or or there isn't a statement so this would have been publicized this would have been you know this would have been released um there would have been some sort of like you said statement or just a leak. Right? Yeah, right. They're not, like, I don't think that the Michigan State beat would hold on to something like this.

Like, it would get out there, right? Correct. So, I just, I don't know. I just don't, you know, again, we could be wrong. And I just, from what we know of Kalel Mullings, obviously you know Kalel a little bit better, but I've met Kalel's parents parents great family uh great kids right and like it just would be extremely surprising to me if if anything like that were to have happened he's like literally one of the nicest guys that i've ever met and for

him i'm sure you're in the heat of the moment so things happen in that like in battle when once you strap up the helmet like guys can turn into different human beings for sure but i'd still be be surprised i just like honestly listen i i it's a rivalry it's always gonna be you know chippy there's always been stuff like this i mean it's it hasn't just been since the tunnel incident it hasn't just it's always been like this i think that like if you ask anybody who's ever played in this game what they'll tell you is just it's always been like this i think that like if you ask anybody who's ever played in this game what they'll tell you is like it's so much different than michigan ohio state because it's just like it's chippy at the end of every play guys are taking cheap shots on both sides right it's just like that's how it is and i i don't know that that's ever going to change. But, hey, we try – you and I, we did our part.

We stand in the olive branch. We tried to say, you know, leading up to this, that we're going to have – you know, we're going to try and make this rivalry a little bit more respectful. You know, I do want to say shout-out to Spartans Illustrated. They were great partners in Rivals for a Cause. North Peak Brewing as well. We were able to hit our goal of $5,000 raise for Mott Children's Hospital to fight pediatric cancer and fund pediatric cancer research. So pretty proud of that for both fan bases.

I'll be honest, too. Here's what I do know. Michigan State kicked our ass in fundraising. So I'll give it up to them. They fundraised a bunch of money for that. We did not pull our weight. So they did win that battle. I'd say we won the war.

But I want to give them a little shout out there for sure. No, absolutely. I mean, pediatric cancer, you know, thank God I've never personally had any sort of any sort of interaction with it. But obviously, you know, especially I feel like if you're a sports fan, you know, you see these feel good stories or feel good as they can be. You know, sometimes they're extremely sad, but I feel like you get some exposure to it. Right. Because you watch the ESPN Make-A-Wish stuff, man. And and now as a father, it's like, I don't know. It's different, right?

It's a different perspective on things. So shout out to everybody that donated. I think it's just an incredible cause. And, you know, obviously it's, you know, cancer is such a difficult thing in the world for everyone to deal with. I mean, I've dealt with it personally, not pediatric. But then, you know know cancer is bad enough and then you you know you throw in the fact that it's a child um probably the maybe one of the worst things in the world that could ever happen so the fact that our fan bases can come together and donate for for a cause like that is

awesome and um you know i'm sure there's there's tons of other causes out there charitable uh organizations that are that are doing something about it, which is just, you know, something you love to see. So football aside, man, it's not important at the end of the day. You know, it's about people and, you know, these fan bases can come together. I think that's pretty awesome. For sure. And one more thing that I wanted to say on just the two fan bases right now is, like, postgame, everyone's going at each other's throats on social media the thing is in person i mean i know it's before the game but like how many it was like awesome it was awesome

we had we had tons of msu fans that were at the tailgate a bunch of my friends came who are sparties but just kind of random people too just showing up up to the, to the tailgate. And we like, that is, I think John Bacon put it out there. He's like there, he walked through the parking lots and the tailgates and everything. He said, that's like one of the most unique things in college sports, that the Michigan, Michigan state game is like the only game you'll ever find where every tailgate has some blue and some green, which I think is really cool.

Cause like at Michigan, you know, Michigan, Ohio State, other than JT Barrett coming to play flip cup with us, you don't see Ohio State fans at a Michigan tailgate very often and vice versa. So it's really cool. I just think that, like, this rivalry just gets so damn personal for a lot of people. On the internet.

