Blue By Ninety - Wolverines sink the Gophers’ boat

Episode Date: October 26, 2020

UNDEFEATED! Michigan moves to 1-0 on the season, Joe Milton is the Heisman favorite (in our minds), Harbaugh gets a huge road W, and more. Listen to the boys' post game reaction to a great week 1 in the big ten. Crack a beer and enjoy the show. 

This is the University of Michigan. Touchdown, Michigan! That's the mix of Michigan law! And they've caught extra pass. And it goes for the win! The three-pointer by Jordan Poole! Down the sideline! Peebles jumps!

Touchdown, Wolverines! Welcome back to Blue by 90. I'm here with Jack and Kalen. And boys, it is Victory Sunday. Holy shit, does it feel good to say that. Victory Sunday, gotta love it. I can't remember my song, so we're going we're gonna we're gonna plug that in later but i'm feeling good i'm feeling good man feeling good it's great to wake up on sunday with a victory no hangover well hydrated lions are playing at one o'clock it's a good day to be alive boys it's i mean that was one of the most fun games fun michigan games i've

watched in a really long time that offense was electric we put up 49 points first of all the first quarter was electric both ways there was so much shit happening like literally every second it was unreal right rough rough start, but they came back no problem. Something that would have happened last year. We would have been fucked. I mean, game over. Dude, that first quarter, I felt like, took two hours. Yeah.

I looked down, and I was like, there was still, like, four minutes left in the first quarter. I was like, the score was, I think, 21 to 10 or something. It was wild. There were so many points scored, and I was like the score was I think 21 to 10 or something it was wild there were so many points scored and it was back and forth and I will say let's start it off with how the game started because that's you know let's take a look back at previous years against Wisconsin against Penn State against Ohio State obviously like when Michigan on the road against a good team goes down early they've crumbled always really just thrown in the bag it hasn't gone well for them but blocked punt touchdown right after that for Minnesota and then Michigan on the next possession

first play Zach Charbonnet 70 yards burning down the field holy shit that felt good for them to bounce right back dude he looks good I didn't realize how quick he was I mean he got through that hole I mean he didn't he didn't get touched the whole line just fucking part of the Red Sea and he was gone 70 yards blazing down the field Benjamin St. Just looked slow as shit it was great that did that did feel good to watch him just trying to catch charbonnet after he was talking shit all week i think it was it's all in good fun it was all in good fun for sure but still it's it's kind of like huh all right and zach yeah jack you're right zach looked fast right and that knee i mean whatever was

bothering him you know last year you could tell that was like totally eradicated. Right. I was like, wow, do Charbonnet looks quick, big, strong, like everything, every good adjective you can pull out. That's him. I love that. Yeah. I mean, we can go right into the running back room in general i mean did you okay how about this well i let's give a shout out to nate as well going back he was talking up blake coram for so long and we're like you know i don't know about you guys but me in particular i'm like dude we already have three studs in this in this There's no way Blake Corham even gets a look. And then they come out, first play, he's the starter. I was like, what is Josh Gaddis doing?

Dude, shouts out to our old co-host, Nate, right? I mean, the guy, if he's not on this podcast, he's like a college scout at this point right i mean he's called joe milton he's called blake quorum i should call him up and ask him who's in eighth grade that we need to start recruiting dude 100 and you're talking about um quorum making that first play and i remember we were talking to uh clayton what two weeks ago and we're like yeah it's coach speak no way Corum gets in there it'll be like you know those three guys will get in but no way Corum's gonna see it Corum had significant

playing time last night not only on special teams but out of the backfield lined up at receiver he there's a lot of young guys that played and it was great to see yeah in regards to that um first possession too um even though they kind of went like three or four and out, however you want to phrase it. I still felt like the command at the quarterback position from Joe Milton was so there was so much poise that I felt like supremely confident in our offense from the jump almost, you know, from that one pass to Blake Corum. And after that moment, I was like, okay, Joe's the guy. Like, this is amazing. It seems like the team rallied around and they just feel, they looked very comfortable with him at, at the quarterback position.

How much does that go into the potential success of this team moving forward where how does the team get how does the defense game plan against this offense when you don't know who's going to get the ball eight different guys had carries for Michigan yesterday yeah I mean you mentioned all those guys who had carries you mentioned all the guys who got targeted um just by Joe Milton I mean they're spreading the ball all over the field. And now with Joe Milton showing last night that he's not afraid to run the ball, literally anybody could get the ball at this point. And it's so hard for defenses to plan for that. Kalen, I mean, what do you think,

who do you think out of those young guys was the most exciting? Who was your biggest surprise last night? Oh man, my biggest surprise, honestly, this is kind of might be a weird one but i thought i was very surprised to see roman wilson on the i think that's his name right roman yeah yeah yeah i was surprised to see him on the field just because i was like okay like he's a recruit maybe i'll see him in a year or two but i mean there he was and making you know getting the ball. That was very surprising to me. And he looked fast. He looked agile. Fuck, bro. So I was like, oh, my gosh.

Right. And then some of those other young guys like A.J. Henning. A.J. Henning got in. Yeah. So, I mean, I love seeing those young receivers get out there. And maybe this is kind of Gattis going like, look, we have to get these guys on the field, out in space, making plays. That's why we brought them here. And so if that's him, if that's Jim, whoever's saying that, I'm like, thank you.

Another thing with that, too, I think that you brought up a really good point. With that new transfer rule, there may be like, shit, if we don't get these guys playing time early, we might lose them. But it worked out well. It's not like we were sacrificing anything putting these guys in there i mean they looked good they looked ready which is very encouraging to see moving forward yeah it's kind of wild too after losing nico collins you know you thought that receiver group would take a step back at least not at all but now it's like it's oh it's overcrowded like how how would how would we even fit Nico Collins into this offense obviously we would because he's that good and we'd make him but you know we'd make plays for him but it's insane that

this many guys are getting plays getting passes thrown their way and our top guy isn't even in the mix dude you know it's kind of crazy and i might get killed for this but do you think i'm not gonna say do you think could you imagine nico collins possibly getting moved to like tight end because he's built kind of like eric all and eric all plays nice in that in that position i mean nico's a big physical guy. Can you imagine both those guys' bookends on the line as tight ends with all those fast guys out wide? It would be unbelievable.

