Blue By Ninety - Stadium & Main I Onto Oklahoma

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

Strack and Worm recap Michigan's last second victory over the Broncos and what needs to happen for the Wolverines to win on Saturday, and the rest of the season.

Stadium and Maine is brought to you by our great sponsors like Cherry Republic. Make Game Day a little sweeter with Cherry Republic. Visit their Ann Arbor store for Cherry Treats, Gifts, and their new line of UFM snacks. Not in Ann Arbor. Find a Cherry Republic location near you or shop online at Cherry Republic.com for a taste of Michigan delivered right to your door. The store, the show is also brought to you by Frames Pest Control. You know how much we love living in Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan,

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I am Jordan Strach on the other side of the screen, Chris Wormley, with a very sharp, very good-looking camera there today. Lighting looks terrific. You're basically in 4K today. We've got a lot to talk to about here today. Yeah, we sat here a week ago and kind of laid out our plans for the season and what it was going to look like. And it's, you know, we got 11 more weeks to go, but not the best showing. They say best laid plans can go to waste. I think we've all kind of just going to scrap the whole thing.

And we're like, oh, no, what the hell is going on now? So just a couple of housekeeping things. New episodes come out every Wednesday. That's a new day this year. So we appreciate everybody sharing this thing. We are teamed up with Blue by 90. We had a ton of new stuff going on with them this year. And also a bunch of new shows across the network.

So make sure you're checking those out and share the pod of your friends. We can keep building this thing up. And follow us on Instagram, Stadium and Maine pod. But first, let's dive into this thing. I wrote down on the little rundown that I sent you, all it says is what the hell even happened. So as we were about to start taping a couple hours before that,

the Mac is, it came out, the Mac is now appealing Michigan's win. The Big Ten in response said, yeah, we don't really care. Listen, it's total chaos. Nothing is going to happen. Like that's the main point that like there is no process for an appeal or an overturn of a game. It's just not a thing. that's not going to happen.

Big picture, though. Let's talk about Saturday night. In the last few days, as you sat and thought about this, what was the craziest part of the entire thing to you? For me, it was the fans storming the field, which I thought was ludicrous, right? Like, I understand, I've had the field stormed on me twice, once in Iowa, once at Ohio State.

And those are for good reasons, right? This was, this was maybe a, if there was, a top five list of field stormings that were not supposed to happen. This is maybe number one. That was the craziest thing out of an entire night that was absolutely ridiculous, right? They start off with scoring the touchdown and then they just go, the offense goes stagnant. And everything else that ensued, the Hail Mary wasn't even was, was, wasn't even crazy. I thought the craziest part was the fans storming the field. And when you look back at it, I think a lot of those fans were like, man, what were we doing?

I always so I am I'm I've told I told you this when we were on our Twitter spaces after the game on Saturday night I'm not a huge fan of court stormings I'm not a huge fan of storming the field it just I'm not and when I was at BGSU one of our best players got hurt on the basketball court because we stormed the court and he was out for the rest of the season Dan dock it still bitches about that to this day I will say this though it was a night game with college kids that have been drinking since 9 a.m. On hour 13 of drinking for college kids, they don't always make the most sound decisions. So like, I'm like, you know, I mean, whatever. Like I can't totally fault them. Yeah, it was, it was stupid. But like, you know, in the grand scheme of things,

if that's the worst thing that ever happens to the University of Michigan, then it will have been great. Unfortunately, it's not because it's another year, another day with more controversy. And I think that's the most. frustrating part for me is like I just want one day like I legitimately I just want to go it feels like you know that calendar like days since you've had a Michigan controversy like calendar flips back over all the time back down as you're like it sucks man I'm just tired of I'm tired of chaos I just am like

and the other thing about this that that that really bothers me I don't understand why so many people are coming after Michigan for this now if you want to say while they don't get the benefit of the doubt because they've had past transgressions, whatever. Okay, fine. But also, like, Michigan didn't ask for any of this. It wasn't like Michigan put their thumb on the scale and tip this one way or the other. The referees went over to the screen.