Mostly on the internet. You have to remember that it's not real life. Right. Yeah. And look, dude, I talk shit like, you know, but it's about the game. Right. And some people, you know, on, on, in both fan bases love to just take personal shots on the internet, which I think is, I don't know. I think that's crazy because you have no repercussions and I'm not advocating for anybody to like get in fights. Right. But like, you wouldn't say that in person because you would face repercussions and i'm not advocating for anybody to like get in fights right but like you wouldn't say that in person because you would face repercussions right um so yeah it's a very

interesting interesting rivalry in that sense but i thought the tailgate the msu fans i mean we're taking shotskis it was great like it was so much fun truly in suncruiser because i i loaded up our cooler with truly suncruiser and hail ip IPA and Blue By 90 beer a hundred times. We had to set a record for beer directed. I mean, the Bongzilla is like, I had opened a Raspberry Sun Cruiser that I had taken one sip of. And it's on one of those, you know, we have these round tables that are throughout the tailgate area. And we're loading up the bongzilla with sun cruisers and so i'm helping and then i look and i'm like what happened to that raspberry sun cruiser

somebody grabbed it poured in the bongzilla my brother i was drinking out of that like oh i thought you had just opened it i was like no that was my personal beverage thankfully we had so much that i was able to grab another no problem and i'll tell you the suncruisers you know pretty easy to go down on the bongzilla man because there's no carbonation you're not feeling bloated um and they're delicious so shout out to suncruiser truly i still love the truly with the carbonation but sometimes you just want something nice smooth uh you know don't want to worry about air bubbles getting in there when you're when you're eating Tormina's pizza as well just a great deal I mean shout out we had Hale IPA and Sparta IPA so if you like we are we are truly accommodating everybody here um but let's talk about the game for a minute let's get

into it here first thing I want to talk about is our guy Davis Warren I, for what he's gone through just this season alone by being benched and, you know, struggling at times for sure. But in my opinion, probably being wrongly benched or at least like not being able to stick with him in some fashion for him to come back and play the way that he did because you think about it davis warren he now had that was his fourth start right you know and two of the four starts were against texas at home and against michigan state and night like in a must win game in a can't lose game right so he's fit he's felt the pressure but I feel like you know a lot of guys said he didn't flinch right Donovan talked about him post game Shiro Moore talked about him that they they just said he didn't flinch and for a guy who has very very little experience to be able to go in there and not flinch i think was incredible he was what nine for 11 or 10 for 11 in the first half i think it was um ended up uh 13 for 19 i think so it was almost 70 completion percentage

right uh yardage wasn't wasn't great but also took what was there didn't turn the ball over i mean that's the key right like it's obvious that that's how we've lost football games over the past few weeks. And when you don't do it, even though you don't play your best game, if you hold on to the football, things go differently for you. with the bad being you know keeping his head held high supporting Jack Tunnell supporting Alex Orji when you know when they have played and and then he just waited again till he got his shot and he took advantage and I you know I feel like now you you're gonna go with him for the rest of the year um I also you know as we're we're giving Davis Warren props Alex Orji as well dude you have to give him props for being in the same situation essentially where you've gotten benched you played poorly at times but you everybody you know somebody said this to me uh yesterday like it felt like everybody realized their role finally

right Alex Orji realized his role and stuck with it. And Kirk Campbell, let's give him a shout-out too because I thought for the first time he actually used all those guys right. He used Davis and Orji in there together correctly. And he called a hell of a game in the second half, I thought. Well, there's one that comes to mind because you see Samaj Morgan has one carry for seven yards, but it was down inside the goal line, I believe, or right around the 10-yard line. And it was an awesome concept because Samaj Morgan lines up in shotgun behind the center

and takes a snap, and it's kind of a do-it-yourself reverse, right? It's kind of a – that's in the – it's so funny because I was like, oh, that's in College World 25. I don't know how to run it because I feel like I'm going toumble it but so he goes to the short side of the field he's got some I can't remember who but he's got a receiver coming back so he can he can hand it off or pitch it and then he he keeps it and he gets us down inside the you know three yard line or whatever it was a phenomenal play from from Samaj and stuff like that was like okay this is like obviously you can't do stuff like this on every single player, every single possession, but just having some of those wrinkles in there.

