Blue By Ninety - Trevor McCue of Rivals joins to talk Michigan NCAA violations, yet another leak, and fall camp intel

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

Justin and Tanner welcome special guest, Trevor McCue, of Michigan's Rivals site Maize and Blue Review, to talk about the latest in the sign stealing sage, the Connor Stalions documentary, fall camp, and more.

All right. Welcome back to Blue by 90. I'm Justin joined by Tanner and we've got a lot to unpack today. So we brought in our guy Trevor McHugh from Maize and Blue Review. Trevor, it's been a while, so it's good to see you. I was thinking about that. I don't know. I mean, I've obviously seen you guys at games and stuff, but I don't I don't think I've done anything podcast or anything in a long time. So I know. Yeah. We S we've seen you on Twitter, breaking things down with the notice of allegations and everything. And Tanner texted me. He's like, dude, we gotta have, we gotta have Trevor on. So, I mean, there's a lot going on. We'll, we'll dive into it here. But I want, I mean, let's start with some positive stuff

here uh we've talked about it pretty much every single podcast but football is almost back the boys are at camp how are you feeling going into the season as a reigning national champion yeah i mean it's kind of i feel like this was the quickest off season ever because we've been just kind of basking in this natty, right? A hundred percent. And yeah, now that it's here, it's like, whoa, right? So look, I think, you know, what takes this team from being what Vegas thinks, like a nine and three team top, you know, 12,

maybe sniffing that playoff spot to contending for a big 10, potentially national championship again, is obviously just getting the quarterback figured out. This defense is going to be elite people. I mean, early in camp, it's very early. We haven't had a lot of contact yet. Right. But people are freaking out about this defense. They think it might be the best one of this four year stretch. Which is crazy. That's crazy.

Just knowing like statistically last year's defense is up there with 2021 Georgia. Like, it is one of the greatest defenses in Michigan football history. And you're going to say, all right, you lose Mike Barrett. You lose Mikey Saner. You lose a lot of different guys, yet they're going to be better. That's nuts to me. I think, I mean, the question mark is the depth. Are they going to have enough depth to be able to rotate keep everybody fresh and absolutely bully teams in the fourth quarter

which is how they've been winning these games right um but from just elite talent at a starting level this is the best defensive line in college football you have pass rush from all four spots i mean mason graham might be the best pass rusher on this team which that's it's crazy because that's not a slight and Derek Moore or Josiah Stewart. No. Who have been compared to guys like Hutchinson, Ojabo and Josh Uche in the last three weeks. Right.

You'd have Kenneth grants, like an afterthought is maybe the third best defensive tackle in college football. Yeah. You know, and then at every level, you know, I'm the,

I'm the president of the Michael Barrett fan club, man. I love that dude. I don't, I think leadership is going to be a big boy day after place as well but barham's a freak houseman looks great you know you i mean we'll get into more but yeah that defense is just elite elite man it's gonna more sacks and more turnover seems to be the expectation yeah um definitely agree and uh that's it's it's just crazy to think about that we could, you know, have an entire coaching staff turn over,

the entire defensive side of the ball coaching staff. You know, what's your thoughts on Wink coming in? I know he's the, you know, everyone knows the story of that. He's the creator of it, of the defense. The OG. I definitely know that a bunch of the guys love him. He's a guy's guy. What are your thoughts on Wink coming in on this defense?

Yeah, I'm not going to pretend that he hasn't sold me and maybe changed my initial feelings, right? I was a big fan of some of the Ravens tree guys that we thought might be available. Zach or who's now the defensive coordinator at Baltimore was obviously high up the list. And then what ended up happening is all these dudes got NFL jobs between McDonald mentor. It's crazy. There's a guy with the Titans. It's almost like we'll get into this,

but it's almost like they think they're really good coordinators and they didn't just have the play calls every single time. Yeah. NFL, very, very smart NFL GMs in presidents and owners thought very highly of Jesse mentor and Mike McDonald. Yeah.

And hardball getting this, you know, the better shot in the NFL and a massive contract and power to help the side GM involved. Yeah. It's weird. The successful scheme, USC hired Deontay land to be their defensive coordinator who came from the Ravens tree. It's unbelievable. tracked and power to help decide gm involved yeah it's weird the successful scheme usc hired

deontay len to be their defensive coordinator who came from the raven's tree it's unbelievable how that works right but uh yeah right no i i think wink has sold me because of what you just said the players love him they absolutely he's a football dude um there there's some similarities to hardball in that what makes him different and you know people you want to call him weird or whatever terms you want to use what makes him different he knows who he is he's a hundred percent comfortable with you he is the guy gets on twitter for the first time ever and he's absolutely a dog on that app dude he's hilarious right so you know recruiting we were like oh how's he gonna be recruits love him too right and for

me that the additional pieces as well bringing in lamar morgan who is a former defensive coordinator and can basically be the defensive coordinator of the secondary especially since you're asking me to do corners and safeties i think that was a big piece as well and obviously brajan marie is a guy with defensive coordinator chops coming in and then lou esposito has just been an absolute home run higher too in a very difficult situation that more was put into so look the scheme's gonna be the same but different right wings can have his own stuff peppered in there but he's just you keep hearing him he's happy about these dudes he's got yeah well who wouldn't be i mean he's like you guys rotated derrick more why you know like that's it so um and he embraces all the don brown stuff too he's like that's crazy

just because we're old dudes come on you know i'm i'm starting to feel a little bit bad for don brown that he's just still in the year 2024 taking shots uh because i think don brown at the end of the day is a really good dude he needed to change um you know definitely just a little too stubborn um but the last thing i wanted to ask about the defense is you touched on lamar morgan esposito um you touched on brian john marie um is the next d coordinator are they like grooming the the next crop of guys for the inevitable? I don't know. I think, I don't know that. I don't know what Wink's future looks like, but I know he's an NFL guy and probably wants to get back to the NFL. You know, so is the next

D coordinator possibly on the staff right now? And they're, they're kind of rolling it with it like that. You know, we we've thought this way for a few years and it's so hard to predict, right? I think a lot of people thought either Klinkscale or Elston was going to take over for mentor. And obviously that's a different situation and everything with LA and blah, blah, blah, but whatever. Are there guys that absolutely on this staff could be like, so Lamar Morgan absolutely is one of those guys. I think Brian, Brian John Murray is probably one of those guys as well and you plug into the fact now that these analysts can be a part of coaching as well and something Michigan's been great at for years is grooming analysts into coaches and you've got already a Pernell McPhee on the staff with Troy Lewis on

the staff who was filling in and I thought might get the D-line coach job when Skrog was fired. Kevin Wilkins, who is basically the impetus for why Wink left the Giants. His MTE is now here as well. So yeah, I don't know. I don't see Wink being here a long time just because I don't see any coordinator

being in any program for a long time, right? Would I be shocked if that current DC is on the staff? No, but you know what? Who, who knows? Right. I don't know that we ever would have predicted McDonald or mentor either. So true. Very true.

Yeah. But there are guys with shops here that could absolutely be the next one up for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely agree. All right. Well, let's get into it.

Um, so the NCAA,a our favorite entity um it's kind of funny michigan state and ohio state fans really pro ncaa now after after you know a couple years ago with all of the msu stuff that uh you know when the went into i don't know, they tried to lump in the basketball program and the football program and into the whole gymnastics thing with the Nassar. You know, all of my friends at that time were like, screw the NCAA, screw ESPN, all these. Now they're like, wait, wait, wait,

whatever the NCAA says and ESPN says is the Bible. They still attackuline to this day yes so it's crazy and um you know i was saying fans are i mean they uh they are gathering their pitchforks uh for sure and so it's been a fun 24 48 hours here on uh on x.com now formerly twitter um so all right i mean let's start with the leaking of the noa to espn after seven eight months here of of an off season where something could have come out and they wait till they're in camp let's just start there yeah and and let's be clear too this is not a full noa it's a draft of an noa it is also a draft that michigan had not seen before it's also a draft we can confirm is an older version

and different than whatever summary or thing that Michigan is now working with. Right. So there's stuff in that that could not only be outdated, but not even included in the NOA potentially when that actually comes Michigan's way. Right. To your point, the timing, right when everybody's starting to pay attention to college football again. And right before the Stallions documentary, which we'll come out with um which we'll talk about a little bit later too i mean it's just like tell me like from your angle what from your angle what is the ncaa's angle with all this stuff what well i think my biggest question is okay they they got hardball that felt like the biggest that was the ncaa's biggest win over the past five years even though it was literally an upgrade he you know oh you really got jim harbaugh

he now makes 16 million dollars a year and is an nfl head coach and he's southern california lives in southern california and has a 15 and 0 tattoo and, you know, won the national championship. NCAA really got him. But, you know, that felt like their M.O. That was like the one thing that they were going after for the past because Jim Harbaugh has been so pro revenue sharing. He's been pro a lot of different a lot of things that the NCAA doesn't stand for. Why are they doubling, tripling, quadrupling down and still seem to be going after Michigan? So for one, let me start with this.