They put a headset on. An independent arbiter of the time said, listen, there's one second left. And then Michigan still had to throw a 60-yard bomb and JJ Buchanan had to make an insane catch. That's my only gripe with it. this whole thing is like Michigan didn't ask for any of this. I don't understand why they're getting as much hate as they are. Yeah, I wonder what the odds of that is, right? Like, first of all, what are the odds of Michigan losing to, you know,

Western Michigan are being put in that position to start with. Then they, you know, Bryce throws it out of the back of the end zone. Then they say, wait a second, there's a, there's a second left. And then for Bryce to throw a 60-yard bomb off like his back foot to J.J. Buchanan to score the touchdown is even is ridiculously crazy. And what sucks is like, like you said, Michigan didn't ask for any of this. This was if, if the clocks were synced up and I've seen it, I mean, I can't tell you how much, how many clips and articles and reports from ESPN, Fox, everything, everybody, all the big

talking heads are talking about this exact situation. And I think it was Joel Klatt that brought it up. And he was like, it's 2026 and you still don't have the, the clock synced up. Like, how is that, how does that even happen? And I think that's the biggest thing because what people, see on TV, what I saw, what you saw, were double zeros, but then they take a step back and like, okay, you know, should we put milliseconds on there? Should we put tenths of a second on the clock like they do for basketball? And when you look at that, that's where the confusion

comes from, right? Yeah. And if the clocks were synced up, I think it would have been a totally different story. And we would have been able to see in real time that there was some time left, whether it was point two seconds, a half a second, how much time was left? If we could see that in real time, I think that would have changed the narrative completely. Yeah. So I have done a lot of talking to a lot of people over the last couple days. There's a few points that I want to get out. And I promise we're not going to spend the whole podcast talking about this.

We'll spend a good chunk of it, but not the whole thing. So obviously when JJ Buchanan was tackled on the previous play, he was tackled at 13 seconds. The clock then ticked down to 11. and stopped to set the chains. Those two seconds were lost for, for whatever reason. My frustration is that people that weren't watching the game

are the ones that are chiming in and are the loudest. And that's what's frustrating to me. So obviously that's two seconds that Michigan should have gotten back. And you could go back and do that how many times throughout a game. So they snap the ball and two seconds automatically have to come off on a spike that's just an NCAA rule. If you remember back to the 97 Rose Bowl, I don't know if you'll remember that.

You were too young probably. The 97 Rose Bowl when Michigan beat Washington State, that was a huge controversy. Ryan Leaf came to the line of scrimmage and tried to snap the ball. And there was, and time had ticked off. So two seconds automatically has to come off. So that should have gone from 13 down to 11. And there should have been 11 seconds left on the clock.

Instead, the referee, tapped on the mic and said, please reset the game clock to nine seconds. How many times throughout a game do you hear that? Because it's a lot. Referees will say, can you please reset the game clock to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, or the clock will start on my whistle or whatever it is, because they are keeping the clock on the field as well.

So there's your time, right? The other point of this, the clock that you see inside the state, is being run by one human going, boop, boop, the start and stop. That is it. Like legitimately, it almost sounds just like that. It's literally start,

stop. There's a huge chunk of human error that can happen in there. Like, it happens all the time, whether you're running your kids scoreboard at a CYO game because you got suckered into it on a Sunday morning or whatever it is. It happens all the time. So the DV Sport mechanical part of this, which is the software that is used for the replay system, that is the official time. That is the one that is synced up exactly to what the replay officials are looking at. So why can't why can't that be on the broadcast?

You know, like that that's where I think a lot of it, a lot of the arguments coming from. Yes. And it should be. And I think going forward, that is going to eventually, that is eventually going to be a standard. They're going to figure that out. And I have wondered the same thing. I have worked. I have worked in the truck on these broadcasts.

I've seen it happen. I've watched them have to sync it up. I know how it works. I've been in those productions. I've seen it starting when I was 18 years old. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff that has to happen. But the fact of the matter was,

even with when they reset the clock to nine seconds, from the time that ball is snapped, It is without question. This is not even a debatable point. That does not take, it did not take a full nine seconds from the set, from the millisecond of the ball was snapped to the time that it was touched in the end zone. And there's no argument there.

It was touched. The guy was out of bounds. He came back in. The rule says, that's when the clock stops. That was not nine full seconds. It's not even debatable. It's not a real thing. It's period end of the story.

When you look at the timer frame by frame, it was somewhere around eight and a half seconds. that meant there was time left. I don't understand how there can be an argument against that part. That doesn't make sense to me. I agree. And that's why I keep going back to if the clocks were synced up, there wouldn't even be that argument because people would see it. And you know how it is.

If people, a lot of people are visual people. If they see it, I'm not going to just listen, especially when it's Michigan versus a Mac school, like Western Michigan, right? The big dog, oh, Vegas isn't going to let, you know, Michigan lose this game. They'd go broke. Michigan's, you know, they made the call. I see all these memes.