Again, I started to really like what I've seen from Kirk last week, the kind of the pop pass end around kind of power sweep to Colston against Illinois. I loved that. I thought, again, some of the play designs were fantastic. I mean, at this point, I think Michigan should not only run a David Edwards pass every single game. I think they should maybe do it every single quarter. You put up his stats, four for four, two touchdowns, perfect passer rating or whatever it is. So yeah, I really

liked what I saw from Kirk in the second half. There were some times that, you know, when Michigan has a chance up 24-17 to kind of put the game away, to go green out, they go run-run pass. Dude, I still think that for whatever reason, we get so tight in that situation of, like, not being able to put the game away. And it already, you know, it caused the USC game to be closer, right? It caused the Minnesota game to be way too close because you took your foot off the gas I I

don't he doesn't seem to understand that he can still just run his normal offense even when you go up and you're trying to milk the clock no absolutely so you know still some things to work on um it's gonna be interesting to see how much they save they clearly saved some things for Michigan State now how much do you have in the bag for the number one team of the country coming in, right? And we'll talk about that later this week. But I just want to see some signs that, okay, they do have things in the repertoire, in the playbook,

that they can utilize in really big games where they got to have it. We got something for it, right? But, yeah, I thought Davis played played really well given the circumstances um you know was it was it gonna wow you you know he missed colson on the first drive and everybody's freaking out and then he was pretty much i think hit his next 10 passes and um that touchdown drive at the end of the first half i thought was really really good um i thought yeah i just thought they played really well. I thought too. Honestly, I know you mentioned his stat line. If you look at it, though, that's like a J.J. McCarthy stat line

in a game where we like it had to just battle it out, like from the last couple of years where like, you know, obviously if you're talking the Nebraska game of 52 to 7 or whatever that that score was then jj mccarthy would light up the stat sheet but in a lot of those games where we had to like just be you know very strategic and stuff you know he probably would have gotten to i would say 200 yards passing jj would have but like it was one of those That's exactly what you want to see is 13 for 19, not 30 plus passes. Right. Right. That's what we're looking for from these quarterbacks. Well, and if you look at it, too, right. I mean, Michigan averaged five point two yards per play, which is all right.

Michigan said it was a five point four. So Michigan stayed out games, Michigan, by quite a bit. But, you know, they had the ball for 37 minutes. Michigan had it for 23. So, you know, you basically have the ball for about, you know, 35% of the game, right? So your stats are maybe not looking at it. You don't run as many plays. And part of that was because Michigan State, when we talk, you know, whenever we talk about defense, I've got some thoughts on the defense.

Even though they only gave up 17, they definitely, you know, didn't necessarily care. It's amazing they only gave up 17 um but yeah let's talk about that in a minute i i want to talk real quick um just about for the first time all year i was like unbelievably pleased and surprisingly uh pleased with how michigan responded to something. They showed that they had grit. They showed it was gut check time for sure.

You know, Michigan State comes out. They were from the get-go the more physical and tougher team, right? The first drive, obviously, you know, ending up in zero points was gigantic for Michigan in the end. There's no doubt about that. But just in general, like you watched how Michigan State came out. And I think everyone's sitting there like we didn't come to play. Right. And I think that was one of our worries going into this was that Michigan State has more to play for. They play better together as a team.

Michigan didn't show any fight in the second half versus Illinois. So you're really struggling. So I thought, though, you know, I was really impressed with once Michigan went down, right? When those first three drives, they go punt, punt, punt. Michigan does. And Michigan State is, I believe it was, I mean, they had gone what? What did they do their first three drives? It was the missed field goal, obviously, which is huge,

but then a touchdown. So it should have been 10-0 at the least, probably 14-0, right? And so Michigan State has all the momentum. And Michigan makes, I thought the Aiden Childs fumble was the a turning point in the game for sure but I just in general like I thought Michigan could have packed it up and went home based on how we've seen them play for the past like three weeks um I was really impressed with how they showed their their guts yeah man and the thing i would say too because i saw this take going around you know twitter a lot from from msu fans that oh michigan state clearly you know i'll

played michigan and um yeah i mean they had more yards right but if you look at it they had 352 yards 170 of those yards came on three drives where they got three points, right? So that's the first drive of the game where they missed a field goal. It's the drive where they cut it to 16-10, right after Michigan had scored a go-up 16-10. That's a 10-play, six-minute drive, by the way, right? Right. And then they go – they turn it over on downs at the end of the game. So that's half their yards, equating to three points.