ESPN, I don't blame for reporting this. It's a story. Somebody gave it to them. It's their job. Of course, they reported this, right? Maybe some of the framing, knowing full well how people consume information. They've had to change the headline on their front page twice now because of how they were trying to implicate more in it. So that part, maybe whatever, but I get why they reported it. We don't know for sure who the leak came from, right? Fair assumptions. It's been an issue throughout this process. I got a lot of pushback on Twitter when I said, and here is Michigan again,

dealing with this while Kentucky, Tennessee, and these other programs are able to go through the entire process of investigation, NOA, pushback, COI, and negotiate a resolution without anybody knowing about it. Now, I understand the story itself was out there. Right. Because you had other programs talking about it but the fact that this is again coming out to me says first if they had what they needed to bury michigan there wouldn't be leaks right right that this feels like the punishment for michigan is this is this narrative control is this interference that's an interesting way to put it. In a lot of ways, Michigan. And look, you've seen even Pete Thamel, who was behind this report. I don't want to say backtrack, but even he on Monday in his national appearances has made it clear.

Look, there's not going to be vacated wins. There's probably no chance of post. This is going to be largely what we've been reporting. It's going to be a massive fine for Michigan. Right. And maybe more gets suspended. The text thing is new. We can get into that, but like, it's just not going to be this hammer that's been proposed out there. So since that expectation has been set and the NCAA to your point is

desperate to prove it's still powerful. The three things Harbaball was most vocal for and really ruffled feathers with the ncaa first nil advocating for nil for players free transfer players having the ability to transfer and not have the one-year restriction and then use of revenue share sharing all this massive revenue all three of those things the ncaa has been handed to in court and they've lost they were on the wrong side of it right so he's been on the right side of all of these things that he's been advocating for with his players and the NCAA is just becoming less and less relevant right I mean it is so this

is to me it just feels like their way of of punishing Michigan And I'm not trying to get tinfoil here or anything, but the documentary coming out at the end of the month, which let's be clear by documentary, this is going to be, Connor Stallings doesn't agree to it if it's not a propaganda puff piece for him. Right. Well, that's been Netflix's MO the entire time. If anybody watched the Florida documentary or the Manti Teo or any of these, the malice at the palace was the maybe the worst offender we got it from the Indiana Pacers point of view because they were

the producers of it right so Netflix's MO is probably to give a bag and you know hey come on and we'll tell your story and make you the good guy. But Trevor, I wanted to ask you with regards to that documentary, one of the things that Connor Stallions is kind of quoted as saying in the trailer that launched here today on August 5th on Monday was if I'm a bad guy, everyone in college football is a bad guy. Right. Do you think that there's any chance and maybe this is a little bit of what the kids call is copium from the Michigan guy. Do you think there's any chance that there's going to be some big time stones thrown at other programs or do you think this is really just going to be a fluff piece on how great conor stallions was at stealing signs until he got caught yeah i don't know if it's going to be

big time i think it's going to echo largely what we've heard. And I think many people have known for a long time, which is everyone steals signs, right? The clips of him standing on the sideline and everybody's like, Oh, if they didn't know what he's doing, then why are they, why is he standing by mentor and getting the sign? Cause they know his job was to steal socks and most sign, the way signs are stolen. And the reason why this rule is stupid and outdated.

Look, I think what he did was egregious and stupid because i don't think it brought any competitive advantage that's the best part of the whole thing we keep going sorry we showed the document that ohio state was using seven pages of stolen signs on don brown from 2018 and when i first published everybody's like oh there's pictures from inside the stadium they were were doing it too. No, that's from the All-22 film, which will go over to the giant scoreboard to show the clock. Time and the score.

To mark the play. And there's Don Brown on the screen making a play. And let's be honest, one of the biggest reasons Ryan Day was hired was because he was with Don Brown at Boston College. But anyway, All-22 film and broadcast tv broadcast every game is on tv now right you can pull everything you need from those things that that's where it's it's so funny to me i mean i i just think about a lot of different things

where it's like iphone footage from bro 40 with all of the, all the things they have on huddle and on catapult catapult. I'm like, there are so many different ways that you can get information now in the year 2024. And it's like, all right. Yeah. I, I just, I refuse to believe that the iPhone footage was like the reason that Michigan won a ton of games. Do I think it maybe gave some of an advantage? Sure.

But I don't think it's like, oh, that was the key. And I honestly would argue I don't think it provided any advantage, which is why I hate it so much. I think it's so stupid. Yeah. That even did it right um but and again to tanner's question like he knows other science dealers were sharing information because he was in that network of science dealers sharing information right purdue had michigan signs in the big ten championship game because they were shared with them right

like that where did they get those from trevor i can't remember a combination of ohio state and illinois oh that's interesting interesting wait wasn't ryan walters at illinois okay and then he was really upset okay i just uh you're setting up no i just wanted to make sure i got that one straight um well i have a question for you on that same subject trevor i this is my theory on how that documentary is going to go flow-wise. I feel like they're going to talk about the 2018 and the 2019 Michigan-Ohio State game. I'd love to know what your thoughts are and how deep they're going to dive into Ryan Day having Don Brown signs

and, you know, a defense that was, yes, they ran a lot of man and you can really beat man with certain route combinations and different route trees and, you know, a defense that was, yes, they ran a lot of man, and you can really beat man with certain route combinations and different route trees and, you know, different concepts. But a defense in 2018 that was one of the best in the country, and in 2018 wasn't necessarily as good, but still gave up more points than, you know, they had all year. Now, granted, the 2019 Ohio State team was absolutely electric on offense, so that's probably a lot of it but um we'll have to get your thoughts on the you know talking about don brown

and ryan day and their relationship at boston college yeah i mean i don't know if the documentary will get into that i i think it's going to get into some piece of the fact that like he's then that quote nailed it for me that right there that if i'm bad then so is everyone that's gonna be his argument everybody was doing this and and okay not only this but like there are a million other ways that every single other program in the country is cheating and it's like okay you wanna i'll let you go on so i apologize for budding but like i mean i go to to all right alabama and georgia how have they won a bunch of national titles because they have the best recruiting classes every single year year in and year out that is i mean obviously they have great coaching staffs too but like they didn't get those recruits by just you know having they have really good recruiting coordinators right

they're obviously pre-nil they were paying players it was no doubt about it right it's it's there it's like the worst kept rumor uh worst kept secret of all time right so for me that's like to pinpoint this but then saban is a god you know and I'm not saying Nick Saban is not a great coach, but you can't be like Jim Harbaugh is the worst thing in college football. And Nick Saban is a, is a God. You don't like Hellcats Justin. So it's because of the word to get one. It's the word cheating.

We've decided some rule breaking is cheating. And so it's not now in defense of people that don't like michigan and have latched onto this scandal from the beginning they have completely the way the media is reported has completely mislabeled it there's people still to this day talking about him stealing signs and we've spent how much time saying like that's not even what the scandal is right it was a sign stealing scandal it was this military technician with a web of spies and blah blah and that's not what it is i feel like it was like like the picture they were painting was like this futuristic thing that's like yes

he's just using venmo like ohio state tickets to like his buddy like with his own name his own credit card he's got vacuums all over his entire front porch it just got weirder and weirder the longer it went on right so yeah but tanner to your point i i don't i don't know how specific he'll get look i know that other people have been shared that kind of information and, and how Ohio state was so ahead of all of this and like all that stuff's out there, whether somebody is going to decide to actually put it out of the report or it gets investigated. I don't know. I have gotten out.

I keep saying I've gotten out of the predicting business when it comes to that stuff, when it happens, I'll report on it. That's kind of where I'm at with it. I don't know if he'll get into that part as much as maybe what's tangible to him, but he's going to say, look, everybody does this and I was just damn good at it. And I thought I found a gray area and I found a loophole in this outdated rule that the NCAA tried to get rid of. And, and that's already, I mean,

that's in the NOA draft as well that, you know, so far they've only been able to connect it to these interns, which, you know, Ro can probably comment as well as anybody. Like these are people literally like putting the binders together, doing all the glove work. And they're not questioning anybody. We were talking about that before you joined. Like you're an intern.

