Blue By Ninety - Rise to the Victors: Beck Talks Offense

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

Michigan Football offensive coordinator Jason Beck gave us one of our most detailed looks yet at what the Wolverines' offense could become in 2026.Welcome to Rise to the Victors, your daily start with Michigan sports on the Blue By 90 network with Trevor McCue and Darnell Porter.In this episode, Trevor and Darnell break down Beck's latest fall camp press conference and what his comments tell us about Bryce Underwood, Michigan's offensive identity and the position battles still being decided with the season opener approaching.🏈 IN THIS EPISODE:• Jason Beck's latest Michigan Football fall camp comments• Bryce Underwood strings together 13 good practices• What's changed from Underwood's inconsistent spring?• Will those improvements hold up when the games begin?• Michigan's passing game continues to make progress• Why WR3 could change depending on personnel• The latest offensive line competition• Improved pass protection on the edgesRise to the Victors is your daily start with Michigan sports on the Blue By 90 network.Join Trevor McCue and Darnell Porter every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday morning at 10:30 a.m. for Michigan Football news, analysis, recruiting, basketball and conversation about everything happening around the Wolverines.Subscribe to Blue By 90 and turn on notifications so you don't miss a show.

All right, welcome in to, I don't have my desk microphone right now. I was like looking for it. Welcome, Ed, Rise to the Victors, part of the Blue By 90 podcast network. If you are rising with us right now as we're live, then you had a rough night. We're a little late today, a little after two coming on, normally 10.30. Once the season gets going, hopefully that'll be more consistent. But I've had some busy, busy weeks. So I apologize.

But excited to have my guy, Darnell. And this is a fun one. for us because Jason Beck was at the podium today. And just, again, we've been talking so much about the candidness of this staff and the staff saying things that confirm Intel and vice versa. It's just so refreshing, man. Yeah, man, I was just, I was blown away because you know and I know the last 10 years, Let's call it 10.

10. It's been submarine. We're not going to talk about it. Does a guy got an injury? Maybe so, kind of so. You had to figure out through the weeds, people that were at practice, people that knew people on the team.

But this staff has been, they're opening candid. Hey, this guy, he's relatively healthy, but we're working through some things. And I think that helps calms the nerves because we're like little, kids, the analogy I like to give is like we're like little kids waiting on Christmas, right? We've asked for all of these gifts and we don't know if our parents bought them. We see them under

the tree, but it's still a week out, right? And so we're looking for any little thing. Oh, this gift don't look as big as the Xbox I asked for. So maybe they didn't get the Xbox. Now you're disappointed. Only to find out on Christmas Day, Xbox is there. They just waited to wrap that last. And so I'm happy that we have some coaches that want to be candid, coaches that want to be honest, don't want to hide the ball. And that tells me just how confident they are in a team, right? Because even the best coaches sometimes will hide the eight ball because they don't want to give away a competitive advantage to another team.

But so far, and we'll get into it today, I think that kind of gave us both, right? He tempered some expectations, but he also gave us some things to be feel real good about and look forward to in two weeks when the boys run out the tunnel at the big house. And yeah, look, this is why I continue to buy into the hype where the hype exists. If it doesn't translate to the season and there's a disconnect, then I'll have that conversation with people. I'm not trying to sell you something. I don't care. I don't gain anything, right? Michigan's not paying me to come out here and tell you rah, rah, rah. But when we continue to see this level of honesty, like you said, being realistic with expectations, then when they're

hypen something. I'm listening to that, right? Because they don't have to do that. And they're showing they're not using the media as a way to motivate dudes or whatever it might be. And yeah, I'm with you on the injury thing because, you know, I had a couple people message me like, hey, are you hearing about this? And I knew the message board rumors were starting. And, you know, nobody says the name. Just like, oh, I'm hearing somebody, whatever. And it lacks context so much because, again, if you haven't played, I didn't play college for football in Michigan. I'm not trying to say that, but like, but if you haven't played football or been around these camps in any coverage level, right, like guys miss practices a lot, especially really good football players on the team and

star players because they're being safe and precautionary with them, right? I was just at a high school camp where I was telling you before we came on, the best player on the team I get there and he's in street clothes. I'm like, dude, are you all right? Oh yeah, I just got. It's a hammy. I'm like, you're hammy. He's like, I could absolutely go today. They just don't want me to risk it. Right. But if I'm an observer and whatever,

and I see the best player in street clothes for two days or whatever. Oh, right? So I think it's cool that they're coming out and going. Yeah. Nichols must a few practices. He's all right. Yeah, hider's working a couple things, but whatever. You know what I mean?

Like, it's cool. And it makes me think, too, like, if there is a serious injury and somebody's going to miss some real time, they're going to be honest about that. And if you're looking for clues, on Rodmore and John Henry Daley. They've been very honest about their health as well. And I'm with you that shows to me like they're not trying to hide anything.

I know Western's Week 1, but Western Oklahoma, whatever. They're not trying to hide anything. And it's so refreshing again from a fan perspective and somebody covering it. So he gave us a lot of, yep, this is what we heard. This makes sense. And some, we'll call it like connecting the dots. bowl moments almost when it came to Bryce Underwood, right? Yeah.