I think, I don't have it up in front of me, but I think if you were to look at Michigan, when they got a drive, they finished it, right? Like they went and they scored and they pulled something out of the bag to ensure that they got into the end zone. And that's the difference, right? Like, you know, you can out out gain your opponent uh have a lot of yardage um but at the end of the day if you're not converting in the red zone and converting on

those opportunities when you get close to to your opponent's end of the field it's all for naught yeah 100 i i think that michigan took advantage when michigan state made mistakes there's no doubt about that um i i said this on our our pod at Pretzel Bell on Friday night too. My buddy Brent, he famously says this. Both teams are going to do stupid things. Hopefully they do more stupid things. Guess what? They did do more stupid things.

So, you know, that's ultimately though, that's college football, right? And for the first time in I don't know how many weeks, we didn't really make stupid mistakes at all you know or very seldom did we so penalties no turnovers no penalties no turnovers it's weird how you win when that happens tanner it's weird when you play disciplined football that you man like we've been emphasizing that, the fundamentals every single week. And for the first time all year, they put it all together. And it still is sloppy, right?

It's still not like they were clicking on all cylinders. But, man, it felt good. And I think to your point, though, you're looking at this stat sheet, if you're a Michigan State fan, and saying, how the hell did we lose this game right and you know i when they say like they were the better team i'm i'm not disagreeing like i i think that they all together you know look pretty damn good um so you know i gotta give jonathan smith some respect i think that they he has them playing above their talent level whereas you know that's been something that is a criticism of Sherone Moore that Michigan hasn't played up to

their talent level um so but you know for the first time again they showed they did a little gut check and I you know let's talk about the offensive line too I thought the offensive line struggled early on they they were not getting push. We wrote a story on it on blueby90.com as well that Sherell Moore, actually in his postgame presser, said that he challenged the offensive line. And after those first three drives of punt, punt, punt, they got points on their next three drives. So I felt like they put it together.

What were your thoughts on the O-line? Yeah, I thought it was better. I thought it was improved. I mean, the run game was not great. But at the same time, I mean, Michigan was kind of just allowing Michigan State to get downfield, get downhill, excuse me. And I felt that Michigan never really took advantage

of the run game outside the tackle box. It was mostly in between the tackles. And Alex Orji was the most effective runner all night by far. Six carries for 64 yards. But the one thing I want to say, everyone, not just us, but everyone has been critical of Evan Link. When Andrew Gentry went down, and I don't know what that injury was, but I don't think we're going to see Andrew Gentry the rest of the year. Evan Link, I think, played 37 snaps. Do you know how many pressures he gave up?

Zero. Zero. Zero. Talk about gut check, right? And that's a young kid, redshirt freshman, so he's, what, 19 years old? That's a kid who could be a really good football player and was maybe thrown into the fire had to overcome some adversity and you know probably probably playing you know 10 15 20 pounds below where ideally he would be as an upperclassman and so for him to to be able to kind of face that adversity

you know lose his starting job come back in due to injury and play as well as he did i think right right i mean it just speaks volume to the type of young man he is so um that kind of stuff gets me fired up right like when somebody has a rough start or a rough patch and and they come back and they play well and they overcome that like i think that shows a lot about somebody's character and their ability to kind of overcome adversity so i was really excited. It's not fun to come on here and be like, ah, you know. I don't know if you guys noticed, but we say right tackle. Like, they're kids, man, at the end of the day.

They are young guys who are just trying to figure life out, football out, school. They're trying to figure out what they want to do with their careers and all these sorts of things. So I don't like to come on here and be like oh man guy struggled again like i don't want to you know crap on kids so it's uh it's refreshing for him i'm sure it's gonna be probably a lot more fun to to watch in the film room now the run game again gotta gotta pick up some slack there as a unit um they've been dealing with a lot of injuries they've had so many different uh you know different five out there

all season long due to injury and due to lack of performance so i also think though it was a it's a product a little bit of michigan state saying hey we know that you're going to run colell mullings up the gut a hundred times and we're not going to let you do it right and so they you know they've said it it's funny though they've said it the past few years of we're going to make J.J. McCarthy beat us. We're going to make, you know, Davis Warren beat us. Right. And then he did, you know. And so three in a row versus MSU, they're all saying the same thing of like,

we're going to stop the run and make your quarterback beat us. And then our quarterback did beat you. So you might want to, you know, think of a different thing. I do think having Alex Orji in there changed a lot though, right? Because I think that, you know, us being able to change it up a little bit with the run game and bring him in was amazing. So speaking of having to talk about guys struggle though let's talk