Unbelievable. Joe's got six different options there, and they're all good options. Dude. But I still – I don't think you'd get killed for that. It's an interesting know maybe like a couple times maybe not even line him up at tight end but a stand-up like guy that's on the line or something you know inside um so that he's matched up on a linebacker or something he can beat him but i also would have loved to see him just mossing those you know oh yeah juice and and all those

those d-backs the little corners they had we also that would have been awesome we also got to see that and this is where i had a lot of question marks and i stand 100 corrected right guys like eric all right out there i i just didn't really you know we saw him last year a little bit but i mean i other than that i didn't really know anything about him he was making some plays right he was out there getting matched up in good matchups favorable to us i mean the kids what like six six 245 they said six i think maybe six seven six eight i mean so he's a big dude but he also looks super athletic for being that big. Yeah, and he's put on a little bit of muscle, kind of filled out a little bit. He looks, like, ready now.

But also, Mikey Samuelsville, he had a nice little catch on the sideline. Milton throws a dart right on the sideline, gets a foot down, falls out of bounds. I didn't think that he was going to get his hands up for that. That thing was whistling. That was a missile. Rocket. was whistling. That was a missile rocket. Yeah. I think what didn't Joe have in the first possession, a pass to Giles that was dropped and it was moving pretty quick across the field.

A little bit behind them, a little behind them, but yeah, it looks like they were hitting a lot of slants over the middle. Not too many deep passes, but they look good. I mean, if they're able to move the ball like that down the field I'm happy with whatever so so let's talk about I mean god we've talked about him for six months now let's talk about what we saw in Joe Milton and are you guys impressed were you surprised is there any you know reason for concern I I felt I'll give my little tidbit here before I I ask you guys I felt like he didn't make any wow plays but he managed that game really really well yeah I mean you nailed it that's that's what I was talking to Kaylin about before

we jumped on. I mean, he met, he was a really good game manager. He made the right reads. I'd say 99% of the time where, you know, he's not trying to force a ball deep. He checks it down either to a guy, uh, five yards out, or he takes it and runs it himself. So I think no, him playing as a game manager does not upset me at all because we know he has talent. We know what he can do if we need him to do it. But if he doesn't, if he doesn't need to do it, no need to force it. Just take the easy play, take the smart play. And honestly, I think it was kind of encouraging to see that, to see that he could be a game manager and just make the smart play 99 99 of the time yeah i i was actually very impressed because coming into

the season um there was so much talk about or coming out of last season i should say there was so much talk about joe milton's accuracy and his decision making and so those were huge question marks despite the fact that coming into this season we heard that he had improved um you know a lot of it for us we hadn't seen any of that uh we saw him as you know throwing up huge jump balls to nico against ohio state so when i got to see him actually in the game like being accurate and making good decisions and making reads that looked really good to me that was really impressive and that's that speaks very highly to how serious joe milton took his prep and where he can take his skills from there so i don't really want to call him a game manager because my real hope is that he can

become a game changer and then that will lead michigan towards beating ohio state that was a great line that was a really good line there love that i i actually love that i honestly because i think that you know his stats don't jump out at you he only had 225 yards passing and one touchdown and i did say that i thought that he was gonna have more rushing touchdowns than than passing he had one in one so that's i mean that's pretty close i would say than most people expected we'll take it we'll take it yeah we'll take that he he honestly should have had another rushing touchdown but he got caught on a corner one right before i thought he had it man i know i will say he around that corner as soon as he hit the corner he put on

the burners that was the first time i had seen him like actually go into full speed and he looked fast dude honestly i was thinking i was like man if he would have kind of just slowed down a little bit and was able to put a little stiff arm on him maybe he would have been able to to get past him and get the touchdown but that i mean yeah he was moving he he when he started accelerating i was like oh shit he's gone i was like, oh shit, he's gone. I was like, he's pretty fast. Yeah. He can move a little bit. I think that, you know, I'm excited to see him, which is, this is not something to be excited about, but if he does get into trouble, cause he was super comfortable in the pocket all day yesterday. And so if he does get into trouble, I'm pretty excited to see what he can do in a scramble,

you know, moving around especially with our fast guys our fast receivers out there they're gonna find pockets they're gonna move with them i'm sure they've practiced the scramble drill and everything um i would have loved to see them actually get him on some bootlegs or you know get him moving outside of the pocket and see what happens there but they didn't do it a whole lot but I am excited to see that sometime in the future have you I never saw Shea Patterson feel that comfortable in the pocket as Joe Milton did yesterday which is incredible to see in his debut you know on the road against a pretty good team yeah I mean we always saw Shea happy feet Patterson you know jumping around you know never really able to sit there comfortably and man the our o-line last year was good and I

I'll save this I'm sure we'll jump into it but it could be something to say about this year's o-line I mean I'm sure a lot of it has to do with Milton being more comfortable being a little bit taller he can see the field a little bit better you know but he did look very very comfortable I dare anybody to put even a highlight together of Shea's full season at Michigan last year to see if he looked as comfortable for that much amount of time through the way Joe Milton did last night yeah I think Jim harbaugh's choice comments were cool as a cucumber right yeah yeah he i mean he obviously has swagger to him but i felt like he kind of that that was coming off of him onto the rest of the offense right it was the swagger the calm the collectiveness it was everyone was on the same page everyone felt like super confident in what they were doing

and it just looked easy for them did it not look especially you know I just talked about this on the stadium and main podcast with Michael Spath and we talked about how when they got into the red zone it was essentially a foregone conclusion that they were going to score you know obviously they had some field goal trouble but out of of, you know, how many times, six, seven touchdowns, right? And they were, whenever they got down there, it was pound the rock and, you know, not making mistakes. But it was, it was very, very easy for them to get in the end zone, which has not gone well for Michigan in the past. I, we've had, you know had red zone problems all the time. We'd get down there and then sputter and field goal, field goal.

