Blue By Ninety - Recap of the Michigan vs. Indiana Football beatdown.

Episode Date: November 25, 2019

Listen to our thoughts on Michigan's 39-14 destruction of Indiana!

Welcome to Blue by 90, your Michigan football podcast. We are three dudes who talk Maize and Blue. I'm Kalen, joined by Jack and Nate. Yo, what up? And we're here to go over Michigan's absolute dismantling of Indiana. Final score, what was it guys, 39-14? 39-14, that was great. I was so happy to see that. I thought it was going to be a tough game. It looked kind of rough at halftime, but we ended up kind of running away with it in the second half.

Jack, what was your kind of reaction to the game there? It looks like Shea is back in the Heisman race. That's my hot take. But no, I mean, Shea put balls on the money where they needed to be. It's great to see DPJ, Nico, Ronnie, Mike Samerstill get a nice catch in there. Giles Jackson had a nice game. I'm excited. We didn't have to rely on the run to put up points and get a bunch of yardage.

Shea had another big game. He has nine touchdown passes in the last two games. Nine. So I'm pumped. I'm excited to see. I'm going to have to save that. But I thought it was a great game. Great game offensively.

Defense, it looked a little shaky in the first half. I feel like Indiana was kind of just running around a little bit on offense, kind of putting some points on the board, which made me a little bit nervous because we always play them close. But overall, I was happy. Second half looked good. It was great to see Shea have another good game, and yeah. Okay, yeah.

I mean, Nate, what's your thoughts? Yeah, I'm with Jack, and I want to touch on a couple things that he talked about. It was just the wide receiver core doing a fantastic job. There were so many acrobatic catches in this game. Nico had a couple, DPJ with the insane catch in the end zone. That was awesome.

Mike Sainer stole the opening drive. Leaving some room on the sidelines so he could put the ball there. They're pushing the ball downfield, right?

They just moved the ball downfield. The first drive, they had, Shea was, kind of had one that was across the field to Haskins. They kept the drive going. And to me, that was pretty impressive by Shea because beginning season, that's done.

The play's done. Oh, yeah. Or it's a pick. Or it's, you know. It's a pick, yeah. Or a fumble. Or a fumble, yeah. More comfortable in the pocket.

The plays seem to be more downfield passes. So I was really happy with that. And then the defense was a little shaky. I think it took them a little bit of some time to get going, but there was a couple things, like the first drive, I think the very first pass that Indiana threw was to one of their veteran wide receivers on Dax Hill, who was starting. Yeah, it was a good ball. It was a good ball, yeah.

Then they had the penalty, and so then by the time you knew it, they were already at the 50-yard line and just moving down the field. Right, right. I think it did kind of take them a little bit of time to get acclimated, but I was so happy. Shea seems to be playing the best ball that he's played, just super confident, and Indiana gave them a lot of pressure, too. And he was able to stay in the pocket, stay comfortable, and make some throws.

And they seem to have more zip on it. I was reading something about how Shea has started to speed up his delivery motion. And because it's not putting as much pressure on the line to provide a bunch of time for him, he's able to get the ball out quicker. And the other thing that I thought was great, he's spreading the ball out. He's hitting all of these different receivers. Then on top of that, our guy Ronnie finally found the end zone.

That is crazy to me. I didn't know that was his first touchdown. That was unbelievable. He did have a couple drops. I've got to give him a little bit of criticism there. Ronnie, you gotta catch the ball, stuff like that. But hey, you scoring touchdowns, I'm gonna be clapping it up in the stands.

This was kind of weird. I want to touch on something there too. DPJ and Nico were like the top two wide receivers, which is what we thought was gonna happen at the beginning of the season. This is like one of the first games where those two guys were the top receivers. And Ronnie, you know, he had a good game. He had a touchdown, a couple catches maybe. But it was really interesting. Well, it's funny. On VPJ's big catch, you said, like, that's why he's a five-star.

Oh, yeah. Middle of the game, yeah. It was kind of like, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, Nico finally kind of running away with it. It was kind of like, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, Nico finally kind of running away with it. 165 yards, three touchdowns, that long of 76. I don't know if anybody listened to that. Well, I was going to say, that looked like an Alabama RPL.