Like you don't question like a full-time employee. Even if you don't, you have no idea. Right. Yeah. You're, I mean, yeah, a full-time employee even if you don't you have no idea right yeah you're i mean yeah you could say that for somebody that's working at thompson reuter or like any like any company in the world right is like you're an intern that's 19 years old you have no idea and i i think that's you know going back to the notice of allegations for that and the text messages is like,

Sharon could have been texting Connor Stallions about anything. It could have been, hey, print out the practice schedule today. Who knows, right? I think I see that. And then I also see a lot of people that are like lack of institutional control. There are literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people in that building every day because it is a huge operation one person cannot control every single person that is in the building that's well can i real quick while we're on the subject of interns

and trevor you mentioned gray area there it really is a gray area like you have to combine multiple bylaws in the NCAA handbook to even get it to frame it the way that you want like the stuff about um recording on game day or in a stadium is about your own stadium it is not about what he did now you can say that it was not you know an integrity based operation and you can say that he was trying to kind of bend the rules, but there's no real bylaw for this because the bylaw was changed in the 1990s when there weren't smartphones. Right.

And let's be clear, it wasn't a competitive balance rule. It was a financial rule because teams were complaining, we can't afford to send these crews with cameras to games. Right. And the reason it's an outdated rule we just got done mentioning between broadcasts and whatever and the film for these games gets shared with the teams so between the film that's shared with them what they can find on tv and all 22 film it's not hard to cut and piece three they already have all the information that Stallions was getting, right? Well, I laughed too because, again, all these clips of Stallions on the sideline talking to Minter and signs and the people are sharing it. I'm like, do you realize you are literally sharing the thing you're accusing Michigan of stealing?

You found it like that. You have close-up video of Jesse Minter giving signals. And you got that on YouTube. Right. So that is that is like exactly what Ohio State would have used in this scenario. Well, and whatever you think about Dave Portnoy, his point of I could go to a game and upload it on YouTube. Right. And the gray area to 1161.

That's the bylaw. Also refers to employees. And that was probably the loophole he thought, like, these are buddies I'm sending tickets to and blah, blah. And Justin, to your point, a lot of those people were friends who have come forward or been interviewed and said, I didn't tape anything. He was hooking me up. I'm a military veteran. I've never been to a Michigan game before. Right?

The one public acknowledgement we've seen. Now, look, in the real NOA, when that comes out, there could be more evidence from more people that have gone to these games. I'm just saying what we've heard. They got the interview from the D3 coach that was at the game and left at halftime because it was raining. He's like, whatever. Right? Like, that was the one confirmation they got from somebody so that that's where they

you know he thinks this gray area exists and he found this loophole and again i'm just reacting to the draft at this point that everyone's freaking out about there is nothing referencing that bylaw beyond the section on stallions. No coach, nothing on the University of Michigan. The level one, apparently, allegation on Michigan only is for the noncompliance. You brought up the lack of institutional control. It's not in the draft. They're not applying it.

The charge would be, and I saw, I believe I saw somebody in your mentions who was sometimes in my mentions talking about lack of institutional control. It's an actual charge. If that was true, again, this is a dated NOA draft. So it could change, but that's not what that is. That's not what that means. It's not what that charge was designed to do. So it feels like at this point, a lot of people are grasping at straws to find a way to the, you know, to diminish what Michigan has accomplished the last three years. And the last point on the stallions thing to the harshest language on him was in reference to him going to the central Michigan game and being on the sideline. Now, not only did he go to that game, right? We do have precedent of an assistant coach being on the opposite sideline.

He was suspended for a half whatever the effort that he went to to disguise himself not use his real name to get on the sideline that part that's where the language is used in terms of the integrity of the game right and the part that i think a lot of people are finally starting to accept is that is a central michigan problem i was just gonna mention that he was working for central michigan he was there to help them steal signs for michigan state he wasn't there to scout michigan state for michigan look i know he was wearing the goofy stupid glasses but again i mean justin i don't know about you tanner justin i know you've been on a sideline you can't see the opposing sideline you can't see the opposing sideline.

You can't see shit. It's not happening. If they would have sent him to a Michigan State game, they would have sent him where he was supposedly buying these tickets or whatever. Right. So, yeah. My question on the CMU issue, because that seems like they're going to get the harshest dealing

from the NCAA in this whole saga I would have to assume because I think what they did was you know just again it may be a rogue employee because that quarterback coach who was I mean it's frankly dangerous you have a verified person on the sideline that's not right yeah at a Big Ten stadium I mean I can't imagine how hard it is you know it's not like it was CMU Western or something, you know, like it's a Big Ten stadium. But that coach sounded like, you know, he was on his way. He's a Michigan alum, I believe. Right. And was on his way to being offensive coordinator. Had a lot, you know, bright future. So that whole situation. But I still see a lot of people.

And you can guess what states they're from that think that he was there to scout Michigan State on behalf of Michigan. And I think to your point, I mean, it's so funny, man. I listen to all the stuff. I mean, I subscribe to a lot of the message boards, so I'm very in tune with all this because I am, at the end of the day, a Michigan fan. But I remember this would have been November last year. But November last year, Seth Fisher on the mgo blog roundtable on wtka made the point

that like what if he was there for central michigan and they were like now and it's crazy to see it you know however many months later like that is clear as day what happened yeah i mean we when it first happened it wasn't very hard to figure out. You go to Central Michigan's coaching roster, and here's somebody who spent four years at Michigan while Stallions was here and for anybody that knows was really good friends with him. So I think Jake's name has been kind of known in circles for a long time. When he was let go right before camp began, there's some conflicting info on whether he was let go sooner,

when it was announced, whatever. But obviously the timing is suspicious. And then Central releases a statement that's basically like, you know, we're complying, blah, blah. So it's pretty clear. I think in a lot of ways, the framing of that to me appears to be very preemptive, that he wasn't cooperating, which again seems to be NCAA's huge obsession. I have a feeling he wasn't cooperating. Look, central was adamant.

They were going to dig into this and get to the bottom and find out what happened. And then they probably didn't like what they found, which is this was their fault, right? Again, he's not wearing central clothes. He's wearing central Michigan sideline gear, right? You don't just guess what they're wearing that day, right? Somebody prepared that for him. So once they got to the bottom of it all you heard from them was well he wasn't on the roster which to be clear to michigan state they should be very upset about this they really should um i know it's different for press than it is for the team but like you send in names ahead of time

those are verified and confirmed and passes are created you have to provide identification and even then i know at michigan i don't have a sideline pass i have a press pass and there's different zones i can go into and you're getting checked everywhere you go right some stadiums aren't as hardcore nebraska they were really cool about letting us come down there or whatever, but I still had a media pass, right? And coaches have their bench pass. I don't know if he used somebody else's name on the staff, a fake ID. We don't know those details yet, how he did this or how no one else at Central seemed to not see Groucho Marx

in his disguise here on the sideline, right? But look, Michigan State, excuse me, should be frustrated with Central. I've seen people talk about they need to pay them back the money because what they pay a million or a million five for central to come to their stadium and play them i think that's probably a fair argument but what you want to believe wasn't in the noa draft again this was not him being set as an advanced scout for michigan it just wasn't to your point um it just i think the headlines that are coming out right now there are a couple things that michigan is like being you know that are actually against michigan breaking rules in the noa but for the most part

it is the non-compliance it's not cooperating the inst-stable is mad that michigan's like no we're not gonna we're not gonna do what you're asking us to do because you don't have the power to do it um you know i i guess one question i have on that is uh and we'll get into harbaugh here in a second um but where's the line with turning over personal cell phones and different things like that? Because, you know, I know that they have university cell phones that obviously that can be foiled in these in these situations. Where is the line? Do they have to turn over personal cell phones? I mean, the NCAA gets to decide. Right. We've seen instances where they've been flexible, even in this case, which I know we'll get into probably. I don't know if you have that part of Tom's comments, but even in this case, we know some people were given the ability to fraction off what they were looking for.

And I always hate like comparing this to anything legal because it's not. This is not a legal proceeding whatsoever. In the same way that politics has political things when you talk about impeachment and stuff like that, I guess that's similar here, except for the NCAA is run by the NCAA teams. They're not this powerful organization that doesn't get power from the conferences and from the teams. So they don't have to do anything. organization that doesn't get power from the conferences and from the teams right so they don't have to do anything and then it just I guess it kind of depends how important you are Jake Costner's probably not that important to Central Michigan and not cooperating they probably felt pretty confident he did what they're saying so he doesn't have a job anymore if they're confident that you didn't do what they're saying and you're trying

to not hand over personal devices that include, I mean, I don't know about you. I'm not giving my phone to my boss. Let alone, not even my boss, but like an organization that I'm loosely associated with. Yeah.

No way. No chance. No chance. And that, and I think that's going to be a big piece of the stallions documentary too, is he's going to share kind of how aggressive the NCAA was asking for an email he used in high school. Right. And stuff like that.