And so that was very encouraging to see. And it was just kind of wild to see how easy they made it look. Yeah, I know that was a question mark. At least when I was watching the game last year, I'd be like, oh, shit, they're in the red zone zone can they actually get into the end zone and last last night just like you said justin i mean it wasn't even a question where it's like all right they're gonna get in the end zone but is milton gonna run it is milton gonna pass it is he gonna hand it off and they're gonna get in how are they gonna score it's not are they gonna score it's how are they

going to do it and i mean as a fan just feeling that level of confidence in your team is, man, I've just got I'm so excited for the rest of the season. I'm trying not to do this to myself. I know. I know, man. It just felt so good. But I mean, and I love it, too, because from our perspective, we're going like I have I don't even know what kind of play they're going to run at this point. Right. So I have to assume that the opposing team's defense is guessing a little bit as well.

I mean, they obviously have more information, personnel regarding blah, blah, blah. But, I mean, when you have that many weapons, like, Groh, you have already said, the other team's going like, okay, we're prepared for maybe four guys, but now they've got six out here. Guys, do the best you can, you know? Yeah. Basically, I mean, if you think about it, how many going forward, seven more games, how many new formations are they going to come out with?

And not even new formations, but also new guys in the same formations, which looks different to the defense, right? And so, I don't know i i was very impressed by the creativity of josh gaddis i was very impressed by his use of ben mason as well i thought i thought okay we've got speed and space we've got this up-tempo offense how do you fit in ben mason a fullback slash tight end into this he was used all over the place they were doing trap blocks on the inside he was clearing off people he was blocking people into the freaking stands he might still be blocking that guy honestly i feel like he's he's you know some

somewhere in some farm town in minnesota still blocking it back wait so he didn't he get an unsportsmanlike for that he did yeah yeah now i my question is how is that different than i think the stardust last year it was spinelis spinelis against notre dame against notre dame what i think the game was i think the play was still happening um when spinelis was doing it against notre dame where with this one it was like he was kind of passing uh a qu, I believe, as he went down. And he was just like, you know what? Fuck this guy.

I'm going to take him for a ride. So I think that was a little bit of a difference. But, oh, well, set the tone, man. I love to see it. I don't expect anything different from Ben Mason. And, Ro, I'm glad you brought that up because I think Ben Mason was used perfectly. He was. Perfectly.

Don't hand him the ball. Just let him go out there, be the mean fucking dude that he is, and clear a path for the running backs. And with that all aligned, if they can play as well as they did last night, and Ben Mason can be utilized just like that, my confidence level is going to continue to rise. Dude, Andy had a receiving touchdown. Yeah.

If you would have told me, oh, yeah, and Mason's going to have a passing touchdown or a receiving touchdown, I would have been like, why? Why would we do that? But it was a great play call. Yeah. Great play call. Yeah.

Another thing that Josh Gaddis did I kind of want to mention is a lot of pre-snap motion was one thing I noticed where I was going like, wow, they are moving guys all over the field. Like what is going on? But I loved it. That is a great point. That is a great point. I think that it looked like this offense had been together for 10 years. Honestly, it did not look like this was a brand new offense with a ton of new guys. It looked polished. Have you seen a more prepared Michigan team? We, I feel like, you know, we've had veteran teams in 2018, 2016 that have come out and looked like shit. Sometimes they look like they, they don't know they don't know what's going on.

This team, brand new, brand new leader, brand new offense. It's only year two of Gattis, so I kind of assume there would be some growing pain still. They looked like they had been practicing this stuff, and they have for a long time. But my God, they looked polished. Go ahead, Cameron. a long time but my god they looked polished they looked like a go ahead cam i was gonna say do you think that the layoff due to covet 19 has resulted in them being able to really have a thorough understanding of the playbook so that they show up week one with maybe like all these additional plays and deeper understanding yeah i mean think about it this way they've had two basically two additional

months to look at the playbook get every get all the new guys comfortable which probably played a huge part in getting them in the game last night but i mean like you guys just said it looked like a completely different michigan offense than we've seen in our recent lifetime i mean they looked comfortable they went down the field every the Did you guys notice there weren't that many penalties? I mean, normally we see like a shit ton of penalties on the Michigan offense. They played clean, not a lot of penalties. They looked smooth, looked comfortable the entire game. I mean, there's definitely been a change and it's been for the positive for sure. actually do think that missing spring practice almost was a benefit to them because they were only on zoom only going over the playbook and stuff so they weren't able to you know get in there and actually and do drills and things like that but it's benefited them because everybody looked like they knew exactly where they were the timing was always great and all that and you know a big part of that, you know,

a group that I think benefited from that most was the offensive line. Holy smokes. They looked like they were pushing people around. Every block was crisp and clean. Ed Warner, God, there should be a contract on his fucking desk this morning with a blank check. Whatever you want, dude, you're here. You're here for life, man.

Agreed. Ed Warner, for sure. Give him that blank check. Josh Gaddis, same thing. Lock him down, man. I mean, they're playing well. Reward your guys while they're still here. Don't even give them the opportunity to leave.

Yeah, dude, Warner, I i mean he's killing it so i love it yeah i i am a bit worried that people are gonna come try and poach one of those guys or both of them gaddis i bet you has some head coaching opportunities after this year if this keeps up um you know but you i don't know you gotta you gotta do what you can to keep them around so um yeah i think money talks might as well might as well pay him i mean we saw it in 2015 2016 right dj durkin gone um who was the guy who went to ucla the offensive coordinator oh coach fish or qb coach yep jed fish he he left i mean there's been countless guys that have done so well at michigan and and left where i mean harbott has a great job bringing these guys in but man if we don't have consistency there especially with the good guys and we can't lock them down i mean it's like we're starting over almost every year

yeah i i it's it's like i want him to do well but not too well right you know all of a sudden if we're scoring 49 points a game oh god somebody's coming in and offering josh gaddis a head coaching job that's you know for sure so um i actually this was this was something that i talked about with uh some people michigan state should have went after josh gaddis for their head coaching job yeah why not why not try that offense i've never seen anything worse than what their offense looked like yesterday honestly god honestly i didn't watch a lot of the game i was kind of following along on social media but uh not to praise sparty here rocky lombardi for any reason but if you would have looked at just the game stats for rocky lombardi and take the picks away we'll

take the picks out of there only seven of them only all seven of the picks but he went like 31 of 40 something for 300 some yards i mean he threw for 300. That is one thing. Yeah, I did watch some of the highlights this morning from that game. And one thing that definitely stuck out to me about Michigan State is, like, that is the epitome of we beat ourselves, right? Yeah. So that does, I mean, we can talk about it later on in the week, but if Sparty cleans some of that up, do you think there would be any potential for them to even have a chance to compete?