Like, that's what you see. You see, you know, they do the run pass option. They see the linebackers coming down, get it out quick, and then the guy just takes off. That's something I've wanted to see all year long and it was beautiful. I don't know if anybody listened to that Inside the Trenches podcast post-game where they were interviewing Nico Collins after the game and they were like, how far did that

end zone look after you caught the ball? He's like, it looked pretty far. I was kind of tired but glad to get in the end zone. I'm just glad to see him really starting to use some of these weapons, right? I mean, you even see some of these, you know, Haskins going out for pass and stuff like that. Dude, what do you think? I know that Jack had touched base on Haskins, and I was still not sold on him,

but he really seems to be getting a lot better with his vision when he's running. He looks pretty good, and I'm really impressed with his improvement over the last, like, four weeks. He had a couple runs where you were like, dude, he should be down behind the line, and he just juked or did something, got two yards or something like that. So I'm not mad about that. Jack, what do you think? Haskins, good.

I mean, I think right now he's our number one. I think after the past few games we've seen, he's kind of established himself as that. But Charbonnet got in as well. He had, I mean, like I was saying, we didn't really run the ball a lot. So we didn't see much in the game against Indiana. But I do want to get back to what you were kind of saying about Shea and speeding things up. So I went to Wolverine Brewing Company on Tuesday, and Devin Gardner and Michael Spath do, like,

a show where they break down the film of the previous week. So they broke down the Michigan State game. And a really cool thing, like, if you have a chance to go to it, go to it. It's awesome. Devin Gardner was talking about Shea and something that you guys always talk about, his happy feet and kind of rolls out of pocket before he needs to and you know balls aren't put where they need to be where they need to be at um and one thing he was kind of saying is with what Shea's been doing is he's been progressing over the season with his drops and his timing with the receivers where maybe one

route is supposed to be a five-step drop with you know for him and then you know he's supposed to let go of it and he's taking a three-step drop. The timing's not right, and it's not there. Where it looked like this game, he was on point with his drops, his timing was good. It looks like he's just continuing to improve. Somebody was saying the Rudok effect earlier. Throughout the season, he's getting better and better.

But it looks like Shea was really able to do that. Sorry, I just had to go back to that. Just crazy. It's for quarterback who starts off the season doing terrible as a senior and then halfway through starts looking like a stud, right? Well, it's crazy. It's only been like two months. Two months ago, we were all going like this.

Oh, God. Put on McCaffrey. Fire Jim. That shit was happening. I didn't say that. Caleb just told me at the very end of the season, like, you think we should take Shea out? And I could tell it was like, oh, he's, like, starting to go, like, getting nervous if Shea gets hurt. You know?

No, for real. I was like, you know. Yeah. I mean, I don't. With the way he's playing now, for sure. For real. But, I mean, I just thought that was hilarious. I mean, two months ago we were trash.

We called for his name. And so now it's like, dude, Jim is a good coach. In two months he's got this team, like, way better. So I think that's something to pay attention to. And also Josh Gaddis' improvement. I know that he was talking a lot about, oh, it's just about execution, but there's definitely been a difference in play calls. They seem to be throwing the ball a lot more.

A lot more than 100%. Downfield passes. A lot more downfield passes. It feels like they're setting up the run with the pass first. And so I think Josh has been doing a good job. It feels aggressive, right? It feels like we want to score points and we want to move the ball. And one of those Nico Collins touchdowns was after a turnover

when I think we were on the Indiana third, 20 or 30. And that was another thing in the breakdown that Devin Gardner did of Michigan State. I remember we had that turnover, and we got the ball on the Sparty 20 or 30, and they just went right for the touchdown. Nico Collins over the middle, touchdown. Same exact thing happened against Indiana. I called that play before it even happened, because I remember what Devin Gardner said he said that's what you do when you get the momentum

keep it going go right for the end zone they did it and it worked and it worked and it worked so I mean especially when Shea's

putting those balls where they need to be and you know Nico Collins is going to come down with it I'm just so satisfied I mean yeah

we're seeing we're seeing why Shea was a five star we're seeing why he was such a highly talented recruit I mean we gave him a lot of crap, but, I mean, obviously there was a lot of stuff behind the scenes

that we weren't seeing. Oh, for sure. And now he's being put in a really good position where he can start to shine, and he's getting confident and comfortable, so I think it's all starting to coalesce and peaking at the right time. The offense has really turned around, but do you want to move to the... Yeah, well, I was going to shift to the defense One thing I wanted to point out

Specifically on the defense Was Dax Hill Dax Hill ended up starting They came to him on Wednesday and they said Brad Hawkins got hurt in practice You better be ready to go on Saturday And he was like I'm just going to prep Like it's another day blah blah blah