So he talked about Bryce's consistency, basically said, we've had 13 practices. Bryce has had 13 good practices. And he talked about the consistency he's seen from Bryce and compared that to the how volatile spring was, and the highs and the lows, right? And he said something that I think is so interesting that I don't know if people fully understood. I don't even know if I fully understood this. he said that when the staff arrived,

they didn't immediately start working on Bryce's mechanics in the spring. In fact, they kind of let Bryce be Bryce and go through that. And then they began to work on it. So a lot of people keep pointing to the spring game as like this huge knock on Bryce. And one, I've always said a spring game is a spring game, whatever. But two, he hadn't even begun any of the mechanic operations with this new staff yet, according to Jason Beck today.

yeah it's interesting because everybody freaked out about the spring game it goes back to the analogy that i just said right so we we know what happened last season we don't have the season we think we should have then all the scandal comes out and everybody just wants to be done with the more error right and so it comes winning camp new coach we hear a lot about jason beck how good his offense is and so you don't get much interview well you get rarely interviewed any interviews in the spring right so spring ball is the first time you see

your player since the last time he's on and we know in that last game at Texas Bryce was kind of up and down he didn't have his best game right and so you're thinking oh this this coaching staffs full of developers Bryce is going to come in the spring game he's going to light it up

and then when he doesn't light it up and it looks bad right the next thing you're thinking is oh he didn't take the next step he hasn't developed any the the sky is falling only for the coach to come out right before season and say hey we just started talking to him for real and working on the things we saw he needed issues with the only coaching he had prior to that was the Jordan Palmer thing which they recommended right And so he's probably in that spring game trying to work through the stuff that Jordan was teaching him in Cali. And now that they have him and they have the tape, they're like, okay, we need to tweak this.

We need to change this. You do this well, let's strengthen this. And now you're starting to see the consistency, right? Because they gave him a game plan after that spring game. And they said, this is what you need to work on to be consistently good in this offense. It looks like, and it sounds like, based on what Beck said today, outside of, you know, Bryce is not going to be perfect. So obviously Beck said there's a few negatives, right?

And he was like, as his OC, I kind of remember it more than Kyle does, right? So he said I don't want to echo that A plus grade, the winning M game. You don't want to hype him up too much. You want to make sure that he understands that he still has things to work with. Right. But it was refreshing. it was encouraging to hear that he is consistent. And I'll throw this out there too,

and I know we're going to talk about it a little bit later. But Beck, Brooks Austin, they're not the only people that's paying attention to how Bryce has looked. I know the trolls on social media want to be like Michigan fans are just hyping up throws. But a prominent, and I'll bring it up later on, but a prominent Ohio State person who has a platform also talked about that throw in practice that Bryce made. And he had a crazy review about it. But we'll talk about that later on in the show. I think there's just been so much time between the season and football again

and narratives of taking over where it's like people forget the talent Bryce has. And you go back and you look at some of his high, you can watch his highlights, you know, like, oh, yeah, he's got a cannon arm, he's got touch, he can spin it. We talked about that Brooks Austin tape, like he said, was really good. I liked, you know, when you talked about maybe tempering expectations or just realistic, something else we talked about too, I said, look, with the Bryce hype, I'm telling you, we won't know until the games when the pressure is there,

does he revert back to bad tendencies or I think Beck literally mentioned muscle memory? He said the Imperial Foot Workers, a lot of them to take strides, test comes when the bullets become live Underwood's got to rely on muscle memory, right? Quarterbacks aren't live in practice, so it makes it difficult to know exactly how protections and pressure will translate. And that's the key point, right?

If he comes out there and he starts the game and he's looking good and, you know, mechanics, all these things we've been talking about are great. What happens when he gets hit? What happens when pressure gets home? What happens in a close football game, right?

We did see moments where that switch could kind of flip on, like the drive against Northwestern to win the game. But, yeah, I mean, that's the key part for anyone. We talked a little bit about that with Jaden Davis even in previous years. It was arm motion, right? Where they were working on them on this different throwing mechanic, but then like when instinct took over, it was that really elongated throw, right? So it's creating that where that's the Muslim member, where you go to that.

mechanic so again it's just thank you jason beck for coming out and confirming what we've been talking about right and it's not to i mean seems fairly obvious but anyway yeah i mean it does seem obvious to us but we deal with a fan base that has a microwavable memory and so i love that we have coaches now that can kind of temper like you said temper the the pattern right people have to understand that the realm wasn't built in a day is and I keep it I'll say this all year this year

Bryce is not I'm not expecting Bryce to go win the highest he do it I'm ecstatic for the kid What I'm expecting to do is exactly with Jason that said he's been doing over 16 practices be consistent because a consistent Bryce Underwood wins you 10 games last year a consistent Bryce Underwood

probably has you in the playoffs last year consistent Bryce Underwood this year makes those games that you and Butros, Big Bootros was talking about because I was tuned in. It makes that stretch where Bootro's say we got to go 9 and 1 to go 9 and 3. It makes that stretch seem like, okay, it's doable. And maybe we pick off one more game and we're 10 and 2, right? That's what a consistent Bryce Underwood does.