And it's like, okay. Yeah. If that was the case, and there are all these, I believe in conspiracies, you know, some of them are true, are true. But this one, this one, I think, like you said, is cut and dry. But if people, people have that argument, people can say, the naysayers can say, oh, well, the clock on the on the broadcast was at zero and they can use that and you know we posted that that kind of big 10 officials kind of ruling in judgment and why they chose it to be that way which i agree with but it's you know now the mac is kind of appealing it that's probably not going to go anywhere

there's there's no way they can overturn that that game um just a messy situation but also to be Michigan should never been in that position to begin with that's exactly where i was going you're a You're a 30-point favorite. You're at home. You have all this hype coming into it. They should never been in that position. So first of all, don't put yourself in that position to potentially lose a game to the Mac. You know, the night before, a lot of us were cracking on Michigan State for almost losing to Toledo.

Two nights before that, I was enjoying Rutgers losing to UMass by getting stomped. I'm like, oh, there's no way this can happen to Michigan. But it almost happened to us in 2014. We almost lost to Akron. I think it was 28 to 24. We had to stop them on like a fourth downplay. And, you know, I've been in that position. I grew up watching Toledo beat Michigan in the big house.

I grew up watching that App State game, you know, back in, what is it, 2007 or whatever it was. So it's happened before. There's just no way it should have happened this time. No, 100%. And that's kind of where I want to go. We've spent, what, 13-ish minutes on it. Okay. I'm sure everybody's tired of it.

Let's talk about the actual game. And that's the whole point is they, Michigan should not have been in that position. First thing I want to say, Western Michigan was the better team on Saturday. There was nothing fluky about what happened in the game, except the Hail Mary. Western Michigan kicked Michigan's ass up and down the field.

They were better. Like straight up, they were better. You're laughing because do you disagree with me on this? No, I mean, when that play happened, I was laying in bed. The Hell Mary. and I just started laughing. And my wife wakes up.

She's like, what are you laughing at? I'm like, you got to watch this. So I rewind it, reround the play. And watch it. I'm like, there is no. I was just laughing because, you know, you watch the game in its entirety. And Western Michigan was the better team. I mean, we could talk about what went wrong, what went well.

I mean, I think the defense played well for given the time of possession. I thought they could have gotten out the field a few times. there were some really bright spots in that defense. Troy Bowles, I think, is going to be a stud. We talked about it last week. That linebacker group is that group that we had a big question mark about. And I feel like those guys stepped up in a big way. Secondary looked great.

Man, Dom Nichols, two sacks. It's like that defense played well enough to win. Now it's going to take that offense in a big way on Saturday to try and pull off a win against the seniors, man. It's, I don't know. Yeah, it's, it's, I sit and think about like what Brent Vedables is going to do to Bryce Underwood now. He's going to have him in a blender, I fear.

So some of the numbers, time of possession was 40 minutes to 20 minutes, which is, I mean, there's no excuse. Can't happen. No. Just can't. First downs were 16 to 12. Total plays. Western Michigan ran 67 plays.

Michigan only ran 48. So Joel Clatt the other day, I thought had an interesting point. He said he thought Bryce Underwood had regressed. Do you feel like, I will say this, I don't know if he's regressed, but I can tell you right now, I did not see improvement from the first game we watched Bryce Underwood play a year ago. 365 days later, I don't see improvement. I don't know if he's regressed, but I don't see improvement.

Do you? No, and I know it's only one game, but just everything that we heard from the off season, right? Yeah. Got the quarterback coach finally, somebody that can actually be with him every single day, working on the mechanics, him going out to California and working with Jordan Palmer, who's a quarterback guru. He was singing his praises in the off season. You know, the only, I guess now there's been two real live situations that we've seen him in was the spring game and this first game. And he struggled, right?

Now, obviously there's a difference between, you know, on-air stuff when you're working with a quarterback coach, and there's a difference between, you know, the, the cushiness of camp and springball practices. You know, there's a difference between that and real live action. But like you said, we didn't, I didn't see everything that these coaches had been talking about for the last eight months and what the media had been talking about in terms of him progressing. I don't know, like you said, I don't know if it's a regression, but I didn't see that first. actionable step of, okay, Bryce Underwood has taken that jump from year one to year two. It's early in the season. But, you know, fans, coaches, maybe even some players are, you know, feeling that tension

and wanting it to be better. I know Bryce wants it to be better. I know he's a super competitive guy. I know he's very confident in himself. But I would just love to see that shine and show out in games. Yeah, 100%. You look at it and he had six completions for 126 yards to J.J. Buchanan. He had six completions for 45 yards to everybody else.

I mean, there's the tight ends were non-existent. Andrew Marsh was almost non-existent. I didn't feel like he was really part of the game plan. I didn't feel like, you know, I feel like he's a guy that you have to force a few balls into every, every single game because he's got to get touches and you've got to find a way to make sure he does. But here's my question. When I watch other teams, I watched SMU last night.