Always. Rivalry week, man. Exactly. You never know what's going to happen. Never know what's going to happen. Seven turnovers is crazy. So you're never going to win a game. And the fact that they were even within what 11 points or whatever it

was like with seven turnovers that's that's craziness um yeah i mean with seven turnovers you're not only shooting yourself in the foot you're cutting your legs off and your arm here it's rolling around there like you can't do anything at that point i mean there's no chance to win a game with that with seven turnovers i mean look like michigan last year against fucking whoever when we were turning them when we were turning the ball over constantly. All right, let's move over to the defensive side of the ball now. And the secondary was a position group that we were pretty concerned about over here. And I actually thought they did pretty well.

Were you guys thinking the same thing while watching them? Yeah, Cale and I talked about that, like i said a little bit before um we started recording and secondary you know i don't think they did great i don't think they did bad i think did a fine job i mean rashad bateman didn't go off neither did any of their receivers um but it wasn't like they were locking anybody down so a good game from a secondary i think they played well i was honestly i was very impressed with jamon green more so than anybody else that was out there i don't know i don't know what you what you think caitlin yeah i mean if i was going to give them a grade i would give them a c right i mean they passed the test and they're ready to go on to the next class uh but i mean jack pretty much hit the nail on the head they did what they were

asked to do uh but they didn't like exceed anybody's expectations at least not mine really uh so i mean i'm pleased with their performance could they have done better yeah could they have done a lot worse yes yeah so uh i mean yeah that's kind of how i see it yeah after that first you know after the blocked point and then they had good field position and then tanner morgan you know basically threw a touchdown right away and i was watching dax hill and brad hawkins look at each other like yeah where were you supposed to be where were you where was i supposed to be and i was like that's not good shit here we go these guys you know they don't even know where they're supposed to be at. And those are the two guys that we were confident in. I was just about to say, those are our two guys who are like, all right, safety will be good, but DB is going to struggle.

And then we're looking at our two starting safeties that were on the team last year, looking at each other like, where are you? That's bad. Like, that's not good. Now I'm concerned again about our safety. And Max Hill, he was injured yesterday. not good that's now i'm concerned again about our safety so um and yeah till could be out he he was injured yesterday they said it was undisclosed injury haven't gotten any word about that that would be bad bad news um and so um i don't know i i thought they i thought they surprised us a little bit they struggled early which we um you know assume but they against a tanner

morgan offense that has put up 300 yards consistently they held him to i think 150 or something like that maybe even less and so i i think that that was a a win i would say for the secondary um not giving up you know 300 yards and four TDs or something like that. Yeah. An interesting stat that ESPN put up during the game is there was only one guy last year who led the that basically beat out Joe Burrow for the best completion percentage for 20 plus yards with passes in the air. And it was fucking Tanner Morgan. So, I mean, that that's crazy we're sitting here right now like yeah secondary played good like you know didn't do great didn't do poorly but

that's also against one of the top deep threat quarterbacks in in the country so i mean game one again i'm not i'm not saying i'm not i'm not pleased with what they did like i think we're on the same page like we're satisfied calen like you said they passed the test they're ready to move on uh i'm ready to see and it's a lot of young guys i'm ready to see what they can do moving forward especially against a michigan state that had seven turnovers uh this past week yeah i i think that also against rashad bateman who is you know arguably the best receiver in the country. A Blitnikoff guy. And so I actually looked up the stats right after the game when I saw he had nine catches for 101 yards, and I was like, really?

Didn't feel like it. I didn't notice that. He wasn't like a threat the whole game. It wasn't like, oh, there's Rashad Bateman again. I thought they kept him in check pretty well. You know, they had a couple deep balls, but they did a really good job of the bend but don't break. You know, usually those deep balls, those three deep balls go for touchdowns. We kept at least the deep balls to 30, 40 yards and then recovered after that,

which I thought was a big improvement from before. And I want to ask you guys, too. So we're talking about secondary. Makari Page, he's an incoming freshman, correct? He had significant playing time last night. They put him in when Dax was injured. Oh, okay. So that was when he got in.

Gotcha. Okay, that makes sense. But still, young guy going in i mean could have been andre selden could have been jordan morant who we've heard a lot about i was shocked to see makari page over those guys that's great but please but please yeah i mean i think some of these young guys are really uh you know surprising these coaches and impressing them obviously they wouldn't be on the field this isn't this isn't you know freshman football where everybody plays just because these guys have earned the earned the right to be uh on the field and so for them to all get these

this playing time on both sides of all in game one uh was was you know pretty surprising but i like it and i like it for the future. For the future, it looks pretty damn bright for the Michigan football right now. Yes. You know, we've talked about maybe playing for 2021 type of deal, you know, with the shortened season. And although I'm very, very excited for 2020 still, but I'm also now even more excited 2021.

My God. So, so I think that things are going to go well. Let's talk about the front seven, front seven on, on the defense for Michigan. Quitty pay is a freak. My God.

I mean that front four out, although you know, the rushing game, they didn't go too well, but Donovan Jeter, Quiddie Paye, Aiden Hutchinson, Julius Welshoff, who we've talked about, the list goes on and on. I thought they did a fantastic job, especially in the second half. Kalen, go off on your boy Welshoff, please, for a second.