And so for me, I just want him to be consistent at a level. that is good enough for us to win games, whatever that looks like. If that looks like if only passing for 225 yards a game and we run in for 300, I'm fine. If it looks like I'm passing for 350 and we're 150 on the ground, I'm fine. Whatever that looks like, I'm going to be cheering from the top of my love. And if you give me a consistent Bryce and this defense is where it is and we lose some games because those teams are just more talented and they played a better game, I'm okay with it.

because I understand that that's just how football goes. You can't win every game. Right. Right. Just give me consistency. I was so surprised by some of the pushback with our, with our conversation yesterday on Michigan Weekly me and Boutros had about Michigan schedule and realistic expectations.

And like, I can't believe how many people are like, if we go 9 and 3, fire wit, like, you guys got to adapt to this new world of college football. Like, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, conferences are bigger, the schedules are more difficult. There's a 12-team playoff. Like, nothing wrong with 10 and 2. Like, it's just, I, it's not, you know.

What's hilarious is how the Michigan fan base has changed. And like I said, it gives me my age. So I'm telling my age. But when I was growing up, I know where you're going. Yep. When I was growing up, if Michigan went nine and three, there was people in the state of Michigan that was celebrating. Like, maybe not celebrating, but it was like that,

Oh, you weren't getting fired for going nine and three. No. If you went nine and three was not getting fired, bro. Like it would, it would be people would look at you like you were crazy. Like, if that was the standard that we set, Lloyd Carr wouldn't have had as many years as he had it. But you might not have seen the net a year because people have been like, up, he went nine and three, went seven and five. He went eight and four, fire him. Like, they got to, they got to understand that the last.

escape has changed. I'm not saying that you should settle for it. You should absolutely want to go 12 and no 11 and 1 10 and 2. That's your hopes. But if he goes 9 and 3 with this schedule and you're telling me that one of the three losses is Oregon, Ohio State, and then one of either Indiana, Oklahoma, and just because y'all kind of maybe swayed me a little bit, Penn State. yesterday you're going to be picking off the two of those right one of those three is my third loss and then the other two i'm going to be like hey we'll go get them next year like i mean but next year the schedule is going to be just as tough so we got texas we swap out oklahoma we pick up texas right yeah but you just got to be realistic about where this team is coming from right like that's why i

keep making the 15-16 analogy like i'm i'm willing and you have too you've talked about like as good as we're going to see this team take strides this year realistically next year is where it's like okay we start talking about you know potentially a national championship caliber team right and that's why i'm fine with that 15 16 arc give me better coaching give me a game i'm not even like there were wins where you're ticked off last year right like i wait all year to watch football i just want to enjoy the games And if you lose a game because you weren't the better team, fine. But if you lose a game because it's your fault, right?

Those are the progress and changes we want to make. So you mentioned offensive line. We'll get to that in a second. I really liked the wide receiver three comments he's made because I've had a lot of people ask me, who's going to be wide receiver three? And I'm like, I literally have no idea. And that was partly because they're so, well, one, you've got Marsh and JJ who are both, players who can go outside or the slot heavily. Marsh could be a straight slot receiver.

JJ B. Canaan was like that tight-in hybrid last year. I think he took 40% or something like that of his snaps from the slot. So those guys are going to move around. So you look at a guy like the freshman, Celeste Moa, who is, I keep calling him like Ronnie Bell plus, like an elite. His ceiling to me is an elite Ronnie Bell in terms of the guy that can be a Z-rescent. seeer, be in the slot, find the gaps in the defense, et cetera. Travis Johnson, another freshman having a great camp. He's a bigger X outside target, right? Channing Goodwin, who I talked about last year, great route runner, great blocker.

If they've got his yips with drops figured out, he's a guy that can see the field, again, in the slot as well, potentially. I hate when I start naming names and then immediately feel like I'm forgetting somebody. Who's the other one that's probably really heavy? French, thank you. Oh, my gosh. Double F, Jamie French, right? He's involved in it, and he's a guy who was raided in that same kind of area with a marsh, right? So to have those three guys as sophomores would be elite.

So Beck really said, like, hey, whoever's that starting three could completely depend on what personnel we're using that game, that drive. Right? So that position, I think you're going to see a lot of guys. is getting run in that spot, depending on matchups and where there are ways to take advantage. Again, this is a very urban Meyer way of thinking. There might be a week where it's like, dude, Moa is going to be a game changer for us. And there might be a week where it's like, dude, if we have Marsh, Buchanan and Travis Johnson on the field at the same time, having that size is a game changer for us, right?

So that flexibility is interesting. But he also said, Marsh and JJ right now are good enough to not come off the field. that one of these dudes takes advantage of the opportunities that are given to them and they're too good to come off the field well then i guess that's our wide receiver three and i just i love the mindset and i love the honesty i love it yeah so my thought process is i text you this i think yesterday and i said the wide receiver room is getting loved and that's good right because good coaches and we can speak at both levels right so you say urban buyer Ryan Day, I think, as much as people don't like him.