I watched Ohio State every single week. Miami, I watched. I watched a lot of college football. Here's my question. Where's the disconnect? And why are other teams able to scheme guys open so much more than what Michigan is? And this goes back a couple years now, okay? It feels like everything is so damn hard just to get a guy open.

There's nothing easy at all on offense. Why is Michigan not able to scheme guys open more? And why are other teams able to make it look so easy? Man, I think when you look at it, even when Michigan was kind of rolling, right? you know 21 22 23 they didn't really have like we like we talked about the last week we were so excited for this receiver group right like yeah Andrew Marsh one receiver jj Buchanan receiver number two interchangeable and I think that's kind of shown uh in week one like that maybe was the one bright spot was like okay we have two really great receivers and obviously

andrew marsh has to show up a little bit more um but it was it never I don't think it's ever been easy for Michigan to get open. I don't know what that is, but, you know, they bring in Chip Lindsay last year to run the offense, and that didn't really do a whole lot. It's a new offense. It's a new, everything is new for this team. Now, that's not really an excuse because you see college coaches interchangeable going to different places, and it's like, oh, there they are. They're scoring 50 points a game. They have, you know, first round receivers all over the place. that's something that I think as the season goes on, we need to, I'm going to be more conscious of that now.

I was like, okay, how are they scheming up these players to get open? How are they scheming up Andrew Marsh to get those kind of scripted touches to allow him to go off when we need him to, really? But, I mean, they had a lot of big guys on the field last week. It felt like they were trying to run the ball a lot that didn't go. I don't think it went as planned. I know Wittingham had said that the O line didn't, play as bad as he thought it did, you know, first initial thought. But yeah, I mean,

a lot of work to do, a lot of work to do. We can go down the list and just talk for an hour and a half if we want to about what the offense did, did bad and, you know, and maybe some of the few bright spots, but, you know, Oklahoma is going to be a true test. And Western Michigan wasn't supposed to be that. And it turned out to be. And it's just, something that I think they have to figure out fast and quick. And you would have hoped that they would have figured it out at least a little bit through spring ball and into camp. Because it's going to be a long season if they don't figure it out. Yeah, no question. And we're talking about the offensive line. It's a good transition because that was kind of my next

thought here. So Whittingham did. He came out and he was like, okay, it wasn't as bad as I thought. And I think there's some others that are like, maybe not. So look at the snap count. So Frasier, Marnera and Sprague, your two tackles in your center. They all played 51 snaps. They played every single snap. Those guys aren't leaving the field at all. Evan Link, Brady Norton, both played 40 snaps. Native Phobie played 22 snaps.

And then Manuel Beagle played 26. This rhino position kind of confused me. So that was number 42? No, that's Jalen Hoffman. 96. Beagles was why. He's the converted defensive lineman that they had playing as an extra offensive lineman, and he came out for 26 snaps.

So obviously there's an emphasis on running the ball. And Jason Beck has done this in the past when he was at Utah. It's happened before, whatever. So I think there was a little disconnect. And I almost felt to me like Jason Beck wanted to come out and make such a good first impression that he wanted to show off all the, all the things that he can do. It was like,

I've got all these presents that I want to play with all of them at once. And sometimes on Christmas morning, go play, go play with the cool one first. Okay, let's, let's play with this one,

figure out how it works. And, and then after that, you know, you move on to the other stuff. I felt like they were trying to do a lot. The biggest example of that I can give, on first down,

inside their own 10 yards, line. They ran a direct snap to Jordan Marshall. Bryce Underwood was out wide and ran a jet sweep, a fake jet sweep inside and it did nothing. And that just felt like a classic case of overthinking. Like it just, it was like, all right, like probably didn't need to do that down there. You know, I get he wanted to probably get out of there a little bit. But it just felt like it was a lot, you know, like you didn't need to do it. Um, so I don't know. That was a, that was a weird one for me. The offensive line to me, I feel like, is going to be good,

and it should be good. There's no reason that they're not good. They have so many guys back that have played a lot of football. We've watched those dudes have success. We've watched them mall guys. We've watched them run the football successfully. The least of my worries is Jordan Marshall, Savion Haider in the running game.

I think that's going to get figured out. Of all the issues, that one doesn't concern me a ton. The Bryce thing does concern me. So I guess the question now is, how long of a rope do you give him? How much does he get to keep going here? That's the big question to me. How much further do you let this thing go? Man, I mean, maybe a week or two, you know?