They're trying to find everything they possibly can. They didn't have a scope on some of these comments. And again, to rival fans, I get it. You see noncompliance. Well, he didn't comply. Well, careful what you're, you know,'re chewing off here because when it's your program and they're asking them to hand over personal cell phones. Well, nobody's ever going to actually, let's be real, if it's against, myself included, when it's against my program,

I'm having a very different feeling. 100%. Well, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, right? Yeah, we're all fans. Yeah, I know tribalism is built into that, and I've acknowledged that they'd be making fun of ohio state and oh this would yeah let's i mean let's be clear to any ohio state fan that's hate watching this right now like if this was flipped we would be freaking out i there's no doubt about it that's the whole part it's the whole point of fandom guys their school does stupid shit and we freak out our school does stupid

shit they freak out that's and the that's the that's how this all works um but uh but yeah you just mentioned the scope of what the NCAA asked for and I wanted first of all Tom Mars was who is Michigan's or Harbaugh's lawyer and has been for a long time one of the best if not the best sports lawyers out there absolutely he might be a comedian as well he is so freaking funny every single time he puts the driest humor and it's so snarky and it's amazing he's not scared to troll for a lawyer it's pretty no no it's incredible I think the the best comment that i saw from him um was about harbaugh's employment verification and this is like i mean i can't remember but it had to be like a week after harbaugh took the the charger's job if not correct me if i'm wrong but i don't know at michigan yeah

correct me if i'm wrong but um i i can't verify Mr. Harbaugh's uh employment uh but I don't believe he is with the university anymore and um so I it's he's he's very good but to get into what actually happened was what Tom Mars is is showing us in the document that he put out on twitter on monday was the ncaa said hey here are 6 000 media files right something like that it was literally the content of all of his emails in his inbox they want every email in his inbox the number came from them saying, this is how many emails he has. And they said, hey, you need to review these in 24 hours. Correct? So the crux of it is that he would have needed to read all 6,200 emails to make sure that if there was anything with client attorney privilege that he would remove exactly and remove that and requested an extension. It was the email was on January 30th, requested an extension to February 20th

and was like, look, I mean, I can't do this. I've got other things going on. And the NCAA denied his request and was very, well, even not only did he have other things going on, he did the math. He's like like if i took 30 seconds to review every email it would take me 51 straight hours so i physically can't even do this in the time that you're asking me to right well and back to what i was saying earlier in terms of the way this normally works and comparing to a legal process right there's normally a back and forth that exists right and the initial back and forth was you guys need to pick a few coaches or whoever that are relevant and we will give you those communications right pretty fair request right you don't need to see emails with his wife his

children you know whoever else and that was his pushback early on even with the phone is like it's a personal family matters on here i don't trust you you're leaking everything already right that's true too that that part is actually so legit i don't trust you can't be trusted as an organization because everything goes out and let's talk about the leaks a little bit for just one second, too. I was talking to a buddy while we were golfing yesterday. And here's what I know about the media. I'm not a media expert.

But I do know if information gets leaked, it was purposefully leaked because if you know information uh um murphy dan murphy on espn would not put something out there that he knowingly was not supposed to because by the ncaa because he would never get an ncaa credential ever again they would ban him from everything so he's obviously been told yes you can put this out there or you know in a position of that level espn has their own legal and and they're the ones approving go or don't go um it just because it's relevant i'm not trying to bring politics into this but we just saw two very high profile journalists get fired because they released a story on the prisoner swap before it happened literally and there was an embargo on it and they were literally putting people's lives in danger done right you were trying to be first right so obviously we're not talking about life and death here but look we've broken stories

yeah and you know amazing blue review um the one that comes to mind was schoenbeckler and obviously we didn't have the initial reports about like some of the stuff that was in his profile and some of the things that could be contentious but we found out through a source that he was being fired before it was made public and the first thing we did was confirm with multiple people. We're not running with just one source. We made sure we confirmed with multiple sources, ideally in different places too, right? Not in the same department or some AD, some here, whatever, anything we can do to make sure like, okay, this is accurate. And then you reach for a comment and say, look, we're about

to hit enter. Do you want to comment? Yes or no. Sometimes they'll give you one. Sometimes they'll say, hey, we're going to put out our own thing, whatever. And then you run with it. Right. Yeah. Which is exactly what happened here. The story was wrong. There was no comment from Michigan. And then about 30 minutes later, a comment from Michigan was added. Right. So they had the publish button ready and said, do you want to state that? Yes or no? We'll get you something. Boom, publish. We want to be first on on that's how it went down right um and again i don't blame them for running the story i am curious though and you know we've talked about too the timing of the leaks and whatever when you the anonymous stuff anonymous sources are instrumental to journalism and for holding people accountable. Anonymous sources absolutely should exist. But those people need to provide something factual to the story that otherwise wouldn't be there. They need to be credible, whatever. We saw a lot of these reports where it's like just anonymous Big Ten coaches complaining about Michigan.

Comparing it to the Astros scandal. Exactly. Pete Gamble is running with it. At some point, all your information is coming from people that benefit from Michigan hurting. Well, eh. A lot of – in a lot of those instances, it was like right after Michigan kicked their ass on the field

and embarrassed them. Not P.J. Fleck. No, no. Shut up, P.J. Fleck. Real one. He's a real one. P.J. Fleck wants that Michigan job someday. That's what that is. Yeah, exactly. I like you, P.J., but I don't like you that much, no. Shout out P.J. Fleck. Real one. He's a real one. P.J. Fleck wants that Michigan job someday. That's what I mean.

Yeah, exactly. I like you, P.J., but I don't like you that much, brother. I love Matt Rule, too. I actually like him as a coach. But you got your shit kicked in, dude, and then you came out and started bitching. And it's like, all right, come on. Well, look, I mean, you've got, when it first started, almost anyone that played football that's in a role as like some type of commentator announcer laughed at this.

Brady Quinn, Matt Leiner, Robert Griffin, the third. These guys were like, dude, we've been doing this since high school. Yes. Like, are you kidding me? And then, of course, like ESPN specifically. And this is the problem with the whole media split now with the Big Ten and the SEC. Do you think it's i mean obviously confirmation bias i'm really happy with what colin coward says i don't think it's a coincidence that he's on fox

defending michigan correct right like i know that and i don't think espn constantly being the first ones to go after a big 10 power is a coincidence my clout loves us and does segments on michigan all the time right everybody's every don't bite the hand that feeds you blah blah blah right that's that's a big piece of it and i get it it's the ecosystem we live in whatever what i get frustrated with now though and we've already seen this change like you said at 24 to 48 hours is i consume a headline i consume a tweet in 280 characters and i like what it says because it confirms what I already think or feel. And I am running with this as facts.

And then now the more I actually look at what the report says and the people who publish the report come out and give more details and say, yeah, this isn't going to be that. It's not going to be this, whatever. And now I'm not happy. We've seen people who have been very pro-Pete Thamel now very mad at Pete Thamel because he's basically been like, fuck, I think it's a fine that's coming. But they're not getting vacated wins. That's not happening. Well, at some point he has to tell the truth instead of just spinning narratives. And I think we're getting to the point where it's like, okay,

Pete Thamel has to come out and say he's to the end of his rope of drawing out the story for eight nine months now right 12 months almost it's getting harder to speculate because now he can say i see the allegations i know what precedent is i'm able to talk to people that deal with this stuff and this is what i think is going to come from it because there's patterns and we know trends with the ncaa things they have said publicly like i just i can't say this enough i know it's framed as seven snappers and sign stealing noa and blah blah but the noa has become heavily about failure to cooperate some little recruiting violations that they dug up the only thing in the entire draft in

that article that talked about the actual advanced scouting was the level one to stallions he's going to get a show cause he's never going to coach and college coach or you know whatever in college football ever again michigan's going to get fined probably 10 million dollars or something stupid like that that they'll write a check for um you know maybe the most concerning part was the Sharon Moore piece uh we were told it was former staffer deleted text so but there's been already some twist on that that they're not worried because he didn't delete them from his phone permanently they were still on his phone it was like in an archive folder so that's what I've got a question on this has been a this has been a question that I've wanted to ask since this drop. Yeah.

If you click delete on your phone, yet the messages are still on your phone, is that attempting to cover something up? So this is where I think they're going to struggle to punish Sharon more. Because what you have to prove now, and again, getting into the legal spot of this, the NCAA didn't confiscate the phone or go through other means to recover the text the texts were given to them by sherwin-more in michigan right it's possible they literally were like i i deleted him and again because it was the day the news broke i joke it's just as likely he was like dude what the hell are you doing right that could

have been the text i'm not gonna text that guy again right i've done right um but here's what we do know and you can make some pretty fair assumptions schroemore gave those texts to the ncaa and there is nothing incriminating mentioned in this noa draft from those texts no coaches have been connected to it the only allegation against schroemore is a level two violation for not cooperating by apparently deleting the texts. If there was anything bad in those texts, you think Pete Thamel just left that out? How is that a level two? Like is the NCAA like tech support?