Yeah, I mean, the German sensation, right? Julius Walsh. Who would have? I mean, even I didn't think I was going to see him in this game, right? I mean, he was kind of just a sleeper guy that I mentioned months ago, right? And even I lost track of him. So it's great to see that much depth on the line where they're putting guys in. I'm going like, oh, yeah, he's on the team, you know, and they're making plays.

I think he had a, what, like half a sack or whatever. So, I mean, that's always good to see. He was making plays for sure. And I think it was something, I don't know if you guys noticed, but I noticed a lot of four down linemen instead of three, which made me very, very happy. I mean, definitely helped out carlo kemp i mean carlo usually he's the guy that's ready to tackle taking a lot of the heat up there he looked good too he looked good so he can kind of shine a little bit with a second d tackle out there and uh he had a sack he made a couple nice plays chris hinton was in there with him

um look good but yeah man salt and pepper quitty pay and hutchinson jesus cam called it man i think i mean they might be the best defensive end duo in the country man they look very good good good aiden hutchinson when when he freaking that one guy was trying to come off the edge uh i think in the red zone he just picked him up and just laid him down like a little baby oh it's beautiful and now jack i mean you can go off on your boy too who's that quitty my boy quitty oh behind him man your boy michael barrett michael player he's got to be the defensive mvp right has to be i mean i mean even he made a play on special teams he also had a touchdown almost had a kickoff return touchdown. But I know I was texting Cam during the game, and I was like, man, Michael Barrett.

Like, this guy's going off. And he's like, dude, I wish I would have picked him for MVP. Did you notice he was also puking? I was like, he was puking? I did see that. Yeah, I saw the replay. Dying on the field and just, like, making plays left and right. Dude, he was outstanding.

He was outstanding. He was the most impressive linebacker by far i'd say him josh ross then mcgroan he is like exactly what you want to see when you hear like oh we got a recruit who's listed as an athlete right yeah like the guys all over the field, played quarterback in Georgia. Now he's, like, you know, running punts back. He's playing linebacker. Like, didn't last year he was, like, he threw the ball on a fake punt or something? Yeah, to Dax, yeah. Awesome. He can do it all.

He's the – I was telling Kalen last night. I remember when we – Brandon Brown, who's a writer for Wolverine Digest, he hit we, uh, Brandon Brown, who, um, who's a writer for Wolverine digest, he hit us up. He's like, Hey guys, let's do it a little quick write up. Uh, most versatile player on the team and myself and Brandon, we put Michael Barrett. So when we were watching the game last night, I was like, Kalen, remember that time I wrote that article for that little write up and I put Michael Barrett that aged pretty well. Yeah, he, he was incredibly impressive. And I think that that viper position is so important to don brown's defense that that that had to be you know don brown is sitting there just with a big grin on

his face oh yeah he's got a stud at that position because that was jabril peppers and when we had jabril peppers that defense was fantastic. I thought it was a little bit of a downgrade to Kalik Hudson. Kalik Hudson had a great sophomore year, I believe, but his junior and senior years were not as good. Obviously, everyone will figure out that Michael Barrett, they probably should pay attention to him, but I thought that they actually, in the second half,

did start paying attention to Michael Barrett, and that's when Quiddie Paye hutchinson carl carlo kemp those guys started getting through because they had to account for michael barrett and god it was fun to watch that d line go after tanner morgan he was running for his life in the second half yesterday especially back to back to back sacks too yeah love to see it yeah especially late in the game when you could see like the, their offensive line was getting worn out. Right. Oh, awesome.

Yeah. I mean, let's talk about the Michael Barrett hit on Tanner Morgan. I Tanner Morgan. I can't believe he's not dead. He absolutely pounded him into the ground and then the ball pops right up into donovan jeter's hand that was such an awesome play he hit him so hard that he knocked the ball into tanner morgan's chest plate five yards to donovan jeter and donovan jeter just

la-di-da his way into the end zone nobody even getting near him that was awesome to see donovan jeter too he was out there having fun last night and that was really that was really fun to see i felt that hit like sitting there watching the game like i was we were watching it and we're like oh shit oh shit he's not he's not blocking me it's like boom and he thinks right i'm pretty sure i kind of went like oh like my beard kind of came through the tv um so i do want to touch on to the one concern i think that fans and us are gonna are gonna talk about is the running game um again against our defense minnesota's run game, Ibrahim did whatever he wanted, pretty much. Is that

concerning to you? Was it too much? Did you feel like even though that was going on, we still had a good defensive performance? How'd you guys take that after seeing him go for, I think he had 30 rushes for like

150 yards or something like that. Honestly, when I was watching the game, I didn't really notice it. So for me, it's not as concerning because it's not like he had any big rushes that like, whereas Jonathan Taylor against Wisconsin, where he gets past the linebackers and he's just gone, you know? So for me, I didn't notice it too much so i'm not too concerned um i don't know cale what do you think i didn't really notice that yeah i mean that's i think you're kind of right well where like while i was watching the game i was kind of like there were a couple moments where i said like oh man we got to stop him maybe you know

but it wasn't until i saw the stat sheet where I was like, you had like one hundred and forty six yards or something like that. So that is a little bit concerning because my whole mentality is we got to stop Master Teague and the sermon at Ohio State. So and what was this guy's name? Ibrahim. He seemed like one of those small backs who can kind of like bounce off of somebody and then like take it to the outside. So I'm, I guess I'm not sure how to fix that, but I think we need to, you know,

contain it a little bit more and force them to come at us up the middle. And then we can contain that. Cause I have full faith into our backers. And Roe, I think that's an interesting point that you brought that up too. Cause it's similar to the Rashad Bateman snaps. I mean, nine receptions, a hundred yards. You think that's an interesting point that you brought that up, too, because it's similar to the Rashad Bateman snaps. I mean, nine receptions, 100 yards, you think that's pretty significant.

But when we look back, like back at the game when we were watching it, we're like, well, I didn't really notice that he really had that. So interesting. I think maybe we would have noticed a little bit more if Michigan didn't score so many points. Right. But yeah, just looking back at it, I'm like, wow, I didn't really notice that. So I don't know. That reminds me of a comment from Nick Saban, I think this week or last week. He said something about like it's the offense now that wins you games. I don't know if somebody knows more than I do about what the comment was.