Because when you look at the schedule, Obviously, you have Oklahoma coming up. And, you know, if Bryce has another performance like he does last week, it's Michigan is not going to win the game. And we talked about it last week, like how much of this, how much of this season is going to rely on Bryce? I said 85%, you know, and I think even more so now, just based off what we saw that first outing.

If the running game is going to take a little bit to get going, we're going to need to see Bryce take those steps in an even bigger and more urgent way. And I don't know. It's tough because we sat here saying 10 and 2. Mission is going to go 10 and 2 last week. And now it's like, okay, do we just throw that all out and restart and just kind of go week by week? I don't know. But, you know, he's, you know, I think Whittingham kind of made it clear.

Like, he's our quarterback for now, but, you know, he's not Whittingham's guy. He's not somebody that Wittingham recruited. Obviously, Bryce has a crazy amount of talent. And I said he's a super confident guy. And I think I, me, I want him to perform and I want him to be the best quarterback he can be for not only himself, but for university and the program. But at the end of the day, the goal of a football coach and a football team is to win games. And if he's not the best option, I think everybody understands that. But that's going to be a tough pill to swallow for everybody involves.

I'm just glad I get to sit and watch it. I don't have to make those decisions because those are tough decisions. But Whittingham's been around for a while. And like I said, the goal is to win football games. And if you're not doing that, then things are going to have to change. And it's not just Bryce. It's not going to be just Bryce that, you know, changes could be made. But I think because you are the quarterback, it starts with you, no matter what the situation is.

That goes for NFL, high school, college, all the way down the line. It starts with the quarterback. The other difficult part of this thing is before a couple years ago in college football, this was never a thing. But now you have to think about the fact that there's a huge price tag attached to him. It's not going to be easy to go back to Larry Ellison and say, hey, I know you gave us, you know, a couple million bucks so we could bring Bryce in. But now he's going to go sit on, he's going to go sit on the sideline.

Like that to me is, it's a part of college football we've never had to deal with. It's really, this is, Michigan's the case study on this to be. honest with you. It's the first time we've had to cross this bridge in the sports history where a guy who's making a ton of money is underperforming and you have to make a decision. So I don't know what you do. I'm not sure. And I want to say, okay, cool, like let him ride it out. And I think you can afford to for a minute here. But after that, I mean, this thing can get off the rails real darn quick with this schedule. And trust me, I want Bryce to be good. I want him to be the dude. I do. I want, I want him to have all the success in the world. We're just not seeing it. And at some point,

when you're the quarterback of the University of Michigan, like, there's a reality check. And, and, listen, Drew Henson came in at one point and was the, the wonder boy, he was the man, and he lost his job. There have been other times in the history. of the sport were like sometimes the highly recruited best guy loses his job and this might be one of those cases um but i'm hoping we get it figured out before that uh ever gets that point um okay so one of the other problems that i had was the penalties um not even not even like the the you know like the late hit out of bounds was stupid i get it like that was dumb what i cannot what I can't fathom is not being able to line up properly.

Those are the ones that I just, like they drive me bonkers. A guy not being able to line up properly or coaches not getting them in the proper place, that's frustrating to me. When you're watching from the sideline as a defensive guy and you see, when you see the offense not able to line up and take penalties like that, how tough is that? It's super frustrating, especially when they're already struggling without the penalties, right? They're having a hard time moving the ball.

You put yourself behind the chains and that just gives you less of less of a chance to convert first downs. Especially when they're those, you're going to have holding calls. You're going to have those plays, you know, in kind of bang, bang plays, whether you're on offense or defense. But when you're getting those, you know, false starts, lining up wrong, those are the things before the snap that you're like, okay, this can be cleaned up just with, it's a mental thing. It's not an ability thing. It's not somebody who isn't fast enough or strong enough to do a certain thing.

It's all in your head. So when those things happen, and when we brought in, when they brought in a coach like Whittingham, who's all about discipline, who's all about accountability, we've expected it to be better. I know it's the first game, so maybe they get a pass there, but moving forward, we want to see that cleaned up because that was kind of the thing. you know, the last couple years with Sharon at the helm is undisciplined football, poor clock management.

And we saw that for the last two seasons. And when Winningham came like, okay, this is going to be different. This is going to change. And for week one, we didn't see that. No. And that was frustrating. All right, let's go to the defensive side of the ball and kind of get some grades out there. It's kind of a mixed bag.

And it's a weird one, to be honest with you. So they don't give up any touchdowns. They were put in some really tough positions throughout the night. One of them, Andrew Marsh fumbles a punt. Like that muffs the punt. That can't happen. And I don't know that it will happen again. I think we have some PTSD from watching some mage back there.