He came out he was a leading tackler yeah I saw it holy crap right leading tackler with an interception I was like yeah that was pretty sweet freshman he's dude this kid and Don Brown is on record saying like he doesn't know any of the plays they're just telling him what to do and he's so fast that he gets it you can just figure it out so I like, just imagine if this kid actually knew where he was supposed to be. This would be amazing. And not to get too far off track, but one thing I really noticed in that game

is how many young guys were playing. That is great. That's got to be great for recruiting, right? That's awesome. I mean, we had Giles Jackson, St. Rastil was in there, Mayfield's on the O-line, we got Dax, who was able to start because one guy got hurt. I mean, that's got to be awesome for recruiting,

especially if we're trying to get these high-caliber guys that are going to other programs. That was just super exciting to see that. That was really exciting. Nate, I'm sure you've got something to say about Josh Uche. Oh, my gosh, I was really nervous when he went down. I don't know what's with him. He's okay.

I didn't hear any follow-up on that. He was running off the field, so he's fine. Oh, Jesus. We need him. Dude, I'm telling you, he's, to me, like him and Quitty, just have this dynamic. Yeah. And those two guys on the defensive line with the stunts and whatnot, they're doing such a great job.

There's the Dax Hill interception where they just blew up the play smashed the quarterback and then got his hand on on the quarterback there yeah like there was something about he's just doing such a great job um going up against uh offensive linemen that are bigger than him and he's like really doing a great job of using his hands like pushing up up on him. He's really fast, right? We saw that in the Penn State game when he ran that guy down. Oh, yeah. But he's, I think, going to be a key piece for them next week. And I was just so, I guess now I'm super reluctant to see that he's actually going to be playing

because I think he's probably, you know, top three best players on the defense. He's great, yeah. I mean, I think another guy who kind of needs a bit of a shout-out is Don Brown. Because, I mean, Don has had a couple instances where the other team just kind of knows something, has a scheme, they get schemed up, and, you know, he can't seem to figure it out, right? But I felt like in this game, like, they were kind of doing some stuff, and they scored on us first, and Don Brown was able to just it out, right? But I felt like in this game, like, they were kind of doing some stuff, and they scored on us first, and Don Brown was able to just make those, like, mid-game, mid-quarter adjustments

so that we came out and were like, no, no, no, this isn't going to happen all game, all quarter. You know what I mean? And years past, you know, Penn State, Ohio State, years past, they've just, you know, had their way with us. Yeah. And so I think he's really improved in that regard, which is promising. It scared me because it was like, watching the beginning, I was like, God damn it.

Like, again, this is going to happen where we give Ohio State the keys to the game just because Indiana comes out with some crazy game plan. It's going to be, and then, nope, shut them down. Just game's done. Another good thing, though, was the fact that Indiana was scoring on us a little bit. For the first time, I was kind of going like, our offense can hang in there and I'm not scared. Yes.

Right? We talked about it in the beginning of the season. Now we don't have to worry about, oh, can our offense score to keep us in the game. Now it's just like, all right, we can do this. We can stay in the game. Defense lets up a couple touchdowns. We're okay, which is a great feeling. Oh, yeah.

It takes the pressure off, right? Do you want to talk about, this is just a random note, somebody who had more tackles than you would think. Jess Spade had five tackles yesterday. I heard his name getting shouted out. I was like, holy shit out I was like holy shit I was like oh my gosh

dude great for him man what is he what position does he do we know I don't know man but he had five tackles that's pretty sick

I don't know it was just cool I saw that I was like whoa Jess Spade had five tackles I was like

wow dude that's awesome for him I was pretty excited you know see a guy who has kind of stuck with the program,

I think that kind of speaks a little bit to the coaching, right? Like you have your brother transfer. You decide to just keep pushing through the program, and now he actually got to make some plays as a senior. That's kind of rewarding for anybody who's, you know, put all that time in, right? Good for him. Yeah, that's good. I heard a little something about Will Hart had a

not the greatest game. Did anybody hear about this at all? I didn't. I saw he had a couple punts that I'm not like an

expert on punters or anything. I mean, there was definitely a couple punts that were short compared. I mean, he's like Big Ten

last year. I think they had him pretty much set together this year too. It looks like a couple just hit off his foot weird and they didn't go as far as normal, but I mean, I'm not of the year last year. I think they had him pretty much set together this year too. It looks like a couple just hit off his foot weird

and they didn't go as far as normal, but I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I was like, whatever. Who's looking at the punter

like that? Maybe he's got turf toe. When you win by like 30 points, you're not going like, man, that punter sucked! Maybe that is a thing when you're up by that many and you start trying

to nitpick at things that could have been improved. Yeah, you've got to find something. That's awesome. Oh, man. No, overall, I mean, I don't know if anybody has any other thoughts on the game specifically. I thought, you know, our offense was rolling, our defense. We got down early, but we picked it up and just, what did they say? We didn't allow a touchdown for 44 minutes or something like that.