Like that, that doesn't make any sense. One thing I wanted to add real quick is I don't know if anybody else saw it but um brian cook over mgo blog gave his you know posted a um piece on his thoughts on the new sign gauge stuff and he said according to sources that that those messages will be released from a journal soon and there's nothing innocuous in it which i put that in our group chat um some of our friends had to google what innocuous meant uh it means it's one of means virtual headsets right so yeah and i mean that's the final point where i get to michigan or excuse me the ncaa is gonna have a very hard time i think proving anything in terms of intent here because intent has to be

there so if what i had i gave you and there was nothing incriminating in it how are you going to prove i was deleting them to prevent you from seeing them when i gave them to you and there was nothing bad in it it's gonna be really hard for them to prove that argument which is why they're trying to lump all this stuff together calling them a repeat offender because of the recruiting stuff that he's already punished for. Like, that's why they're lumping these things together, because they're going to struggle to prove their case. Yeah, agreed. And I think that I think what's the most unfortunate part, which this is this is the world that we live in.

But it just is a really bad look when the headline is Jerome cheryl moore is one of the seven any deleted texts right and to your point it's what you did it's stupid you know the ncaa is in your house it was dumb yeah it was dumb by him 100 you know it's just but it's a probably a knee jerk reaction stuff so you're like all right i gotta figure out how to not be connected to this guy and you just you know you make you do something in the moment um but you know in the world of 2024 uh people are just reading that headline you know and that's all they see and i think that part sucks because that could actually negatively impact the program you know in recruiting and different you know a bunch of gift for negative recruiting 100 yeah so well i was interacting with an ohio state friend that i'm

their fan that i'm friends with about this whole thing and obviously deleting text means guilt in their eyes and they said okay that's fine if you think that but you're ignoring the fact that text returned and there's nothing criminal blah blah, blah, blah. But to your point, Justin, earlier about rivalry and taking sides, I was like, okay. But when the Buckeyes hired an investigation firm during the Zach Smith scandal, Gene Smith turned over, the athletic director of Ohio State turned over a, to your point earlier, Ohio State phone, property of the university,

with zero text messages on it. It had never been used, just out of the box. You might as well have just thrown it out the window driving down the interstate. Urban Meyer literally had text messages asking people how to delete text messages. Now, they weren't working with the NCAA. This was an investigation firm that they hired but that firm in ohio state made no effort to recover those text messages or to determine if there was a malicious intent beyond that right so i wonder why yeah but again this is why like and we've done this before too where it's like you try

to take a shot at arrival it's like oh crap we had the same thing five years ago well that was different because right so it just comes back to the original point of the ncaa the scope and just the facts that are being laid out i will absolutely change my opinion based on the facts that i see like we've seen like i give you know you're saying pete thamel there was he was allowed to speculate a lot and he can't now with this story there's something tangible here and if I see tangible evidence of coordination between coaches specifically into this scheme I'm going to change my opinion a hundred percent yeah it's not there well that's how the world works too when you get presented with new information you can change your opinion right and you shouldn't attack the people for

doing that that's a good thing we love to hit people for flip-flopping or whatever it's like well no that's a good thing you became maturity and growth and right that's a great thing that you did right i thought we were supposed to just pull you know a screenshot of your previous tweet and put that underneath the new tweet i thought that was that that's i thought that was probably i do enjoy that though like you you go into the twitter you get the crop going you know get all the the nonsense and the screenshot out well there's there's this spot for hip there's a spot yeah this you is i i've done a few of this use i'm not gonna lie but there's a system of in that case where it's like okay i'm showing a complete hypocrisy or double standard or an opinion that's changed right because i definitely

had that where somebody has been like oh yeah you said this and i'm like completely different and also blah blah like i can lay out like here's why my you know here's where it varies or whatever and i'm sure somebody's pulled something on me where i'm like crap right yeah i guess i have a little bit of a hypocrite there that was a little fan fan-tick-and-tick there, right? It's going to happen. When you're tweeting every single day, right? Yeah, we're not all perfect. Nobody's batting 1,000 here.

There's no doubt about that on any side. All right, I do want to talk a little bit more about the last thing here would be harbaugh responding to the allegations um i i'm a little bit surprised that he came out and did it and in a are you i don't know i'm not he's not he's not employed by an incidentally member institution anymore it's such a different even his interview on pardon my take, it's a different Jim Harbaugh because he like, I think for the past however many years, he felt like he was needed to be silent and not say anything because they were

going to take anything he said and twist it into something. And so he just straight up said, I'm not doing interviews. I'm not doing anything. I'm not tweeting. I'm not putting anything out there. And so now it's a different Jim Harbaugh in LA. Um, but he said, I do not apologize. Right. Um, so let me, let me read it word for word. I was going to say, I had the whole quote here as well. Brandon, Brandon, sorry. it, Sandy. Justice hasn't been on this podcast in about a year, bro. Well, I was talking to him, so. Okay.

That's my boy. Hell of a baseball coach now. Yeah, no. Just Brandon's homie. He's not very good at NCAA apparently, but that's okay. So Jim Harbaugh's quote verbatim, never lie, never cheat, never steal. I was raised with that lesson. I have raised my family on that lesson.

I have preached that lesson to the teams that i've coached no one is perfect if you stumble you apologize you can make it right today i do not apologize i did not participate was not aware nor complicit in those said allegations so it's back to work and attacking with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind the it was perfectly horrible pure horrible oh yeah amazing amazing yeah go ahead so i mean look he he has the leash off in a lot of ways right i can't imagine the things he'd love to say you know and but the biggest piece of this too is what the hell is the NCAA going to do to him what are they going to do well I think that's probably why he's just like I I'm I that's probably why he wants to take a hard stance because they don't have a well which is the best part about Tom Mars uh response to you know and now Harbaugh can defend himself the way he

wants to acknowledge it the way he wants to acknowledge it the way he wants to I know some people feel like Michigan kind of threw him under a bus and maybe didn't defend him to the level that they wanted but there's a lot more things in play at that point right and now that he's gone and they had the settlement they had with the Burgergate stuff like you can't continue to hurt yourself for a guy that isn't here anymore right so i i don't think there's a bad blood there and and i think jim is perfectly fine handling this the way he did and i know people want to parse what he said in segments and decide it means this or that i think it's pretty clear when he talks about look these are the mantras i live by and when he says

nobody's perfect if you screw up, I mean, I don't remember exactly how he said it, but then you apologize or whatever. His point was, I've made mistakes. Right. And if I made a mistake here, I would be apologizing. I'm not apologizing today. That was his point.

Yeah. And, you know, some of it, and look, the whole noncompliance thing, do I think that Harbaugh's attitude was not only his own, but was evident throughout the staff because that's how leadership works. People feed off of it. Absolutely. It had to be so frustrating to them knowing what you,

like what you brought up for you and I, what's happening with the way players are getting paid and all these other things that are happening. And you're coming and asking him, Hey, you remember buying this cheeseburger during COVID? What? You lied. We have the receipt. Cause I don't remember. Like, so for him to give the middle finger to an organization that all the way back to the summer camp stuff,

they've been out to get them forever, man. So for him to have this attitude towards them, I'm not shocked whatsoever. Right. And then you're asking for his personal cell phone and just digging in everything he does for him to have like are you kidding me right yeah and look you can say what the draft does and i'm not surprised by this the head coach ceo idea they said he was not involved and he had no knowledge but he probably ignored red flags that might have made him aware of it right i think that's a fair assessment i think you could also criticize him for a blind spot in hiring in general right connor stallions was clearly this

rabid fan right and and maybe misplaced passion when you start talking about the manifesto and blah blah blah right but this but also there real quick on that like jim harbaugh is like 100 he's not a normal human being so he's probably like those are green flags yeah exactly he's like he's a military guy i'm throwing a bone to people on this like i, I get that part of it, that level of attack on him. I get it. But some of it's just you hate Harbaugh, right? Totally. And back to the beginning of all of this.

You're not going to convince me that Michigan won a single game they would have lost without this. You know, and it's like you can point – one of the Ohio State plays that they're resharing again where C.J. Stroud looks to the sideline and they're like, oh, you can see stallions, blah, blah, blah. They scored on that play. So they're trying to argue, like, whatever.

And if Michigan had the signs 2022, why did they wait until later in the game to take advantage? Ohio State had a serious advantage in 2020. I was very scared, Trevor. I didn't feel like they were winning that game until the Cornelius Johnson touchdown. Well, and here's my thing. And that was a busted coverage. Like, oh, he knew the defensive back was going to almost fall on his ass.