I think everybody kind of went, we've got to be kidding me. The defense held strong, though. They didn't allow a score on that possession. But they were put in some bad spots. Like they just were. That was the good news. Let's start with the good and the positive.

I thought Dom Nichols was terrific. You mentioned that. Troy Bowles was really good. I thought Chris Bracey and Smith Snowden were both really good too. And it looks like like Bracey to me looks like a guy. He looks like your prototypical safety who legitimately wants to kill somebody. And I like I want my safeties to be absolutely. killers who don't care about anybody's well-being.

Including their own. Yes. You have to be a little wired a little different. I want my safety's to be like that. And Chris Bracey feels like a dude that just is flying at all. And he has one speed and that's awesome. I love that. What did you think of how the, just the initial defensive thoughts?

Yeah. I mean, I think they held up. Obviously, if you don't, if you don't allow a touchdown that gives your offense in your team a great chance to be successful in score. I thought they were putting some pretty tough situations. They came out on the other end positively. The one thing that I didn't like was I think it was like that 17 or 20 play drive, I think in the third quarter, I think Western Michigan took up a full, almost full quarter of time. And that was that helped in their time of possession being two to one. That was a little frustrating when they just couldn't get off the field.

Eventually they held up for just a field goal, but super impressed with Snowden and Bracey, like you said. We kind of knew what Jair Hill was going to be in Zeke Berry. We knew that those guys were going to be really good for the defense. So super surprised, not surprised, but really happy with the way that Bracey and Snowden played. But the defensive line could have played better. I loved watching John Henry out there.

Look like he was healthy enough to obviously play. and he played a bunch of snaps. So him coming off the Achilles, I know he's only going to get better as the season goes on. But then look at a guy like Dom Nichols, who people didn't really know a whole lot about. And for him to step up, you know, two sacks or sack and a half, I think it was on the official stat sheet.

But to see him step up in a big way, I was really impressed. And then, like we said, the biggest question mark for us last week were the linebackers. And I thought Troy Bowles stepped up in a huge way. And especially that last drive where they had to get off the field to give the offense a chance. I think he had two tackles for loss, was shooting the A-Gap,

and was really the catalyst, I think, for why that defense played pretty well for the most part. Yeah. You talked about that 20-play drive. To me, that was the turning point. That kind of set the whole game off its axis. So Michigan elected coming out of the half to punt from, it was like the 44 yard line, I think, somewhere between the 40 and 50.

They elected to punt because the offense had been so bad. I agreed with Kyle Whittingham at the time. I thought, you know what? He's right. The offense has been brutal. Let's just punt this thing deep. Maybe force the three and out. You get the ball right back there, reset.

Everything's cool. But within a couple of plays, a couple minutes, they're right back there. And they then kept running down your throat. And when you needed to get off the field, you couldn't. Those are the gut check moments in a game. And they still held them to a field goal, still held them to a field goal. Those are the gut check moments in a game, though, were like, hey, your coach is saying,

hey, now the game's in your hand, I need you to go and take it over. And the defense wasn't able to do that. And that, to me, was one of those turning points in the game that was that kind of changed, I thought, the way that it looked. Because once it flips to the fourth quarter, and the score's tight, you're starting to think, oh.

Yeah, 100%. And I think everybody in the place, like, they're like, all right, Michigan will be good, Michigan will be good. And then it flips to the fourth quarter, and then you start to think, all right, let's get a little tight here. And then they kick the field where you're like, shit.

what's going on? And that was the moment to me where it was like, that's scary. But the defense just, you needed to get off the field. They couldn't do it in that one big spot. And that was the frustrating part because they were so good for so long. Yeah. And obviously hindsight is 2020. And if we knew that they were going to have a 17 play drive and kind of get back to right where they were,

if they would have went for it on fourth down and didn't get it. That kind of changes things, obviously. But like you said, I thought it was the right decision to punt it on fourth down. you expect the defense to either go three and out or maybe a six-play drive or something like that and give the ball right back to the offense. And that was the most disappointing part of watching the entire game on the defensive side of the ball was how they couldn't get off the field in a timely manner. Obviously, they got off eventually and only a lot of field goal,

but there was so much time that was taken off the clock that, you know, Michigan probably could have gotten two possessions out of that if their defense would have stopped, stop the offense, Western Michigan's offense. And it wasn't like they were, you know, doing big chunk plays with passes. It was all run, which was the most important, the most frustrating thing was they were just running down their throat. And Michigan had for so long, had been so good at stopping the run. And I know that that's going to be a point of emphasis in practice this week.