He's a great play caller. Kyle, Shattingham, Andy Reed, McBay, bro. There's that Ray. It might be the best receiver on the team one week. And then depending on how the defense is covering that receiver the next week, or they've covered receivers in the past, it might be the second or third string receiver that's killing it. that's just what good offensive play callers can do.

And you can only do that when you have depth, right? Because you have people that can threaten every inch of the field, which makes the defense have to protect every inch of the field. That's where mistakes started to come up. So last year, you have Marsh, but the other people behind Marsh outside of the tight ends were very inconsistent. So defenses would roll their coverage to where Marcia. was because they knew that Y receiver two I won't go that far because I like

ride receiver two who was actually one McCulley but then he became two but why receiver three four or five when they were on the field they're like these dudes don't catch the ball like we can put our third fourth corner but now when you have mismatches now they can put a Celessie more in the slot they can put Marshall outside one way they can put Buchanan on the other side and they say, okay, so who are you going to put on who? Who are you matching up with our top receivers? And if your third or four-string quarterback is on Celessi Moa,

we're just going to kill you with him because he can't guard Celessie Moa, right? That's where your office becomes elite, and that's where you can start to get your quarterback into a comfortable rhythm. And that's something else that I want to see Beck do, that I don't think Chip got a chance to effectively do in most of the games. Bryce was never in a rhythm. You got to give your quarterback some confidence, right? Because they're not going to just come off the bench and just make wild throws.

But if you give them 10, they seven out of nine. And then all of a sudden, they wind up and hit a deep pass. And you're like, oh, my God, I can't believe he through that. But he was able to throw that because he had confidence that he had completed seven of his last night. Right. So I'm excited to see what this receiver room can be because we've been clamoring for a receiver. room for going on about five years now, maybe longer. Like, I, you'd be jealous.

We used to pray for times like this, Treff. We used to pray for times to have receivers that we felt comfortable like, oh, we got some mismatches on the field outside of just the tight end. We always kept a good tight. Jake Buck, Coast of Lublin. But now we got good tight ends and possibly good receiver. So I'm, I'm interested to see what happens. Seems like they have some things they like to do with French. They got some packages for Moa, and then they got some packages

for Travis Johnson. So I think the sky's the limit, and I can't wait to see what Beck and Coy got planned for this season. I think what I love the most about when we're talking about deeper down the depth chart because we've been talking about numbers the last few years and I've said well somebody you just need one guy from this group to step up right but what you haven't had is that clear confidence in who wide receiver one and two are that they have this year and I think that's a huge difference for me in terms of how I'm willing to again, except hype and potential of the guys after is they're like, Andrew Marsh is fantastic.

Everything he's been advertised. J.J. B Cannon might be actually, you know, one, we're not talking about one and two anymore. Maybe it's one A, one B. Like these two have been great. They're not coming off the field, right? So now French becomes a lottery ticket, a former fringe five star wide receiver that you hope hits and gets a chance to reset after leaving Texas. And if he does, and you've got these three sophomores now,

oh my gosh. And if he doesn't, you have two freshmen that are pulling out, right? And Goodwin, who's proven himself in the past, getting another opportunity with this new staff, right? And we're not even, like said at this point, we're not even mentioning guys like last year we were like, man, well, Jamar Browder be getting run behind Donovan McCulley at that X spot. Right? And, and and Jacob Washington's on there. Jalen Pyle is still a player. I really, really like a lot that I think will work his way up as he has timing in Ann Arbor.

But I like, it's like, look, these are our top five or six. Yeah, there's going to be some rotation, but it's going to be personnel-based, and we know what we got with one and two. There's a lot of spots on this roster like that where it's like, hey, this is where we're elite. This is where we're trying to find the depth. I'm like, okay, you know, I can take that.

I'm going to comment on it just because it's become a bunch of the chat. We kind of talked about it at the beginning with this injury chatter. Guys get dinged up in fall camp, man. And guys get held out for a couple practices and whatever. Since the Babeloa rumor came out or was spreading or whatever, he's been in some of the practice clips they've shared. I think people got to also understand that we've been, at least for our listeners here, right?

We've been telling you that this staff has been very open and honest. So I'm not knocking out for a few weeks. Yeah, I'm not knocking anybody that's recording anything because I don't want to start no imaginary beat that is not really beat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I would just implore you that when the press conferences come out today, which I'm almost certain they're out, go listen to Beck and Hill. and make your own answers because I promise you they're going to tell. Right.

Beck spoke about Babylon and he smoked about Hyder and both said they both dinked up a little bit, but they're relatively healthy. So I should tell you all you need to know. I don't think they would lie to you. They haven't lied since they've been here. So I would just listen to the coaches. Not saying nothing against anybody

that's reporting what they're reporting. I respect them. They got their sources. here it is. But until I see Beck, Wittingham, Hill, Jim Harden, until I catch one of them not telling the truth publicly, I have to take it at face about it. They said he okay, he's okay. Well, and they've confirmed, you know, a lot of the stuff with the position battle. We'll get into that now, too, talking about the offensive line.