Like, what are we talking about? That's what I wanted to bring up because this is a point that I've made a hundred times. There's a couple things I want to talk about. First of all, it's not very difficult to guess what you're going to run when you only run cover zero for 95% of the damn game. It's not very difficult to guess what you're gonna run when you only run cover zero for 95 of the damn game it's not that hard it's not hard to call a post a deep post shot play on a play action because your linebackers and your safeties are so close to the box like second thing i'd like to say so let's say that all the things that the rival fan bases think happened

happened and it's the biggest advantage in college football history more so than paying players more so than any other way that you know you can you can affect the football game on the field how does that information get to the players do they think this is madden where jesse mentor can be like let me hit let me hit y let me hit up on the right stick because we know know that like, how do you, like, how do you think you're, you're managing that in the chaos of those, you know, 10 to 20 seconds, if not less, because the team's going up tempo,

how do you get that information on the field? That's the thing that I'd like to know, getting 11 guys all in on it. It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. This is ball knowers versus people that don't know ball and you guys have talked to players right that are like this is insane right um when i interviewed trevor keegan i felt like he was biting his tongue a little bit but he's like look we we know what we're doing because we spend a bunch of time in the film room right and we practice this and you know that's why they felt so attacked because they knew how much hard work they were putting in to accomplish these things.

And now you're trying to pretend it's all a mirage. You know, again, why they didn't do it against Michigan State in 21 enough to win or why they didn't do it enough against TCU to win that game or why they let Maryland be close or why they ran it 30 times against Penn State when they had this massive advantage. Right. It's just it's illogical. Again, if you want to say Stallions broke this rule, and again, it's egregious and blah, blah, blah, whatever, they should be punished and they're recruiting violations. I'm fine with that. Trying to invalidate what Michigan has accomplished on the field and pretend they didn't make coaching staff changes in 2021, that getting J.J.

McCarthy, a top 10 quarterback in the nfl draft or top 10 pick in the nfl draft wasn't instrumental having all these players come back like all of those things didn't matter it was connor stallions it's just you look stupid i keep making the deflate compares deflate gate comparison you look like jets fans complaining about tom brady winning another after he won another super bowl you didn't know what the rule was anyway before like and he's just really good right and michigan it again i go back to what nfl gms say they're very very smart people they're paid a lot of money to make high level decisions and they drafted 13 of the guys that were on that field. If they thought that those guys were only successful

because they had the signals, they would never have drafted. They would have steered very clear. And in fact, actually, most of those guys were drafted above what they were slotted in, like pre-draft, right? Most of those guys, people traded up or they they drafted them early different things like that so yeah it's not like hardball people this wasn't all chargers and ravens right no a couple of course you've got ohio schools taking jenkins and zenter yes right washington who has a brand new franchise ownership everything from the

beginning taking mikeainer still. And you've got Nick Saban calling him one of the best football players he's ever seen, right? The guy they beat. And, again, like, if you've lost Paul Feinbaum, dude, you're on the wrong side. You got Paul Feinbaum defending Michigan, and you still think you're on the right side of an argument.

You're not, dude. I wanted to ask did you guys by chance get a chance to catch the ravens texans playoff game mike mcdonald's the defensive coordinator going up against cj stroud had a lot of success yeah um in the nfl where they communicate through helmets so i just i just was thinking that i don't know if you guys got a chance to see that game back in january um but you know it's like the nfl knows something well and look they're gonna have the apple ipads on the sideline this year and be able to review plays like college football has been so far behind because the ncaa is so reactive to everything this rule should have been tossed there should

have been a more modernized version there should have been helmet communication which spoiler the reason coaches kept voting against helmet communication is because they like stealing signs and they were lazy and didn't want to coach their quarterbacks to have three different plays to go to the line yeah it's just it's just so dumb so again i'm not pretending michigan's innocent in all of it it's this leap of like it's why they won that's just crazy i mean you don't i don't think you actually believe it i really don't you know no it's um i i agree with your your last sentence there of uh is michigan 100 innocent definitely not i i don't think that we're trying to argue that but the the the people that are on on social media that are a saying the hammer is coming B, saying this is worse than the Astros and the reason that they won and they should vacate all the wins,

which is not going to happen. It's all – that is why I think Michigan fans get worked up at the end of the day. And college football, maybe more so than any other sport i guess college basketball too or it's just really dirty really dirty you don't want to know how the sausage is made it's not pure it's not clean it is cutthroat and either i mean it's it's a lot different than professional sports in that regard well yeah the holding on to this amateurism model while the ncaa was capitalizing on revenue agreed as much as they could and then meanwhile other programs like look you brought up coaches you know and their jobs being on the line right these coaches are making multi-million dollars a year

it's not a coincidence that when coaches get in a hot seat situation, you see them do questionable things. Like people will sacrifice their morals and values when their certain life things are on the line, right? College football has a lot of dirty pieces to it because all we care about is wins. Now, you know, a guy look at Ryan day, the pressure he's getting with an unbelievable win percentage. He hasn't lost a big time game except to michigan right and and i think that's why i argue i think he hates the rivalry i think he hates that it

matters so much because he's like are you kidding me you're talking about me being on the hot seat because of this right look at the pressure that's put on him because he's a great coach but you can't lose to them right so are you shocked that he potentially had some role in this information getting out right of course not no because he's pissed no it just matters so much right so so we put people in these positions man all right so we started this podcast talking about fall camp talking about how good michigan's defense is going to be going into the season um they're obviously going to have a target on their backs there's no doubt about that they're also going to be watched closer than anybody has ever been watched right so there let me say this there is zero percent chance that they

can get away with anything like sign stealing or anything this year. Can we all agree with that? I mean, I think that was the case after everything came out last year. I agree. That was the case for the last three to five games, right? What happens if Michigan goes out, and even though Vegas has them at 9-3, even though a lot of people are questioning the offense, I think including some of us just because there are a bunch of new faces

on new starters. What happens if Michigan goes out and wins everything again? I'm not saying they're going to go 12-0. What if they go 10-2 back to the playoff, beat Ohio State again? I'm more so asking the Ohio State fans and asking everybody that's going against, against Michigan and all this. I think that happened already last year.

And then we saw kind of what happened, right. Where like they all wanted Ryan day fired until the stuff came out. Right. Even following 2022. Right. There was so much pressure on him in 23. And then the stuff starts to come out and then they pretend that, oh, you actually won those games, right? That this wasn't your fault.

And oh, CJ Stroud got robbed. And we saw them blaming injuries on Michigan and just ludicrous stuff like that. I know a lot of people really hate the way those things came down at the end of the year in terms of the suspension of Harbaugh and the public pressure and all of that but in a weird way it was kind of a gift to Michigan because they won right right had they lost that Ohio State game last year they were playing for their entire three-year legacy in that game exactly even in the I argue in the Penn State game honestly yeah the first one Harbaugh not there sometimes a lot of people I've gone back and forth with this i almost feel that the penn state game was more on the line made had the legacy on the line than the ohio state game because it was just so in the moment it was so in the moment i i think nationally or in the moment like you're saying for sure but in terms of

the interaction with our biggest rival i think it was bigger obviously um and when it first happened i think there was some acceptance and look twitter's not the best representation of the real world i think we all know that right but there were even people on twitter and there still are some ohio state fans are like dude they beat us again like you can't say anything that all these eyeballs on them our ball isn't there's inter got hurt well johnson got hurt like Will Johnson got hurt. We're still making excuses. It just looks dumb at this point. Some people accepted that, right? To your point going into this

year, I've been arguing. I think Michigan's playing with house money this year because you have people saying, oh yeah, you guys are going to suck this year. You've lost all these people and you have this coach turnover. It's funny how they try to play both sides of it. But also if you're bad this year, it means it was because of stallions.

Well, which is it? Did we lose all our good players and we lost our coaches that were the reason players were getting developed? Or is it because of stallions? I need you to choose now, which it is. Right. If they beat Ohio state this year, it'll be the worst loss for ryan day because this is their

nadir this is their nadir bust year the michigan temple all these players coming back transfer portal additions it's at home you've got players at big 10 media days saying michigan has less talent than us right like that stuff's trickling down okay buying into the same excuses you've been making you have to win this game this year. I think that's a foregone conclusion, that Ryan Day, it's the most must-win, can't-lose game of his career. Maybe the most must-win, can't-lose game of the rivalry. I don't know how long.

I think the bigger question for me is just not how ohio state fans will think about ryan day because i think they're done yeah how do they think what do they think about michigan can they i don't know a lot of them can't process that michigan might be actually good but maybe their their pea brains can think a little bit to the fact that oh shit maybe they're really fucking good yeah i don't know i don't know if it'll be enough to win them over because look before stallions it was the snow right and then it was only five or six big plays right and even what ryan day look i just talked about this a little bit ago about how the head coach and that trickles down to the entire staff in terms of attitude, mood.