But, Jack, that's like exactly what we're saying and seeing here now. Right. I mean, talking offense can put up points. Defense can just stop them enough then you're gonna win a lot of football games yeah and that was always a question in the past would always be like all right we know the defense will be solid can the offense score and now it's flip-flopped which makes one it makes it for a much more fun game to watch and two i don't know it just makes me feel more confident that way because it's like all right they scored but we can match it where you know with the defense it's like all right they let one up

but then it's like oh shit like our offense do we don't even know if they're gonna score what do you think bro yeah I I think that it feels like our offense finally came into the 21st century yeah honestly right like we've been playing you know 1980 Bo Schembechler football for so long now and and Harbaugh was a little bit stubborn about that and he did well with that like obviously we had success in 2016 with that and you can win with that but now it seems like every team is you you have to put up 40 some points to win and we did that and and i thought that i think that now it's the one the one big concern i had with michigan football playing that you know the old way of football uh the smash mouth and the time of you know you're trying to win the time of possession and all that

stuff is you can't play from behind if you get 14 points, there's no way to come from behind. You don't have that in your play calling. You don't have that at all. And now it's like, all right, even if we get behind by 14 to Ohio State, to Penn State, whoever it is, I feel like Joe Milton, we can chuck it deep a couple times or hit some 25-yarders and we're back in the game right away. So that's where I can see it benefiting Michigan the most is if we get down,

we can come back now, and now it's like up-tempo. You can do whatever you want. But we can also – you can always scale that back, right? You don't always have to be up-tempo. We have the running back room. We have the offensive line. If we do want to dink and dunk and take some time we can do that still and that's i'm glad you brought the up tempo because that's something we can definitely do like we talked about earlier we literally have four running backs that can that can do it they can all do it and

they can all make it work we've got i think eight receivers that we can plug in i mean we can just friggin run up tempo all day long if we want and just switch out the personnel i mean as long as the line can keep up i mean we could run all over you know other people's defenses yeah we saw we didn't even really see that sorry go ahead i was gonna say we actually did see a little bit of it, right, during this game. Joe Milton with the empty backfield and five wide, right? And when he was lined up like that, I was like, oh, crap, like this is trouble for the other team. Yeah. No, I was going to say we didn't see them like try and rush up to the line.

Oh, no. Yeah, not at all. That's what I was going to say. But they could. Right. But I think they could. Like if they have, you know, think about that. line oh no yeah not at all that's what i was gonna say but they couldn't see right but but i think they could like yeah if they have you know think about that if we go if we're going down the field and then you know eight play drive 10 play drive something like that we have plenty of depth at the

wide receiver position to run you know go routes on every single one of those plays or something you can you can put in aj henning and roman wilson for ronnie bell and mike sander still and there's is there much difference it didn't look like it last night it looked like it that is one thing i do want to see right and i'm glad that gaddis was doing this is giving all these receivers i think what his thought process is a little bit is i got all these receivers they're all really good but I want somebody to establish themselves as like the it guy, the guy who can really separate himself from the pack. And so that's kind of what I want to see somebody kind of take a step towards as we go, you know, towards the end of the season. I want to see a receiver who can create separation and a receiver who can, you know, we can count on a lot.

And I was hoping maybe like a ronnie bell could be that type and we saw him late in the game do some of that but i'm really hoping maybe one of these young guys could even take that spot who do you think uh or who do you guys think out of the group we saw last night do you think do you guys have a favorite to think who could kind of do that i mean i think personally mine's ronnie bell just because he's the returning guy um and he's got a little bit more height than than the rest of them but do you guys anybody else stand out to you guys dude i think it's it's either giles or roman wilson giles jackson is gonna is gonna make a play here at some point he's gonna catch a deep ball from joe milton

where he ends up five yards down down the field but roman wilson dude looked fast he caught the ball he found the spot and you know soft spot in the coverage that dude's gonna keep getting playing time so i how about how about joe milton just overthrowing that deep ball by like 20 yards i know dude i remember he let it go and I was like, oh, oh, here we go. And I'm like, dude, that was like 15 yards off. That was like exactly what I was expecting him to do all game. So do you think that the deep balls aren't as polished as has been talked about in camp? I don't know. That was really the only one we saw.

I know. I'd wish to see like a full camera view of that because i wonder if like roman got tripped up or something like because i mean apparently he's the fastest guy on the team you don't think joe would overthrow him by 15 20 yards you know so i'd like to see the full camera view to see if he actually got tripped up or if joe was just like fuck it i'm letting it loose and it just lay off but uh i love it dude i wish they were on the 30 and joe just went fuck it and just launched it to the other as far as he could oh that beautiful and plus it's always

tough game one i mean different dbs you know so we'll see we'll see moving forward but yeah i mean right now i don't have a whole lot of confidence i guess in the deep box we haven't really seen anything yeah i'm i'm just glad he showed it off right i almost equate it to like a pitcher getting warmed up and he throws a couple curve balls just to like show you yeah yeah yeah i i think that he'll figure that out that was probably he honestly probably got the play call from josh gattison was like so amped like all right i'm letting this one loose baby oh yeah and then he just launched that fucker like 60 yards and who was it to was it to roman wilson it was to roman yeah yeah yeah i he's gonna figure that out at some point and you know i i do think that was very interesting to me that we dinked

and dunked a lot and you know what though with the speed that they have i think what was super important and our receivers did incredibly well is blocking on the outside how many times did they run uh you know a wheel or a slant you know a screen pass whatever you want to call it out there we j Josh Gaddis wants to get it to his playmakers and let them make a move and make a play. But I saw, you know, we'd have trips out here, two guys out here, and get it to the receiver. Those two receivers, how many times did you see them blocking

10 yards downfield? And that is so important to the success of this offense, the way that Josh Gadis wants to run it. 100%. 100%. We mentioned it last year. It seemed like the receivers were kind of lazy with their blocking. And it makes a huge difference. I mean, if you want to get to the next level, as far as just advancing the ball, I mean, it can't just be the linemen that are blocking.