That's awesome. That's awesome. That's amazing. So, I mean, other than that, we're just looking on the horizon to the big foe coming over. Yeah, the game. The game. That's correct. I honestly don't have anything more to say. No, I'm just happy.

I'm just pleased. Yeah, I'm just pleased. I'm good at bitching, but we don't have much to bitch about, so I'm happy. Yeah, I can actually eat my turkey dinner this week and not have to have this angst in my mind. Yeah. I'm going to sleep like a baby after my turkey and mashed potatoes. Eat your Thanksgiving dinner. What do we got?

Look at the top ten? Yeah, I want to kind of look up some of the rankings here. I got the top ten written down. AP top ten. AP top ten. That's what I have CFP at. Yeah, college football playoff top ten will be out what? Tuesday.

Tuesday? Tuesday night. Okay, so AP, we got number one, LSU. Number two, Ohio State. Guys, we're going to do an extra Ohio State episode. Is that right? Yeah. We'll preview that.

So people just keep an eye out for that. We'll have that out later in the week, shortly before the game. Okay, great. A couple days before the game, probably. And then number three is Clemson. Number four is Georgia. I think that's dumb. Well, they'll be out because they're going to lose to LSU in the SEC title game.

So that's another way for Bama to get in. Dude, that pissed me off, dude. That's just literally them going, let's put in two SEC teams. Let's just totally devise it. That's going to happen. Unless Auburn can beat Bama, there's going to be two SEC teams in. Because either way, Georgia wins, they're going to be in. But also, if Georgia wins, then LSU could also remain in.

I think they will. I don't think there's any way right now as long as LSU doesn't defeat it in the regular season that they'll be in. It's pretty much devised for that to happen. They're pretty much making it so that it's going to be LSU, Alabama, again in a rematch. Because they're just like, oh, this game will get tons of ratings. Let's just totally mess with it.

So we need Auburn to win. Yeah. Go Auburn. Yeah. And meanwhile, the same people who are going like, you know, the integrity of the game is, you know, we can't have these players, you know, actually make money. Then they're just going like, oh, the integrity of the game, let's, you know, we got to keep it so that we can get these ratings and, you know, people stay in tune.

Yeah. It's such BS, dude. That pissed me off. And then, okay, what did I say? Number four, Georgia. Number five, Bama. Number six is Utah. Sliding under the radar a little bit here.

Utah has one loss. I think it'll be so tough for them to get in the playoff now because they needed Oregon to beat Arizona State to make that a top ten matchup. That's what they play to help their resume. Their loss was to USC, which is not, I mean, it looks whatever. They're ranked. The Twins are ranked. Yeah, it's not an awful loss. No.

But, I mean, I think that says more about that program and that coach. I don't know who the coach is at Utah, but he's obviously doing a great job. They're also in the Pac-12. They are in the Pac-12. Hey, you could be in the ACC, right? Could be, could be. We'll see what happens with Utah. I don't know.

It'll be tough for them to get in. Now we've got Oklahoma. Oklahoma is in a strange spot, I feel like. What do you guys think? I would not put them in. Didn't they just barely beat TCU? Yeah, but they're going to get a rematch against Baylor in the championship game.

And Baylor's going to be a top 15 team, right? And so if they beat them twice, that'll be multiple top

20 wins against the same team. But still, I mean, that says something, right? I don't think Obama has a shot. You don't think they have a shot? I don't think they have a shot at getting in.

I think theirs is over with, yeah. I think Bama wins. They'll get in. Okay. Well, then, number eight is Florida. I hate Florida. I don't know why Florida's ranked that high, to be honest. They have two losses.

Now, their two losses are to Georgia and LSU. Two good teams. Yeah, it is what it is. It just seems to me like they're just planning that game. It's like our annual bowl game against Florida. I'm looking at it, I'm like, we'll have three losses, most likely. They'll have two losses. Oh, let's see a matchup

blah blah and then they'll have Georgia play like you know Wisconsin or Minnesota because they'll be in the Big Ten Championship game

it's just like I'm telling you we're going to play Florida well number nine is Minnesota and I think Minnesota will go to the Rose Bowl

Minnesota still has a chance to make the playoff they still have a they still control their own destiny. They can beat Ohio State in the championship. Because they have to beat Wisconsin, which will be a good ranked win. And then they will have to beat Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship. That would be bizarre, though. They lost to Iowa.