about the defense a little bit um i still i was i'll be honest though to start it off i was shocked with how they struggled right because i thought going into this that we were going to plug up the run and especially with will johnson out that our past defense was going to struggle and it was pretty much the opposite actually so we were you know I think it was very concerning from the get-go of Michigan State just gashing Michigan in the run game for five six seven eight yards a pop and you know sometimes double digit yards a I mean, that was as frustrating as it gets. Well, how many, I'd like to, I'd like to know, and I'm sure that, you know, I'm go blog does their reviews and they chart the games.

And I'm sure we'll, we'll find this out. I'm not going to go back and look at it, but how many times have Mason Graham line up as an edge, or at least as like a five tech, what are we doing? There was a time when kenneth grant dropped into coverage that's okay i think that's okay right but i don't like if because i think that's something jesse mentor probably would do right and i think the reason you do that is because you try to confuse aiden chiles and say okay you have no idea where pressure's coming from you have no idea who's

dropping i think the problem is is that uh that Michigan doesn't do enough of that routinely for it to be super effective, right? But I want to bring this up. I saw this on the 247 board. So the poster, Kodiak GTS put this out there. So there were seven third and long situations. I'm going to read the down and distance, and I'm going to read the yardage, Justin.

I'm going to watch your reaction while I can because I've got to read it off screen. Third and 12, 7 yards. Third and 10, 30 yards. Third and 12, 20 yards. Third and 10, 14 yards. Third and 9, 8 yards. Third and 7, 5-yard loss. It's ideal.

Third and 9, 34 yards. Giving up 30 yards on a third and third and long i know that third and two is feel more confident with a third and one crazy man i mean the one i thought was a really good play call where in chiles dropped it into the was it the tight end or fullback maybe or somebody i think i thought that was a really good play call for them to be honest but still like so frustrating that you're letting that guy leak out you know um i think that this is where like jesse minter was a dog on third and long right if you got in a third and long situation against jesse minter's defense you might as well pack it up. Send the punt unit out on third down because you're not getting it.

And this has happened all year long. Let's be honest. Like, if you can get off the field on third down, the first half against Texas is actually a very different game, right? Yeah. That was, like, it's been all year long where Michigan has dominated first and second down and then gotten gashed on third down and that's how they keep you know the offenses keep kept drives alive

um and it's just so frustrating man as a fan and and i think it's defeating as a player too when you're like okay we got him got him got him oh no we don't back it up you know i think that's really frustrating no it is and i think again i just like the tackling is bad pursuit angles are bad the rush lane discipline you get pressure on chiles and yes he's an athletic guy but you don't have any any discipline nobody's home to make the sack when you when you force them out of the pocket or force them up into the pocket. Just so many different things that you see that are just such a contrast from last year. Yes, again, we know they've lost players, but there's still a lot of guys here that should be able to play and be able to wrap up and make tackles.

Makari Page had one of his worst games tackling that I've seen in his Michigan career, so I don't understand what changes could go into effect to make a team worse at tackling. It's one thing if a younger guy is struggling, but when it's guys that we've seen be extremely consistent at Michigan and make plays throughout their career, start the moment you switch to, you know, a new coaching staff, just start to kind of stick it up. It's like, well, we've seen these guys play well. Right.

And it's not like you can pinpoint, guys play well right and it's not like you can pinpoint oh well rod moore's not out there so makari page is going to struggle at tackling that's not really how that works right like if there's a coverage thing okay yeah maybe you know still getting on the same page with some of these guys but my goodness this i mean these guys cannot wrap up for the life of them it's it's nauseating it is it's crazy and it's and it's been a problem all year long and that's like talk about frustrating to watch is when you have a guy you know wrapped up and then he still squeaks loose and i i remember there i think it was later in the game there was a nate carter run

where he kind of stays up puts his hand down and stays up and gets an extra 20 some yards um that might have been one of the third and stays up and gets an extra 20 some yards um that might have been one of the third and 30 third downs that they got 30 plus yards um but um it it is very frustrating you know i want to get nate carter's very good i i like lynch had like 180 yards he's a dog i mean he was good last year for them against michigan he's really really good um but at the end of the day you know outside of him and him and chiles like is anybody uh more talented on michigan state's offense than michigan state's defense right we should be able to out talent them at pretty much every position outside of maybe a couple right and so that's where you're