Even without, you know, Bab's foot getting stepped on and him missing a little bit of time, I think I was guilty too of, you know, the staff has made it so clear they would really like to see Babeloa win that left tackle job. They love his potential long term at that spot. We've talked about that on this show. They think he's a future top to pick there. And he's the one as they've talked about, hey, we want to find our best five, our best five. He's the one that they've pretty much said from the get-go, that dude is not moving from left tackle. We are not playing at him and my guard to get him on the field because that's his future.

we're not pushing that off, right? But we forget, not only is he coming off an ACL injury, but he didn't play a ton of football in high school, right? So him being a little rusty, I think, was the word that was used, isn't terribly shocking, right? So does Frazier have the leg up there? Definitely sounds like it. After playing the position last year, the weight and strides he's taken this year.

They gave Link some run there as well. which I still think Link probably ends up at left guard, but part of the reason Link's been getting run at left tackle is, again, they're playing around with Afobi, I think, as far as the natural guards, Afobie's name is the one I've been hearing the most, privately and publicly. So I think a lot of people have started to pencil him at that right guard spot.

Avery Gatch is a guy I heard very early as being like a really, really good football player, but maybe a little bit, I don't know what word I want to use, so I'm not going to use any word here, but he's in the conversation. It's a really, really good football player. People forget how highly ranked he was as well. But the spots that these coaches have consistently been,

like, bro, go ahead and write it in Penn. Not super surprising Jake Guarnara at center, your best offensive lineman moving to the natural position, excited to have his high football IQ there, and then Andrew Sprague at right tackle, which there was some talk about. out with the Frazier-Babs battle, does Sprague potentially move to guard and the other one moves to right tackle? It doesn't sound like that's in the equation, right? So it's down to that left tackle

battle and then how does that trickle to the guard spots with your link in a phobia who I think are pretty locked into those other two spots. But again, I think there's you that said it. I just feel so good that I can just trust Jim Harding to make the right choice. until I'm shown otherwise, right? Right now, I feel like I can trust him to make the right choice there. Yeah, and I mean, look, these coaches are not idiots, right? We're in a new landscape of college football. So for the people that's in the chat,

because I feel like the fan base when I'm in the group chats and sometimes on different shows in the chats, I feel like the chat is split, right? You have your Frazier defenders that's like, hey, Frazier needs to be started. And then you have you guys who want to see Babs on field because it's a five-star and you don't want to waste that talent. Just to understand that the end of the day, Jim is going to feel, he's going to field the best five players. We also know, unfortunately, we play a violent, and I say we do.

But they play a violent game where we have injuries. You're going to need eight offensive women. How many injuries did we have last year, right? Where we had to have guys come in and spot. I mean, that's how Flacher became. your left tackle. That's how Jake Guarnara became Ray Garry.

Period. It became your great guy. Like, it's going to happen on both sides of the field. So, what up, Darby. Yeah, these guys are going to play. And I think these coaches

understand that we also in the transfer portal error where you don't longer have to worry about the reassured thing because everybody gets five years. So everybody's going to play. They would be fools, not to play these guys to make sure that they know what they have for the future.

Well, and battles don't end the week before a week one. We've seen. They go all year, right? So win your job, keep your job. Right. And I never like seeing a guy lose a job to an injury. But like we saw last year, Gornera, like when Norton came back, you can't bench Jake Gornara. He won that job with the opportunity he was given.

So you already missed Darbos. So wait for another reference. You already missed it. Dropped McVeigh earlier. So I got to get those in. But yeah, I don't know. I'm just not that. I'm excited about the guys that are coming back that played last year.

I'm excited about the potential of the guys that are in the battles. And I'm excited that Jim Harding is the O-Line coach. So I frankly don't care. who starts. Is that fair? I don't care. I don't have a strong opinion. Who opening up the hose so the Xavier, Hyder, Jordan Marshall can spring free for touchdowns, and who's protecting Bryce to make him comfortable enough

where he can complete that pass that everybody was so wooing and wild and over. You can't believe. Yeah. Like, I don't, I mean, I have my own personal bias, of course. I mean, I've watched a few that are pencil, being on the line that I don't think is the best but if Jim this would Jim Hardy get paid for I don't get paid to be offensive line. Offensive line coach never have. So who am I the question if he thinks that the starting five should be Grenair, Link, Sprax,

uh, euphobic and Frazier. Maybe I feel like Frazier should be in guard and fat, but that ain't my job. I don't get paid to do that. That's what Jim Harding is paid to do. And there's offensive line, then this offensive lines have spoken for themselves. Go back to his Wyoming days. So obviously the guy knows what he's doing. He knows a little bit more than an average person. So just sit back, see what Western looks like.

See, because that offensive line got to jail because that defensive line, especially with the new portal rules and this new trial ruling with the guys coming back, look like Oklahoma got some of their guys back. So you want to make sure that you got the best five when you go out there because you know, we know by now, shout out of doubt. Brent Venables is going to bring forth his best defense when he comes Van Nuke.