It works with the fan base too. Ryan Day has been making excuses. Oh, we were only a play away. We only had one bad half. Not owning it. Even saying in that interview, we should have beat Michigan last year. We talked about that. They never led.

They had on ES espn i think they yeah in the first quarter it was the first quarter it was michigan's fourth down punt and then ohio state got the ball and threw the interception to will johnson it was the only time they had the win probability in their favor it was 55 the one thing i want to mention is you know everybody talks about how do you say you should at least say, sorry, Tanner, before you go into this, you can at least, which I do think he's probably in some interviews acknowledge, but it never is. Michigan was that the bigger narrative was never Michigan was the better team or Michigan at least is a very, very good football team. That's never the narrative. Credit to Nick Saban and the way he handled it, right?

Yeah, because Nick Saban is a professional, and he knows how to – for a guy that doesn't lose very often, he knows how to lose, right? And look, in close games, I get it, right? Like 2016, we still talk about JT was short, right? That exists in those moments and then look we had turnovers in the red zone twice and he peppers misses the tackle on the third long like we know there's other moments but in close games it's like man is it really frustrating to have a play that

close not go your way right but when you lost like you know 22 points one year like come on man yeah you know all right so the one thing i wanted to bring up is you know everybody talks about how good ohio state is and they're loaded with with some of the transfers and to a certain extent i do agree um but my question is do people realize that their quarterback situation is probably the worst that it's been since 2011? Like, honestly, I don't know if people realize that Will Howard got beat out at Kansas State. And if he was still at Kansas State, would not be the starter. Their offensive line also is not that impressive. I don't know if that Alabama transfer is going to make a huge difference.

I didn't think he was that great, even aside from the snapping issues. I just didn't think he was that impressive. I don't know if that Alabama transfer is going to make a huge difference. I didn't think he was that great. Even aside from the snapping issues, I just didn't think he was that great. So I feel like the national media is like, oh, yeah, they're number two in the coaches' pool. It's Ohio State. They're going to run through. Jeremiah Smith is Marvin Harrison Jr., which is just a preposterous thing and very disrespectful to even say.

Marvin Harrison Jr. is one of the best college football players that I've personally ever seen in person that I've seen over the last decade. What are we talking about? What are we talking about? Have you looked at his recruiting rankings, Justin? That's what's important. Yeah. Again, let's go back to NFL GMs think he's really fucking good.

Yeah. Well, and like I was saying with the comment from, I don't remember which player it was for. I was saying, you know, it doesn't even matter about the less talent. They believe in their recruiting rankings. They still don't get it. And when Roman Wilson made his comments and you had an Ohio state position coach posting his stats, it's like, you don't get it. They're tougher. They're physical. They wanted it more.

Like that's what this is you're still talking about recruiting rankings they don't get penalized they win turnover battle they took and this is why some ohio state fans were right at ryan day michigan went for it on fourth down three times got it all three ohio state took no chances you even added 22 stroud being like dude let's go for it right so anyway um no to your point i think kyle mccord getting the amount of hate he did is absolutely insane to me agreed you would be so much better off with kyle mccord in year two in your system than you would be bringing in will howard all right you're on you're on my boat because i've had that hot take hot i don't know how hot it is to be honest well and to tanner's

point like maybe look the overton window has moved for you guys because cj stroud to your point about marvin i think cj stroud might be the best college quarterback i've ever seen dude right i mean when you talk about all my knocks on him we're completely about like how he looked sad on the sideline that's all we had right that's all we had his pocket presence his touch i mean even the sideline throws that that dude would have. He's incredible. Even when we beat him, he was still probably one of the best players on the field. You know?

Yeah, well, Michigan's adjustment, the Don Brown hate versus the new defense was, we're going to let you move between the 20s because we know once we get in the red zone, we get an extra defender with the back of the end zone, and we think that's was we're going to let you move between the twenties because we know once we get in the red zone, we get an extra defender with the back of the end zone. And we think that's where we're going. Is that because they're soft and can't run the ball? So. It's a good question. Yeah.

Well, no. Okay. That point in the back to the, what did you say? Where did we start with the players? Oh, why Ohio state? So good. Yeah. I'm with you.

Will Howard is, and I don't mean this is a shot at kade mcnamara okay but he is what to kansas state kade mcnamara and then they have their jj now right for iowa getting somebody like kate is a great addition for ohio state who's had cj shroud justin fields duane haskins jt barrett brexton miller before he moved over like this incredible run of quarterbacks and props to them for adding staying and not losing nolan and like devin brown is still there i don't know how they kept that room together one of those guys is gone after this year yeah once the season goes on but props to them but if if will howard struggles and you've got that loaded of a qb room so somebody's gonna be called for by fans they're gonna want to make a change to somebody

right and look he might i'm not saying will howard's a terrible quarterback but no that's your point is he enough from a national championship standpoint when they have questions on the o-line and yes more, more five-star wide receivers. I get it. But you don't know if he's Julian Fleming or Marvin Harrison. You haven't seen it yet, right? I think that question is fair. And yes, the softness thing.

Look, these guys are strong. They work hard. They're football players. They would whoop my ass by looking at me. I'm not calling them soft but when you have to dig deep in those last moments right and find that last little bit of energy marvin harrison pulled up on both of those interceptions i don't care what anybody says it's clear as day on the film right and and when you get hit when you're treyvion Henderson, and you're taking those pushbacks, and to Ohio State's credit,

when they had that 12-play drive to make it 17-17. That was a big boy drive. That was a Michigan drive. That's how Michigan has beat them the last couple years. I'm like, they're going to win this football game. He's sticking with the run. And then they come back, and Zinter gets hurt, and the mood in the stadium changes, and they surround him and support him.

And on the very next play, Trevor Keegan nails his block. Everybody nails their block. A.J. Barter gets to the second level, nails a block. Blake Corham scores. That place goes nuts. Momentum is completely shifted. I have chills right now. Oh, my God.

Three and out on the Ohio State drive coming up, including Quinton Johnson absolutely laying Ibuka out. And you looked at the sideline and you saw the defeat. You saw him. And when they had to shut Michigan down again with an eight minutes left in the clock, they gave up seven minute drive. Right. And this game, this one right here, 2021, when they got frustrated and pulled roman's helmet off

and michigan was there ready to bark and they scored and you saw them like they're they brought crap you know and and maybe it's the mindset trevor keegan's talked about that forever they talked about we can beat ohio state yeah it was the simplest thing we will beat them maybe maybe it's that simple i don't know but i it's you know it's definitely not that simple right we i'm but it's like there there it is it's there is something to that and i feel when i watch those two teams you know it's just it's a complete flip-flop from what this game was back in 2017 and 2019 where it was obvious to me even as a michigan fan that we didn't have the edge we needed we didn't have the confidence we didn't feel that truly down deep if you were if

you were to put those guys on a lie detector test we didn't feel that we could beat that that ohio state program those those guys and and you know again I wasn't on the team. I didn't go through practice. I didn't go through weights at 6.00 AM and January. So I'm not going to knock anybody for, you know, not working hard enough or not, you know, blah, blah, blah. But that is like the weird group slash great thing about sports is that you can see that and you can feel and momentum is a real thing and the edge and that that is yeah i hate when people say clutch isn't real i've watched sports in my

entire life that the same guy shows up at the same time clutch is real man yeah exactly well and oh sorry i just wanted to say when i when i to your point like when I say soft, I don't mean Donovan Jackson is a soft individual. He's going to play in the NFL for 12 plus years and make a percent a hundred plus million dollars. And Josh Simmons is going to play in the NFL and all these guys, I'm not saying that they're soft. I think it comes from to your point about this whole broader conversation is that it's from top down. Yes. That is soft. It's, it's soft. It's a game planning thing.

It's a mindset. It's a mentality that on fourth and one against Notre Dame, you're running a jet sweep. Yeah. That's the program right now for Ohio State. It's a seven-on-seven program. I also think it's a lack of sincerity. Okay, so to Justin's point, this rivalry completely flipped on its head.

The reason Ohio State had such a home run with Urban Meyer was you had not only this elite football coach, you had a guy that was literally born into this rivalry and understood it, right? And him and Harbaugh being in the same hospital, like, days apart or whatever, like, it's a cool story, right? I'm not saying you have to be a Michigan man or or an ohio state whatever to to be a part of this rivalry you can learn it right sharon more absolutely gets this rivalry in the six years he's been here right but for ryan day when he says team up north it doesn't feel i don't i think he says it because he thinks he has to right right it's not it's just not real to him it felt like it even though Brady Hoke was born into – like he's a part of it. You need to be both.