sitting here like man it this you know you should if you're looking at on paper michigan state's offense versus michigan's defense michigan shouldn't let up more than seven points on the game and i think to your point the way that they gave them up is is the most frustrating where right from the get-go, you know, Michigan state is just pounding the ball and, and Michigan is letting them like us, let him through like a sieve. And then, like you said, the missed tackling is just so frustrating. So as much as it looks like you played well, cause you only gave up 17 i think it's you know if you look a little bit deeper uh not so great for michigan's defense and they still have a lot to clean up

um the one thing i will say like i know in child 17 for 23 is it great like that's a great passer percentage completion percentage but uh you know you pretty much bottled him up and didn't let him do crazy aiden chiles things right yeah yeah and the one thing i would say too and i want to i want to touch on two points with this one stat here um do you know who's leading the nfl and uh points a game against i'm gonna guess it's jesse mentor it It is Jesse Minter. So, yes, great defensive coordinator. You miss him a lot. He doesn't have an audience. Clearly, it's a downgrade, man.

You know, whatever you want to say because, you know, a weak Martindale with the Giants, with the Ravens, you know, has not really been great for, you know, a few years at least when he was with the Ravens. So, second point I'd like to make, no one gives a shit about your science, brother, because Jesseesse mentor is showing how good of a defensive coordinator he is it does not matter he is he is going to be an nfl head coach in the next two years and he's going to win a lot of football games so real quick on that before this is a total tangent but um jim harbaugh as while we're talking about the Chargers, he literally had NFL-grown professional men singing for he's a jolly good fellow

in the locker room after the game. What is it? He's the weirdest man on planet Earth, but he'll somehow get 30-year-old men to sing for he's a jolly good fellow. He's Ted Lasso. Ted Lasso was based on him. It's insane what he's been able to do. And talk about missing somebody, I just miss him.

So, sorry, go on with your stuff. No, that's all that I had to say. I mean, you know, I think that there's certainly enough talent on this defense for Michigan to maybe upset some teams down the stretch. I just don't know if lining Masonham up on the edge is going to be what you want to do to win those sorts of games you're going to basically have to be perfect i just don't know if if link's going to be able to call a perfect game like jesse minter can i have a really hard time looking at michigan's defense against number one oregon's offense with

dylan gabriel and say yeah they're listen play well. You heard me on Saturday. What's that? You win Saturday, you get momentum. They got to come to the big house. You never know what can happen. Crazier things have happened. The funniest thing, too, when – so I'm, like, trying to load up the cooler. It's only, like, 2 o'clock or something. So the excuse of – it's not like you were, like, drunk ranting or anything, but I overhear Tanner from across the tailgate say,

all right, you win Saturday against Michigan State. You get momentum. Number one Oregon's got to come into town. You can beat them. Then you beat Indiana on the road. Then you beat Ohio State on the road. You talked yourself into us being in the playoff at nine and three which is unbelievable and i i thought i was dying laughing you know i just wanted to keep the vibes up i was told my vibes were low on your great vibe yes and you know um i also um there was a

on netflix they came out with a uh documentary the 0-4 Red Sox and their comeback against the Yankees. And there was a 30 for 30 on that, but this one's a little bit more, you know, expansive as far as how they, you know, how long it is like three hours long. It's awesome by the way. But I think I kind of stole that from, from Kevin Millar. If you remember him back in the day, but he was like telling, I think it was the instrument to see who's a Boston, you know, writer in the sports world in Boston. And he's like, he's like, don't let us win tonight. Cause game five, we got Pedro game six, shilling game seven, anything can happen.

And that was basically my mantra of like, you never know what could happen. You know, how to save the game. You never know what could happen. Right. So, you know, we'll talk aboutregon um i was a little overzealous i'm gonna be honest but hey you know what five and three back on schedule still should have been seven and one coming into the oregon game like i said a month ago but it is what it is got the ducks coming to town three hour time difference it's been tough for these teams. It has. It has.