Speaking of while we were on this show, Mr. Venables, I'm trying to find it so I don't lie here. Mr. Venables got paid. So let me see if I can get these up real quick And then I've got one more thing I want to talk about before we sign up But yeah, Venables got a new six-year contract, 10 and a half million per year They were ready to toss them out of town last year Yeah, like be interested to see how that ages. So your average tram brings up an interesting point to me

when we're talking about like these position battles, you know, even in the Harbaugh era, we had some questions. Harbaal always preached meritocracy. And then it felt like upperclassmen, like that was such an old school way of thinking, but it always felt like the upperclassman had a little bit of an advantage no matter what. Yeah. When it came to some of those battles, right? So, yeah, I'm excited to see the, again, the conversations, because really, the coaches,

aren't lying right now, right? So what we find out in the season is whether they were wrong or not. Right. And then we can all play hind. And then we all have the benefit of hindsight. We can play Monday, you know, Monday quarterback. It's like, oh, you should have started a blah, blah, without the information. So anyway, it'll be interesting.

Not a super big thing. We got a few more minutes. But just, again, another piece of, hey, here's the staff confirming what we've been talking about. you and I have talked about on this show already that if a player's not playing, whether it's in spring practices or whatever, then he's not playing. And they're not going to talk about a position battle as if that player is there

and immediately jumps back into the spot. So the QB2 conversation, we had people calling for Bryce to be benched for Tommy Carr coming out of spring. Like that's how crazy that talk was getting. Right. And I said, look, cars come in. He's been very good in the spring. He's exceeded expectations for the level of recruit that he was.

He had a great spring. He was one of two quarterbacks that could throw football in the spring. Him and Bryce. Right? And now that Braden Fowler and is it, I always messed that up, Nicolosi. That's why I love calling BFN. Now that he's on campus and now that he's actually taking part, heart in these drills. Guess what? He's closed the gap with the QB2 battle, right? So Beck did highlight

some of the differences between them, too, in terms of strength. You know, he said BFN's obviously a bigger arm and probably more decisive as a past, which makes sense with all his experience. And then Tommy is better at the improvisation and improvisation, a little bit more mobile. He's still in high school mode, right? Like, played some of that backyard ball. So maybe, that's a situational thing too with where they go. But I still think BFN makes sense as QB2 is simply on experience if I need somebody to come in late in the game and get me three good drives just to get home with a win. And I still think Tommy Carr's future is very bright at Michigan because I go back to a high

school coach I saw that played against him last year who told me like straight up that he thought he had more potential than his brother. So I'm not saying that's going to happen. but like he people have told me for a long time before when he was committed to Miami they were like this dude is way underrated so I think everything stays the same but hey again here's the coaching staff being consistent in terms of their can being candid and also how they treat healthy players or players that aren't on the team we brought up Carter Meadows before too right guys that if you're not around I'm not going to

pretend your DE3 that's where I think you're going to end up but you got to show up and practice and earn it right yeah I mean, you made me go back, I was sitting here thinking, I forgot that he actually committed to, okay, he was at, we're talking about Miami of Ohio, okay. So there's always a rule that I always tell. I'm not saying this happens all the time, but go back and look in the history of like families

that have multiple siblings that play a sport, usually the youngest one is always the bus one. Sometimes the oldest is good, but usually you got two brothers, and they grew up around the same house old. The youngest person is. Yeah. No, Pete. Wait, Christian was the oldest, McCaffrey.

Anyway. I'm saying it happens every time, but even doings. even Dylan's hype is coming out of college. I mean, coming out of high school was hyper than than Christians, right? True. People thought Dylan McCaffrey was going to be better than Christian.

And then, of course, he had his years and he had here. But most of the time, I'm not saying it happens. It's 100% always happened. But like, even, because you could also make a, I'll give you another quick example. When Brony was in high school and then he went to CO or he went to USC, a lot of people thought Bryce was going to be the better of the two brothers. Oh, 100%. Yeah. So it always tracks that way. Like I said, not always saying it's going to be that.

But I'm okay with whatever they do with that secondary quarterback. Bryce looked like he put on a lot of weight to take on the punishment of being a runner. Looks like Jordan had him practicing some running back drills while he was off to in LA. So Bryce understands what's at toll for him. And I think they'll be fine. So I'll just leave it at that. Gronk, Drake, May, some examples.

There's literally like a scientific piece to this. You're 100% correct. So little sibling effect. Research shows later born children are often up to two and a half times more likely to reach elite athletic levels because playing against bigger, stronger, older siblings forces them to build advanced skills, resilience, and competitive edge earlier in life. So it's interesting with the cars because they had their dad as a quarterback of their grandfather's late car, right? So, but that's fun. And that's something you look up to.

Your big brother is somebody that usually what happens to me. Of course he agrees. Your big brother is somebody that you're looking up to. Uh-oh. We lost Trev. He must have got a phone call. He laughed at Darbo and he left us, guys. Yep.