Who? But it was a road win. It was a road loss at Iowa. And it was a close game. It was a close game. It's not a one-loss game. Yeah. That's true.

I mean, if they beat Wisconsin and Ohio State, they're in the playoff. They beat Penn State pretty good, and Penn State played Ohio State. Tough. Tougher than most, I think. I think they have a good argument to get in if they do win out. Yeah. No, yeah. Okay, you guys are right.

I think they'll get hammered if they were to get in the playoff. You sold me. Okay. Go P.J. Fleck, I guess. And then at number 10. Number 10 is your boys in blue here. Shades back in the Heisman race. There's always an opportunity to make it into the playoff.

We need something crazy to happen, but it's possible. There is a small chance that they could get into the playoff. Alabama would have to lose. We need everybody to lose. Wisconsin would have to win, then lose, and get absolutely demolished by Ohio State. We would have to beat Ohio State, and then Penn State would have to lose next week. Clemson just needs to lose. Clemson needs to lose out. Bama needs to lose.

There's so many different things. It would be, like, the craziest week in college football history for Michigan to get in. It could happen. But I would say that if they had beaten Penn State, like, they could have still made the game close against Wisconsin early in the season. They would have shot. Well, yeah, because we'd still have a shot at the Big Ten championship game. Yeah. Because then it would be, we beat Ohio State, right?

You know, so it would be a very similar situation last year. Well, and just for fun, number 12 and number 13 are Penn State and Wisconsin, respectively. Two teams that we lost to are now ranked below us. I do think it's valid that we are ranked ahead of Penn State because I think if we played again, we'd beat them. Wisconsin, they beat us down pretty bad. But again, I think it would be a much better game

if we played them at this time of the year. Yeah, I feel like they've kind of started to fall off the rails a little bit. Where our trajectory has very much changed than what we've seen normally. Normally, we trend downwards at the end. I was looking at the TV right here, and they just did an advertisement for the game. So we're all ready. It is nice to see that we are trending upwards at the end of the season, which is a first.

It's a first. Yeah, I can't remember the last time I felt this good at the end of November about Michigan football. Last year. And I remember crying. Well, this good at the end of November about Michigan football. Last year. And I remember crying. Well, I've purposely forgotten about that. Thanks for bringing it back up. Who would you like to see Michigan play in a bowl game?

An SEC team, for sure. That's not Florida. Or like Oklahoma. What if they played like Auburn? I want to see a big name. Yeah, just a big name. Big name school. Auburn, Oklahoma, Georgia.

Well, I think what they really want is they want that Oklahoma-Bama matchup. I'd love to see that, too. But I'd say any big name storage school. Other than Florida. I don't want to see that. They definitely have a... Whoever's doing the scheduling, the guys in the committee, they have it either set up for a matchup where it's like, okay, Jalen

versus Alabama, if they decide not to go, or if Alabama does get in, which I feel like it's going to happen, they're going to then have a big matchup there. So either way, it's like a win-win scenario for the scheduling. What do you guys think if we played Baylor? I'd be down for that.

They would be... That's a fun, I mean, you know. If they lost Oklahoma, fun, I mean, you know. If they lost to Oklahoma, they'd be like, you know, 11-2 or something like that. That'd be a fun game for me to watch, I think. Dude, I'd be down to play Oregon, too. Yeah. But that most likely will end up with the loser of the Big Ten Championship game going and playing in the Rose Bowl.

Right. Oh, but if Utah, eh. If Utah wins. Yeah, you know. We could end up playing, you know, Oregon. I mean, Oregon or Utah is another option. Right. Honestly, looking at the rankings and the landscape,

I'm looking at us playing Florida again, or Baylor or Oregon. I'm cool with Baylor or Oregon. If we play Florida again, I'm just going to... I'm just going to watch it. Send a strongly worded letter. God dang you, CFB playoff committee.

You know what's a weird thing? Yesterday they mentioned for the Indiana team, like 25% of their roster was from Florida. Yeah. Which is why they wanted to play in a Florida game.

They said that whatever the heck that guy's name is, has a recruiting tie to Florida. He used to coach high school in Florida. Dude, that one guy on the team, his cousin was Lamar Jackson. I was like, how is that guy not just amazing

if he's just been practicing with Lamar Jackson? He's a monster. MVP in the NFL is called. We're going to see him play. Alright, well amazing if he's just been practicing tomorrow, Jack. He's a monster. MVP in the NFL. It's called. We're going to see him play. Alright, well that's kind of all I got. Looking forward to next week. Like Jack said, look out later in the week for our Ohio State

look-ahead episode. Guys, you got anything else? Go Blue! Go Blue!