It definitely was today when they, when they practiced today. And to be able to get off the field in a timely manner to give your offense. Look, the offense is going to need as many chances as they can. They're going to need as many possessions as they can, especially next week. to score and it's going to be the defense's job to give the ball back to them. 17 play drives are just unacceptable. All right, let's take a break here on Stadium and Maine. We'll be back to wrap this thing up and get you set for Oklahoma.

Coming up next. Stadium in Maine is brought to you by our great sponsors like Cherry Republic. Make game day a little sweeter with Cherry Republic. Visit their Ann Arbor store for Cherry treats, gifts, and their new line of U of M snacks. Not in Ann Arbor. Cherry Republic location near you or shop online at CherryRepublic.com for a taste of Michigan delivered right to your door. Show also brought to you by Frames Pest Control. You know how

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A couple other things I wanted to touch on. First, I couldn't believe this, but apparently there was already a player's only meeting held today. Rod Moore announced in a media segment that apparently they held a players only meeting. Let me try to find this quote from him because it was kind of staggering to me because you don't want to have a

player's only meeting this early in the year that never bodes well. He called their play soft on Saturday and embarrassing, and he vowed to be better this weekend against Oklahoma. What do you make of that from your three-time team captain stepping up after what was a really tough loss? Well, sorry, what was going to be a tough loss and ended up being a win, Freudian slip, I suppose. I love it.

I love that Rod, you know, like you said, you never want to have a players-only meeting this early in the season, but it kind of feels like they needed to, right? And I love that he said what he said, because if Rod Moore saying it, Rod Moore has played a lot of football, he's been around the program now for, I think, six years, has it been six years, at least five years.

Five, yeah. And he's seen a lot of ball. He's played a lot of really high-level ball, and he knows what it takes to win national. championship, beat Ohio State, and to just play good ball. And if he's seeing it and he, you know, he saw it with Harbaugh, he's played good ball with Sharon Moore. Now he's trying to find his way and this team trying to find their way with Kyle Winningham. He knows what it takes to win games. So if he's saying it and he's calling out players and calling out the team and he's and he's saying those type of things, I'm all for it. I'm trusting that. You want your leader. You want your three-time captain to step up in those moments. And. I know if I was on the team, how I would respond to that. I would respond positively because when you look at the tape, it wasn't their best outing, obviously.

For Rod Moore to say that and to say it publicly, I like that he is trying to write the ship before it's too late. Have you ever been in a situation like that where one of the captains, or maybe yourself, you were a captain at Michigan? Have you ever had to call a player's only meeting or been, Have you been part of those things where some tough conversations had to be had? Man, I've been a part of a lot of, a lot of players-only meetings. And, you know, some, I would say they're 50-50, right?

You know, half the time they go well and the team responds. The other time, I think, I think what is important about this one is that it's early in the season. I was a part of the five and seven team, you know, in 2014 where we had countless player-led meetings and they didn't do, they didn't do anything for us. especially as the season goes on, you're just like, man, let's just get this meeting over with. I've been a part of player-only meetings with the Carolina Panthers in 2023 when we went two and 15. That didn't help.

But I think when you have a player like Rod, who has been in a lot of big-time moments, big-time games, has played a lot of great football, has won. He has the track record to call those type of meetings and to be listened to and heard. I think it, you know, I'm giving them a lot of props for doing that and recognizing it early than letting it bleed and letting it, letting it affect the team for four or five weeks. Perfect. All right. Last couple things here. Has your outlook changed on what this Michigan team can be? We both said that we thought this was a double digit win team. Potentially, we recognize how hard the schedule is, all those things. Are you dialing that stuff back and how, where does this? team now go from here? Yes. I think football and sports in general is very much what have you done for me lately business and and and and sport. So yeah, my outlook has changed. Now, now will it, am I going to say seven and five or eight and four? I don't think I'm going to say that just yet.

But if they don't pick things up and they don't respond how we all want this team to respond. and I know how they want to respond to a poor outing. It's going to be a long season for the boys, and it's going to be frustrating as a fan to watch and for somebody who loves this team and loves this university. But I know that those guys want more than anything to win, and I know they're trying to do everything this week to write that ship, to change the narrative that this can be a competitive team

that is competing for, you know, Big Ten championships, playoff bursts and national championships. but it's going to take a lot for this team to beat Oklahoma next week. All right. So we look at this Oklahoma game. Here's kind of where my mind is. Brent Venables might be the best defensive mind in college football. We saw a year ago when you had to go to their place how difficult he made it on Michigan.