And he's back. Darbo had you lead a building, huh? Dude. So I used to do this all the time on the show with Josh. my Apple mouse, you just have to like slide across the top one way or another to go forward or back. So sometimes I touch it and I go back. But I got so excited to make a joke about Darbo. He's talking about him and Amar.

I was like, yeah, but you got what, 20 other siblings? Like, where do you figure out? Where do you figure out the elite? I don't know if it applies to real. But I want to say this before we- Can make a whole football team of the Iowa Darcy. bows. Right. I want to bring this up. I know it wasn't on the show script, but I saw it yesterday. I try not to give this guy too much credit because I don't have a problem with him. I'm good

friends with his showrunner. But I saw a clip yesterday of Zach Smith talking about that throw is that. I don't know who that is. So Zach Smith. No, no, I'm being sarcastic. Oh, okay. Remember, I've told you this. They've talked about me like five or six times in the show, and every time he goes, I have no idea who this is. I forgot you tell me that you're going to. This is because an idiot.

I have no idea who he is. Then why are you talking about me? So he talked about how, it's funny because him and Alfred are still, like, close. Like, Alfred still talks to him. So he was talking about the clip, and he was saying, like, Hope he doesn't get any advice on ordering things and having them shipped to the facility. What? He was talking about the mechanics footwork, his lower body, like how Bryce has made strides in that.

You can see it in the video, right? How he always, Bryce has always had that pop of the ball coming out of his hand. But now with the lower body working, And with the pop, it just looks better, right? And if he can consistently work on his lower body that way, he's going to be a problem for the Big Ten. And so it just further goes into what Beck said earlier when he was talking about how they work with Bryce on certain things.

It's like, if we can get that consistency, Bryce, Michigan is going to be a problem. And if you have a former coach who knows what he sees is telling you through it, no matter, if he hate us for the robbery or not. He's like, hey, I'm just telling you, I talked to other coaches around the Big Ten, and they're like,

what Michigan going to put if Wright started to look like that? Well, and we kind of talked about that at a much smaller scale, obviously, with Jaden too, but like you get these guys in high school that can survive on arm talent. Yeah. Right? And they throw a lot with their upper body

and don't use their feet to generate that torque, right? So I think sometimes you see with, you know, guys that are baseball players, they tend to maybe be more advanced with that full body throw because they're used to using the lower body strength to generate the power up here, right? But again, back to what we led the show off with, Beck's talking about that footwork and those mechanics and him doing those right things. what happens against Oklahoma when pressure comes after you.

Are you going back to, I'm thinking about that Texas throw that Brooks was like, oh, my, where he literally leaned back and did like a little flick of the wrist towards that corner. Those tendons, bad tendencies coming out. That's, you know, where you go, uh-oh. But again, I'm going to give you a chance. You also see the great stuff. And when you see that, you go crazy. Like, I don't know the-

Yeah. i forget one of the guys go went to ls u i think the other one with the northerdame i think it's called rufino and something but they talked about when they had bryce committed at ls u he literally was out of practice where he saw brys throw harlem berry a 60 yard like on the dime no wind up just so you know he got wrong right we just got a wheeling in to make sure we can we consistently see it Once we see that, I think we'll see the best of Bryce. Also, he turned 19 yesterday. I know.

Happy birthday, Bryce. Yesterday, man. He was probably should have still been in high school last year, you know? So again, I hate coming off, like, making excuses because, you know, he was hyping himself up. Everybody was hyping him up. So, like, last year was below expectations. But again, I'm willing to say, hey, man, your year one is tossed with everything else. going on in the program. I'm excited about the positive things the coaches are saying.

I'm excited about them being honest about the opportunities and the things that still need to be worked on because that shows me a coach that isn't just out here going, oh, my gosh, he's the greatest thing ever, blah, blah, right? So all vibes are good for me right now. Continue to be good. We can probably do the same thing with Jay Hill stuff tomorrow, just because He said a lot of interesting things about the defense as well. So maybe that's what we'll do. I have some good news. There has been a ton of comments on this.

So we have finally figured it out. The podcast will start posting on all of the audio podcast platforms as well. So Spotify, Apple, wherever you get the podcast from, we have figured that out. I will do this one right away. I will have to check cloud storage to see if I'm able to get any of the older shows. If not, I'm sorry, but moving forward,

all of the podcasts here at Blue By 90, other than cut-ups, because without the film, that'd be a really weird thing. Hey, you do you, I guess. But yeah, moving on, we'll have all these podcasts. Will it be available for you

wherever you get your podcast shortly after the show airs here on YouTube. So thank you for all of you who kept showing interest in that. And then we're glad that we got that figured out. Took a huge stride last night with the website and the board and getting ready to hopefully ship those soon.

And then the hard part is connecting everything in the background and making everything talk together. But we're excited and hoping to be able to launch that soon. I keep seeing something that I want to write about. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I don't have my platform to write yet. Bummer. So excited to launch that and share all the details we have with that. that we've been working on for the last few months.