You also need to be a really great coach and not get over your head. Exactly. But still, sometimes it felt like the Ohio stuff was forced, and we were doing that to – like even though he, I think, probably felt it down deep, I feel like he was trying to, like, manifest something, right? We had lost our identity with rich rod and we wanted somebody to come in and tell us what we wanted to hear which was we're still michigan yeah like and that's what it was he was hired to do that that is exactly ego couldn't hire harbaugh in the first place but yeah that is exactly what

ryan day feels like right now. And I think you said it. That's where I'm like, I love Sharon Moore as my guy because I feel he gets it down deep. He knows exactly what it takes to win this game. And I'm not just saying that just because he just went 1-0, and he actually showed more nuts in that game than Ryan Day has in his entire career. But I listen to him i watch him

i i i watch him interact with his players he gets this he absolutely gets this and he said we think about them 24 7 365 he meant that he absolutely that's that's genuine and that's what and that's the difference tanner in that game i think what you're trying to describe, it's not the soft thing, but like Justin said to the movie, the weights in January, in that game, they're thinking about everything they've been doing for 365 days to get ready for this game. It's in the fourth quarter. Are we really going to let this slip away? We've been working all year for this and you got to dig deep to pull that out.

And when you're in practice at Ohio out and when you're up in practice at ohio state and having them dress up in michigan jerseys if that's not actually pulling out real hate it's a gimmick right just like when rich rod took the wings off the hell man some of the stuff that he did it has to be real that's the difference between a successful head coach you know look at the lions the difference between patricia and dan campbell it's sincerity it's buy-in from the players it's real it's it's a real toughness that's built up over time i mean you saw it probably for the first time in that penn state interview with blake quorum that that is with with cheryl moore and blake

quorum where where cheryl's crying and he says i fucking love you man and he says it and he's and he's bringing blake these guys they were playing like their actual lives were on the line it's got a military element to it yeah and that that it is and that's where urban meyer was like dude if you don dude, if you wouldn't die for this, you need to get out of this room right now. You don't deserve it to be in this building. And that's where I'll say the Swap Kings documentary gave a great insight. The one thing it did really well was give an insight to how much of a lunatic Urban Meyer is.

Which is why he works in college and not an nfl right things that they were doing those mat drills he brought that all to ohio state and that's i mean that does have a military element to it um but you could see the way that he can kind of get his guys on the same page and get them riled up to focus on one thing and at ohio state that was beating michigan it's the reason he didn't lose to michigan i hate to say it but the guy's a hell of a football coach and we'll get his guys ready to go in addition to being an elite coach and a great recruiter like that's what you have to have and to your point day is just lacking that he would say stuff too like every week my coordinator comes to me and tells me who my 11 best players are that week if five of them are wide receivers

then that's what we're doing right like just little stuff like that which again i i struggle to hate ryan day i do like him a lot as a person some of the things he does and talks about when it comes to mental health especially um but just from a pure football standpoint if mike vrabel got that job i'm scared dude he's their hardball like i it's you're getting back into that vibe of a guy that I think would really fit that program well. Here's the good thing. He doesn't want to do it. Right. Look, Ryan Day might be able to go to USC and win a Natty or a Texas or somewhere like that where it's just a different environment in terms of expectations.

Ohio State, Michigan, Notre Dame, some of these programs where, look, we all hate each other because, frankly, we're very similar. Let's be honest, right? We ask something extra of our coaches. And other programs, too. Texas is one, and that's why they've struggled for a while to try and figure things out, too. And even Notre Dame, maybe it's not a Notre Dame guy, but it's an Ohio State guy that's your head coach. You can kind of relate to a similar situation, right? If you don't truly believe it and love it your players

are gonna feel the same way you can't hide it you can't fake it man so well well we'll we'll find out i it's crazy because it's i mean it feels like it's november 5th and not august 5th right now it truly does i'm fired up Dude, same. I know we've been going for a long time, but one question I got to ask on this, because now you've got the potential of the rematch in the Big Ten championship game and then the playoff, right? I mean, there's a scenario

where Ohio State loses to Michigan, they won't care one bit, right? Like, if you're in that scenario, like, so, I was playing college football 25 i beat ohio state regular season beat them rematch in the big 10 and i lost to him in the playoff and i thought you know what i would be sick and i in ohio state fans would say how we won when it mattered we don't care about those other two and they would mean it and they'd be right you know so like

that devaluing of the game at the end of the regular season it's kind of a bummer man it is a bummer it is a bummer but i i don't know i i'm trying to think about like i'm trying to like put myself in that situation and i think twitter would be the most insane place the michigan ohio i still think that's going to be rare yeah if you have 18 teams like the odds of an oregon or somebody else only having one loss and being able to get into that it's like i think that's going to be rare. Yeah. If you have 18 teams, like the odds of an Oregon or somebody else only having one loss and being able to get into that. It's like, I think that situation is going to try to avoid rematches too. Right.

So yeah. Potentially in the playoff. Yeah. Although college football 25 does not. Cause I saw it was like, dude, the SIM engine, the SIM engine,

but it was like, it was like, I think it was Oregon, UCLA played the, the winner of that would have played like Washington or something. And I was like, come on, think it was oregon ucla played the um the winner that would have played like washington or something and i was like come on bro like they have a lot of yeah there's some there's some issues with the game but i'm still having a hell of a time on it that's a lot of time here until we're 26 days away as we record this from the home opener against

fresno state man i cannot wait you boys got me fired up tonight. Which a fun fact that we put out on Twitter this morning as well is, we're 26 days away from the opener. Ohio State is 26 points away from hanging 100 points on Michigan. I don't think they get there. I don't think they get there either. Oh, that's a good hot take. I like that a lot. I like that.

I like that a lot. We have the two best players in the country on one side of the ball, and that side of the ball is defense. I'm taking Mason Graham and Will Johnson over anybody in the country. Yep. I agree with you. I agree with you. So, if you can't tell that we're ready for football season, it is.

Look at our backgrounds, dude. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. We are ready. So, Trevor, thank you so much for joining us um we could we probably if we if we didn't move it along we could have just talked on each topic for an hour alone um so i i'm glad that we could figure that out for the listeners yeah so we still went really

long and i bet we could go another five hours with this for sure exactly i can't wait to see you guys in ann arbor and uh absolutely buddy have to have some beverages and get into football season man it's exciting absolutely can't wait can't wait to have a north peak uh hail ipa on game day uh and a blue by 90 beer i would like to have a hard cider justin but i got yelled at by an ohio state fan for liking girly drinks yeah sorry i like bourbon i drink bourbon straight but i can't enjoy blake's hard cider no chance that ohio state fan has ever had a high noon or a white claw right no chance sorry man i like i like fruity things but i'll also sip on some you know some double oak well you're you're okay with your sexuality where that guy's from.

Trevor, go ahead and tell people where they can find you. Yeah, absolutely. So on Twitter at Trevor McHugh, M-C-C-U-E. And then, yeah, Michigan Rivals, michigan.rivals.com, Mesa Blue Review. We're part of the Rivals Network. We are running a 75% off promo right promo right now too for your entire first year uh promo details are on the website as well as my twitter account um now is obviously a really really really good time to sign up with so this noa intel and then fall camp and got me a basketball

roster today we're getting into it man school's back and a lot of stuff going on with sports students are back the energy's in ann arbor man we talked. The students come back. The energy just gets amped up a little bit. We're doing normal adult shit and you're just walking and they're playing beer pong in the front lawn at 1.30 in the afternoon. I'm jealous and I'm envious. We're old and washed

up and we can just live vicariously through them. I've got my boy Shotgun Waddy to lift your stuff. That's true. He does. Shout out W've got my boy shotgun waddy to lift your stuff that's true he does shout out waddy um i feel like i'm gonna jump out and like get a celeb shot in i need to like do that every so often to just let you know i got a red light let's just yeah hey ball me let me let me get in there real quick yeah dude i suck now so i like i know that's the thing where i was like oh beer pong let's go and i'm like oh god oh you should see me play flip cup

at the tailgates i get just just terrorized by our friend kaylee she just roasts me because i'm so ass at it yeah it is shocking how bad you are like it's not a hard game but when it comes to the beer bong undefeated never lost shout out to lavar ball i'm you can't touch me on that where it matters you know hey there you go there you go all right uh you and i should do a 1v1 flip cup and it'll take an hour yeah yeah we'll miss the we'll miss the kickoff everybody just leaves and we're like damn it damn it oh gosh all right so go subscribe to trevor at maize and blue review um they have great stuff over there uh and for us you can follow us at blue by 90 on twitter instagram facebook and blue by 90 podcast

on youtube and blue by 90.com we appreciate you go blue go blue