I, you know, you never know. You never know. There's a lot of pressure as playing as the number one team in the nation as well. So, you never know. But, more importantly, Paul is in Ann Arbor for a while, for another 365 days. So, I'm pretty pumped about that. I think that it's, you know, this one, it is, it was a can't-lose game, right? So you're just thrilled to have that one. We'd be talking, it would be, talk about vibes, it would be very negative vibes if you would lose that one at home.

But one thing that you have to say about Sheryl Moore is he, as a head coach, whether it's interim or real head coach, has not lost to Michigan State, Penn State, or Ohio State. So, I mean, pretty damn good. I think that's something you have to put an emphasis on if you are the head coach of of michigan and um it's something that you know a lot of people pre-2021 just crushed jim harbaugh for was not being able to beat his rivals and uh he's the first guy to beat michigan michigan

state in his first year as head coach, like, ever? 1948. 1948, right? 76 years ago. I mean, that's a long time. And also, just in general, too, like, I think the stats were out there of Michigan hadn't beaten a decent Michigan State team in a long time. The only time that Michigan had had beaten you know michigan state was when they were three and nine or you know four and eight or whatever else so um even though you know this is you know michigan state's still four and four and they're in year one after you

know after uh bringing on jonathan smith i still think that's a good win to you can feel good about that win because they're a program that is on the rise, I think, right now. And Trinomore is going to have to keep up. Like, that is, you know, something you can't count them out. They're not, you know, Mel Tucker-less Michigan State anymore. So, I think you feel good about getting this one, right? Well, I was going to say to your point about, you know,

how Jim Harbaugh was crushed. Remember the they would they would bring up and it was true but they would say hey well you know michigan in their last six versus michigan and ohio state michigan state ohio state one and five you know what they are their last six against michigan state ohio state now justin six and oh love that shit love that shit so you know and i don't know if you count penn state right so yeah yeah man i mean uh it's one of those things where things have kind of turned on its head and um you know rivalries go back and forth and so there will be there will be moments where michigan will lose some of these games but for now sitting here you know last six uh feeling pretty good about things it's funny those graphics don't quite make the rounds as much as the one and five.

Yeah, it's kind of weird. I don't know. Maybe we could put something together for Ryan Day just, you know, as a token of our friendship and just, you know. By the way, they should have lost to Nebraska. I'm just saying anything can happen. Yeah, it's in the shoe. That team kind of stinks right now.

That team should have stinks right now. That team should have lost to Nebraska. If Nebraska scores on fourth and goal, it's... The running back doesn't stretch the ball. It's fourth and goal. If he fumbled, then so be it. He would have scored if he just stretches the ball. Look, that's a very

talented Ohio State team, but they are not playing up to what they should be. If anybody wants to come back and clip this, all of your fan base is saying the exact same thing. I'm just spreading the gospel here. So don't hate the messenger. The other thing, if we want to throw a little shade at MSU right now, which I like doing from time to time, is, you know,

if you want to flip that narrative, like Michigan State just lost to the worst Michigan team in over a decade, right? Yeah, we don't count 2020. I mean, that's just like a fake year, which then invalidates Ryan Day's one playoff win. So I'm down with that. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely the worst team since 14, I would say, because people talk about the 2017 team. The 2017 defense was very good, very, very good, and put Michigan in a position to win most of its games

except for Penn State that year. So, yeah, I think, you know, hey, sometimes you got a bad team and you still win some of your rivalry games, which I'll take. Also, last thing here, if you would have told me that colell mullings was gonna have 13 carries for 18 yards i'd be like okay what do we lose by 30 uh we there's no way we scored a single point right so again i just want to give this team uh credit for finding a way i want to give real quick i just thought of this because i know my prediction was close i said 24 20 you know who was spot on a boy dj array 24 17 he called it 17 i love that i was three points off i basically just copied his level i can't take 24 17 i gotta

take 24 20 but i think nolan said 24 17 as well in the group chat so that's just a classic like i don't know if we're gonna win but i think we probably will win score prediction right like that's why i just throw out there you know i thought that it was like hey if we're going to win it's going to be ugly and close so that's gonna be my it was a rock fight it was it did it was tier point sloppy and like a rain game even though there was no rain i also want to say shout out to the spartan illustrated guys but do you think paul knows who josiah stewart is now probably not still but um but he should he should on our live pod on friday at the pretzel bell shout out pretzel bell uh i brought up josiah stewart and our good friend

paul from spartan illustrated said I don't know who that is. And then he had a huge forced fumble sack on Eden's trials to give Michigan an additional three points. And if Kenny Grant had picked that ball up, he would have scored. He was traumatized from the USC game. He did. You could literally see it in his actions that he was like, nope, I'm falling on this thing. He would have scored.