And then, again, if you're not paying attention on the socials, Blue By 90 with Twitter or Facebook, Instagram, wherever you're at, Justin has been working very hard getting the tailgates ready to go. We believe Blue Boon 90, Best Michigan Tailgates. You're going to be right by the stadium. You can stop by, and they have the VIP packages available as well. He had kind of, I meant to text of, it's like, don't quit the job for acting, but he had kind of a funny video

where he's in a grocery store picking up Tailgate, essentials and he just grabs like five or six bottles of witson whiskey so well hey wison was my favorite michigan player for a long time probably still is or at least top there's it i might need that i might need that new witson whiskey man they say it's got a little cinnamon to it i might be good for the fall i might need to try that out like his fireball region yeah well you know whenever a company's new because you're working years out right so now that they've been going for a little while they're able to have their own stuff that they've been working on so he's constantly putting out new stuff and it's it's it's really exciting

and yeah i'm with you i think he's probably my favorite michigan player ever i'd have a hard time picking somebody other than him because i mean 97 i was 12 and i think that was probably oh my bet my bad he's at a kevin heart moment damn um um damn uh i think that was probably the first season i watched like every game and i was like fully invested and i get a heisman trophy winner and punt return play against ohio state and a national championship i said i was just like oh yeah being a michigan fan's cool Number two, one of my good friends in my neighborhood lived a couple doors down. His grandfather was on the 1948 team that had won the national championship.

So it was the 50th anniversary. So they got to go to that Rose Bowl because they were honoring the 50th anniversary team too. And I remember he came back and he had something signed by Woodson. And I have never been more jealous in my life than 12-year-old Trevor. seeing my buddy get something signed by what's it, man. That's pretty cool, man. That's pretty cool. But I'm excited.

Cutups is bad guys. Yeah, my fault about that, by the way. No, no, no, you're good. That would have nothing to do with you. More me and Toski wanted to make sure that we can give you guys some good content. We was going to go a show which is leading into the statistics. But I think we both agreed that you guys would rather see. then hear us yak for 30 minutes.

So we're just going to start. There's plenty of less than ready. Yeah, we're just going to go straight in. So next week will be offense. We're going to go through about 20 to 25 plays of Jason Beck from different Utah games. And then the following week will be defense. Just breaking down what you guys should see, what you likely will see. And what I will tell you guys is I've been smiling ear to year.

I can't stop texting Trevor and some of the guys and say, I'm like, bro, Jason Beck is literally a madman when it comes to offense. Like, what do he do, where he puts players, how he plays to his strengths so his players can produce at a high level. I think we're going to be excited. And I think we're going to be more or less yelling to the rooftops, pay Jason Beck, whatever he wants. He don't need to leave Michigan. It's going to be that type of feeling. like we've had for defensive coordinators in the past. I think it's going to really like reshape the way we talk about like fall camps and position

battles and stuff because how these guys get used on Saturday, we're going to be like, oh, so again, that wide receiver three conversation. And then both running backs being on the field at the same time, that was something else that got talked about today that we didn't touch on. I think the creativity, well, let me put it this way. hope the creativity is impressive because he's only going to push out there what he believes the team can execute so the hope is the players have taken the stride the offense has been implemented and they can do what it is back wants to do right that was kind of the issue last year where it was like

man what's chip lindsay doing i'm like he clearly doesn't think he can call more than 10 or 12 plays right like he's not comfortable getting into some of these other ones so anyway all right This was a long one for us. Again, we missed Tuesday and kind of off today. So we will be back tomorrow for Friday show live 1030 here on Blue By 90 Podcast Network. Make sure your like, subscribe. I believe Justin and Joel's show has already been posted today. It should have gone right before us.

Okay, perfect. Yeah, so they're every Thursday and Sunday. That's up. If you missed me and Boutros, that's available as well. You can go back and watch. But yeah, plenty, plenty, plenty of content as we approach football season. So thank you. Thank you again.

I think that might be, oh, no, my mouse is dead. This will be fun. I think that might be the most, hold on, this is going to be fun. I can't end the street without plugging my mouse in. Are you able to hit the end stream button or no? Hilarious. No. Okay.

All right, well, give me a second here because this is hilarious. I can leave this video, but I can't instant. Yeah, yeah, don't do that. Let me plug that in for a second. Okay. I didn't notice it. That's two mouse errors in one episode. That's fantastic.

But anyway, I was going to say, I believe this has been our highest total live viewers on the show between all of the places that's streaming, which is pretty cool because we just randomly went live at a time we don't previously, and we didn't announce it. So that's awesome. And again, if you like being part of the live show and joining in the comments,

do the notification bell so you know when we go live. Otherwise, you can always watch it back. And again, I should have us after this show on the podcast networks available for streams and good to go. Okay. Well, that sounds good. I like and subscribing, sharing the podcast out to your friends. Let's build this up, man. I want this to be a safe space community where you guys can interact with each other.

We'll interact with you guys as the season starts and really let's grow together. So happy everybody seeing the same people here. Makes me excited. Makes me want to get up and do it every day. So appreciate you guys and definitely look forward to talking to you tomorrow. All right. Let me get out of here while my battery has 1% on this mouth. So all right, guys, we'll see you tomorrow here.

Rise of the Victors on Blue Light 90. Peace.