Receivers got to be blocking all the way through the play. So, I mean, if they're doing that, we'll see big plays and big plays and just continue to see it all season long, and that's huge. Exactly, yeah. Eventually something will open up and somebody will spring off a 60-yard run. Yeah. Love it. Let's talk about one more very concerning thing,

and that is the kicking game. Holy shit, that was bad. Yeah. Go ahead. I was going to say, we we were talking about a little bit before and um apparently nordine is injured like he re-aggravated something but even moody he was my guy man he seemed like he was a consistent guy last year i know nordine was hot i think he finished like 10 for 10 with like a 50 some yarder against bama in the uh in the citrus bowl

but he struggled last night, man. Like, nothing I've ever seen from Moody from the past year. I mean, he missed, I think, every field goal he took. Yeah, he was 0 for 3 on field goals, but he was 7 for 7 extra points. So I don't really know what's up with that. Yeah, one of them was like a weird botched kind of snap, but the holder got it there in the right so i mean i don't know i love moody i feel like he's had a bad game man he must have just had a bad game

so hopefully that's the case and moving forward we're fine but i know kaelin and i were talking about it last night while we were watching the game if if this is the case where it's like bama and we're scoring but we got a shitty kicker i'll fucking take it i'll take it all day long if we can be as good as bama um but i think it'll i think we'll be fine moving forward i don't know what you guys kind of are you guys concerned like really concerned about it or and well i i feel like you know special teams kind of gets treated like the redheaded stepchild so i wouldn't be surprised if we did all of our or you know 90 of our focus to prepare for the game and for the season for that matter on our offense and defense.

And then they're like, eh, special teams line up, kick the ball, whatever, you know, and you know, stuff like this happens.

So I think, you know, Jay Harbaugh should at least identify it and be like, Oh shit, we got to do something. So get the guys up to snuff. And I mean, things will coalesce.

Yeah. He's also, I think the tough thing is it's 22 degrees. He's kicking a rock, essentially. You know, that ball is so hard. But with that being said, it's not getting any warmer this year. No, it's not. So he's got to get used to that.

So I think we, as fans, probably just have to get used to. We're not going to see 57 yarders from kickers this year because it's because of the cold conditions. But I mean, it was very concerning. Moody, he's been lights out in the past. And I don't know. Better than Minnesota's guy. That's for sure. Oh, my God.

We weren't the worst kicking team on the field last night. Yeah. Dude. Okay. My question about that if you know that's the case don't you just like go grab a soccer player or something like right buddy i think any of us could have done better than that like you've got to have somebody on on the minnesota campus like another student athlete somebody a soccer the soccer team's not playing right now dude go grab somebody

there that has a fucking boot and yeah but there's no reason not to right that was a huge advantage for us too right because it prevented them from being able to flip the field so we always had really good field position yeah and to kind of go back to what we were just talking about as far as like i know i said right now i'm not concerned about um the kicking game but once we get to indiana once we get to wisconsin obviously against ohio state there'll be closer games then i'll be a little bit concerned so hopefully either nordine's healthy or moody's figured out and it was just one bad game but once it gets to those games that are close and we're going to need field goals to win it that's when it'll be really concerning for me for sure yeah i i we're not going to win every game 49 to 24 or whatever like dude we're going to get into a close game here and need to make some field

goals that could be the difference so i think that that is uh it i'm you know that Jim Harbaugh is is making that an emphasis. You know, they're they're definitely giving the rest of the team good praise this week. But I guarantee you that the special teams room is saying, all right, you know, we need to figure this out in order if we want to be a real contender this year. Let's move around to the rest of the big 10 here for a little bit. You know, finally we had some big 10 football to watch. I, we we've been,

you know, a little bit into football, obviously watching our, our game Cox who dropped the ball a little bit, but it's still tough game, tough game, tough game. So Cox by 90.

That's right. I just feel, I feel bad for Shawmi or TDs. Cause I know he lost like $2,000 yesterday in gambling. But I was like, even while watching SEC, Big 12, ACC, I wasn't fully into it. And then I watched a full slate of Big 10 yesterday and I was like, oh, this feels good. I'm 100% in. Football's actually back now.

Yeah. Football's actually back. football is actually back so let's start with the noon games um ohio state nebraska um nebraska hung with them for a half and then for the first half for the first half they got a couple targeting calls that were terrible and um whatever we targeting fuck targeting it's fine um but like i don't know do you think ohio state is still untouchable they scored 52 points obviously very very good performance on the offensive side what do you think about osu i mean osu is gonna be everybody knows what osu is they're the best team in the Big Ten, no question. If they're going to lose, the other team's got to play perfect.

They've got to get a couple calls. I mean, man, we know what they are, and they're going to run the table. Unless a team can play perfect. I mean, maybe Indiana. Indiana's always that sleeper team. Michigan, can they keep doing what they're doing? Do we have a chance this year penn state i mean they're always an opportunity to beat ohio state so i mean i don't know man ohio i just expect every year ohio state's going to defeat it i mean especially

justin field's a quarterback they're freshman freaking receivers do you guys see that catch that guy was unbelievable how did he literally defied physics. They just have so much talent on their team. It's hard to think that they'll ever lose a game. And they know it too, right? They've already talked about, we're looking forward to our rematch with Clemson. It's like they've already written their own script. So, you know, we got to grab Destiny, you know, by the throat and slam them to the ground when we get a shot. Yeah, and then this was – it might as well have been on the comedy portion of Netflix.

Rutgers versus Michigan State was – I mean, dude, nine turnovers. I think it got up to ten turnovers for the whole game on both sides it was like every two seconds there was a turnover and rutgers goes out greg shiano is back beats mel tucker in game one of the of the mel tucker era at msu is is michigan state that bad or is rutgers back rutgers is back rutgers is back baby man i mean we look at we look at mel tucker right like there was so much hype around him coming to michigan state and he was gonna stay at colorado and yada yada yada wasn't his record six and six last year like he didn't even have a good i think it it was five and seven. I don't think it was even, I was like,

why are people freaking out about Mel Tucker? Like he, like, it's like people freaking out about rich rod. Like, Oh, we're going to sign rich rod. And he just went three and nine.