When I take that into account and then I take into account the way Michigan played last week, And I think about basically every guy you look across the line of scrimmage at this week, every single one of them is going to be better than the dude you just played this past week. That's scary to me. Like I have watched the betting lines. I have seen all the talk. Everybody says Michigan's going to get killed and, you know, everybody's tuning in to watch Michigan lose.

I don't care about any of that stuff. Like people who are going to root against Michigan, that's just how it is. I don't that whatever like that's that is what it is it's part of being a michigan fan um i don't know where michigan goes from here i don't know how this thing turns out i saturday could legitimately go a couple different ways and none of it would surprise me could they get blown out hell yes they could i mean they could get absolutely smoked on saturday but there's also a part of me that says I can trust Kyle Whittingham's track record. He has been one of the most successful coaches

in all of college football for a very long time. Michigan's got a bunch of really talented dudes. And this is the same team that a week ago we thought could be pretty good. I don't think Michigan is getting blown out on Saturday. I just don't. I think it's going to be tight. I think it's going to come down to the fourth quarter. And I think Michigan,

they're going to have a shot to make some plays in the fourth quarter. quarter to win this football game. Will they? I'm not sure. But in my heart, I'm believing that this Michigan team somehow is going to have a shot in the fourth quarter. Am I insane? No, you're not insane. You're a fan and you're allowed to have those opinions and you're allowed to play things like that. But I think when the offense played how they did and they were, that's probably the worst they're going to play all season, right? I think we could agree with that. I would certainly hope so. Absolutely. And the, the only, the only, way to go is up from there, right? Bryce can't play worse than that. The offensive line can't

block worse than that in terms of the run game. The running backs are going to be more productive. Andrew Marshall is going to get open more. They're going to use their tight ends in a more effective way. I think the defense is going to continue to play better, especially with the younger guys having that first game under their belt. So everything is trending in the right direction. Now, I wish it maybe was another Mac school or another, you know, non-power-five or whatever that, whatever that term is nowadays, team. And, you know, Oklahoma's coming in and they're, they're polished. Their defense is phenomenal.

John Mateer, I think it's Mateer. I know that's, yeah. The last name, he, you know, he was, he was a Heisman candidate until he got hurt last year. year. I know he was looking to put his name back into that, into that hat again. So it's going to be a team and it's going to be an environment. that is going to be hostile. They're playing at home, but I know that all eyes are going to be

on Michigan, which I think is what they want. But like you said, Kyle Winningham, his track record has shown that he can put together a good product. He's one of the most consistent coaches in college football, and we want to see that. And I think they are going to have chances to win this game late into the fourth quarter. They are going to be, they're going to put themselves in the position to be successful. It's just we didn't see it. that first week. So how, you know, we're relying on a little bit of faith and a little bit of trust from, from these coaches and from these players. But I'm a fan. I'm going to root for Michigan. I'm going to say they're going to win this game. But it's going to take a lot. It's going to

take a, I wouldn't say a perfect game, but they're going to have to play a lot, a lot better than they did this past week. And I think everybody, including the players, including the coaches, know that. I agree with you. And I'm interested. I'll be honest with you. I'm really excited to see how it turns out. I want to see how they respond. How they respond. Yes. I want to see, you know, what kind of guts are in that room?

What kind of dudes do you have? Like, you built this team and you thought they were pretty good. Like, all right? We talked about it last week, right? Yeah. You've got a really, this Oklahoma game is going to be the game. This Oklahoma game is going to be the one where if they win this game, a huge confidence boost, even more so now,

compared to what it was last week. You know, some of those players might be. be unsure of their play and where they rank in the team. Getting a win, this will be a signature win. This is going to, like you said, boost their confidence and allow them to continue to ascend and play really good ball for the rest of the season. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, you go back and you even look at like, hey, Notre Dame once lost to

Northern Illinois and then went on a run. Stuff happens. Stuff happens. I'm not going to say the season's over until it is. which I thought it kind of was on Saturday night, to be honest with you. But listen, you get a second chance. Not many times in life do you get a second chance at this thing. Okay.

And Michigan was handed a gift. Now you have to go take advantage of it. And that's all it comes down to. So all right, that's going to do it. Worm, uh, I'm not even going to, I'm not even going to make you make a prediction. I don't want to make a prediction. I don't, I'm out of the prediction business. I'm done with it.

Um, everything I think is going to happen. It doesn't happen. so screw it. I'm done looking like an idiot. Is that okay with you? That's perfectly fine with me. All right. Sounds good. We'll be back again next Wednesday. Make sure you like and subscribe and find us on all those places that you can find podcasts and all those things. And then we will be back here coming up next week. And we'll do this whole thing all over again, all right? Let's do it again. Go blue. All right. Absolutely. Thanks so much for watching.