Because he kind of got up and looked around and was like nope i'm falling on this thing he would have scored because he he got a look he kind of got up and looked around i was like ah shit there's nobody around me yeah he would have scored it would have been because we we said we need a big man touchdown that would have been electric if he scored there but hey that was the play of the game in my opinion that was and also that was a i think jon think Jonathan Smith is very smart and like calculated in his risks that was dumb to to try to score with 17 seconds left from your own 30 with a turnover prone quarterback like that's that's what's going to happen like I feel like if you're a Michigan State fan you're like you already know what's going to happen in that scenario when you're going out like that that's exactly how aiden

childs you know that's the play that's made there so absolutely um i i think you if you're michigan state i know you're you're it would have been what seven seven at the time um so so yeah we've we missed the uh or we didn't convert on the yeah there's got to be a conversation about the uh both the punter and the holder um kind of rough rough season unfortunately for a guy who last year was really good in the first half of the season i don't know what happened like i don't know either man i think it's got to be mental it's got to be mental yeah you need like a sports psychologist type of figure. And the rest of the piece of Grant Varden,

these are the things that Greg would sell at, right? So, yeah, it's one of those things that's tough to see because a kid who I thought had a potential to play in the NFL and has just been really struggling. But then you couple in not only are we seeing Michigan struggle and kind the punt game and and where they maybe could use some better field position success then you have uh you know a muffed uh snap right and it takes a point off the board that could have been huge right and thankfully Michigan was able to get back with two point but dude that's like those are the things that can lose you games right like you say you point to

um and i mean let's be honest them missing the field goal with jonathan kim who's probably the best kicker in the big 10 maybe the country like he had six field goals a week ago right and them missing a field goal from the five yard line lost them the game in my opinion right like that changes everything so um i know we ended up winning by seven but still like if you know if they go up there and it's 10 nothing right it's um it's tough so um yeah i i think that uh you're just happy to get this one for sure if you're michigan you're happy to walk away with this one um the last thing that i want to chat about uh this could open up a whole uh whole can of worms but is michigan seven and one if davis warren is the starting quarterback all the way through i don't know man i watch him throw the ball it comes out a lot a lot with a lot

more velocity than any of the other guys on the roster um i think he processes information a little bit quicker and i also think he has the most room to grow he's got the most potential he's got the highest ceiling maybe outside of alex orgy if alex orger was able to you know like can we combine these guys we just morph them yeah um i don't know it's tough to say um i think defensively against washington especially the the team really kind of struggled um yeah but at the end of the day you are in that game be like you know think about how many how many drives you gave up against washington and got nothing the first three with Alex Orji and then two of them with a fumble and an interception by Tuttle right and so yeah I'm not saying that that you know

you can't come out here and say that Davis Warren was going to make zero mistakes right he was going to have zero turnovers because that's not what it showed in the first you know in his starts but you know if Davis Warren was able to play like he did on saturday where you know it's nothing crazy you're not doing anything nuts uh but we said that from the get-go man from before the season i said you never really asked jj to do anything crazy unless it was like third and 12 and you have to do jj things but after that, you know, you're running a very calculated offense, and that's exactly what they did on Saturday. So kind of frustrating to see that now.

I mean, hindsight's 20-20, of course, and I think that, you know, after the Arkansas State game, it was like, okay, we got to see what else we have, right? But, you know, here we go. I just want to give him another shout out because, man, I think that anybody, anybody would have given him like, hey, you shut it down after you throw three picks in a game and you get benched and there, you know, you haven't played in what, four weeks now, three weeks.

So it's like, OK, you know, for you to be able to come back and play the way he did was phenomenal. So got to give it up to him. But, hey, listen, Paul lives in Ann Arbor. Life is always good when Paul's in Ann Arbor. So I'll take that for sure. But, you know, we'll be back in the big house this week, number one team coming into town.

So you never know. You never know what can happen. You just don't So, you never know. You never know what can happen. You just don't ever know what will happen. You never know. So, 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.

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