It's I don't, it doesn't make any sense to me. So I don't know. I think Mel, I don't know. Mel Tucker's got to do something. Cause right now I think he, I don't think he belongs in big 10 football.

Oh yeah. gotta do something because right now i think he i don't think he belongs in big 10 football oh yeah i was trying not to like make some like hot dickheaded take but like jeez you saw you just lost to ruckers that was their first win since 2017 it was a 21 game big 10 losing streak i mean couldn't couldn't have happened to a better team in Michigan State. Yeah, it makes me happy. And plus, you had all offseason to prepare for this game, and you're losing to Rutgers. I mean, granted, you had seven turnovers, but Jesus, guys, come on. That was brutal. I was laughing my ass off at every single turnover.

It was hilarious. But, you know, you guys know i love michigan state so you know they'll be they'll be okay you're their biggest fan man so true and so true shout out mike selly he's probably crying in a room right now shout out mike selly for still listening i do appreciate i appreciate you mike i i wouldn't listen to my Spartan friends podcast if I were you. So you're a good friend. You're a good friend. And you have everything's great for him until I start talking about.

I know he probably like fast forward. Yeah, just get through smart moves. Smart move. Yeah, we will talk about Michigan, Michigan State, you know, coming up this week, though. So that'll be fun. Obviously, rivalry week. Any. Oh, Penn State, Indiana. What a up this week, though, so that'll be fun. Obviously, rivalry week. Oh, Penn State-Indiana. What a game.

Oh, my God. That was an unbelievable ending. We all said it. Indiana is kind of a sleeper, right? They're going to be good. We finally figured it out. Michael Penix. Is it Penix?

Penix. Michael Penix. Dude, they blew that last game. So hold on. Let's start at the beginning. Penn State could have just downed themselves after they got the first down, ran out the clock. You can see the guy was kind of like, oh, shit, oh, shit, and he ran for a touchdown. He's like, oh, fuck.

I killed us. Penix takes Indiana down the field. They convert, get the two-point conversion. Penn State scores, and then I think Indianaiana scores goes to the two point gets they call a touchdown on the field and then they review it i don't know about you guys but it looked like that ball was clearly hit out of bounds before he hit the pylon they reviewed it and they're a long time for a long time and the call stood i mean i don't know i'm sure they had more camera angles than we did but don't take a blown call to me.

But also, if you're Penn State and you're going to fuck up that bad at the end of the fourth quarter, you deserve to lose. So, Indiana, still a good team. We know that. We know that now. It's confirmed. Probably the first time I've ever seen a team lose by scoring points. Yeah.

Honestly. Oh, for sure. Yeah, that was a wild ending. And the play there, the spot, or the play at the pylon, it was so hard to tell. Did the ball cross the line before he hit? Before he even hit the pylon? It would have crossed out of bounds. That's where I'm confused.

I think it was one of those things where like no matter what was called on the field it was not going to be overturned yeah because there's not evidence of you know enough evidence so even if they called it a no touchdown on the field they wouldn't have overturned it to a touchdown so i don't know it's just one of those things. But that was wild. Penn State losing game one. Wild. I mean, they were 18. Everyone said that they were the one team that could give Ohio State a run for their money. And Sean Clifford didn't look like he could throw the ball at all.

He ran like a maniac, but he didn't look like he'd run well. Are you worried about Indiana now? Michigan has to go to Indiana. run well um are you worried about indiana now we do michigan has to go to indiana dude i'm always worried about indiana it's always a close game always a tough game i mean especially this year they always give us trouble always yeah i think mr phoenix is pretty good it's just kind of wild that the ending of that game had to deal with Mr. Phoenix's tip. The tip of the ball. Mr. Phoenix's tip of his ball.

It's kind of wild. Sometimes just the tip will get you. He just got the job done. Got the job done. We can't forget about Wisconsin, though. Oh, yeah, yeah.

They looked fucking good, dude. See you, Jack Cone. Transfer portal. Going to the ACC. See you. Yeah, Graham Mertz is all of a sudden like, I don't know. How does this just happen to other teams? Like, dude comes in and he's just fought.

He, he almost broke their record in his first game, like 17 for 17. And then the one running back dropped the ball. Otherwise it would have been good. And that five touchdowns like Jesus dude. So now, now all of a sudden we're worried about Wisconsin passing game too.

Right. Yep. We know they can run the ball and now they can pass we're for fucked yeah that'll be a good that'll be a fun game i hope wisconsin has abruptly changed from like a ground and pound to an air raid offense yeah honestly yeah what the what the hell so i don't know i i will say it looked like after week one, Michigan's schedule got even harder somehow than it originally looked. Wisconsin looks even better than they were advertised. Penn State maybe looks a little bit less, but Indiana, which was not a big game, now all of a sudden is a big game.

They're probably going to be ranked um i don't know it's um michigan state maybe is a gimme now i i honestly think michigan's gonna score 70 points on them i really do i hope so man just rivalry games always freak me out you never know if they can get any sort of momentum weird shit happens yeah yeah i just want to say that we're living in the most bizarro timeline ever right already the year is weird but the big 10 east all teams tied for first place michigan ohio state yeah okay and then iu indiana and rutgers rutgers they're back baby rutgers is gonna like put that up on a plaque like we were once tied for first in the uh in the big ten yeah put that up in the locker room all right well uh that's

about it from us for today great recap from uh uh for from this weekend i were mean, God, it was just so good to have Michigan football back. I was so pumped. It was amazing. So can't wait to you know, we go right into rivalry week, which is like a gift, you know, which is amazing. So can't wait for this week as well. We'll have another podcast

coming out later this week. So follow us on Twitter at Blue by 90. Follow us on twitter at blue by 90 follow us on instagram as well and facebook youtube at blue by 90 podcast um subscribe and like give us a rating probably we would like a good rating but you can give us like a bad review like like five stars these guys are idiots but please try to keep the rating up um other than that we will see you guys next time go blue go blue go blue Thank you.