Blue By Ninety - “You Have to Set That Example” | Michigan Captain and NFL Veteran Chris Wormley Joins

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

Justin and Tanner are joined by former Michigan captain and NFL vet Chris Wormley to recap USC and look ahead to Washington.

All right, welcome back to Blue By 90. I'm Justin joined by Tanner, and we've got a special guest, a friend of the pod, Chris Wormley, former Michigan captain, host, co-host of the Stadium of Made Pod on our network here. Chris, appreciate you joining us here, man. You know, it is, I feel like after listening to you and Strach and Jake Butt talk the other day, I was just like, I love talking ball so much and talking. and listening to guys talk ball and you're just a ball player. So I appreciate you coming on and talk some more ball with us.

Absolutely. This is a, I got one more event tomorrow or another live pod tomorrow with Jake on campus. I think it's at a frat house. So I'm making my media rounds. Usually it's just, you know, once a week with Strack. But yeah, whenever someone wants to talk ball, I'm willing to talk. Yeah, I heard you were going to hold up Jake for the Kekstand. I think that's what you said in the show.

It was the other way around. Oh, it was the other way around. My bad. I haven't done a Kegstand. since probably 2015. So those days are long, long, gone out. Yeah, man. Well, we might have to come check that out. Might have to come check that out. Say how to you. Say how to Jake. But no, appreciate you coming on, man. I think this is a time right now. Michigan,

I'm just going to jump right into it with Michigan sitting at four and two. You've got two losses to two really good teams, in my opinion, right? You don't have a bad loss now we can be honest and say that they're you know we have not looked good uh in those losses and even in some of the wins you know haven't looked like things are you know all uh you know on all cylinders type of thing um but i i actually chose to wear where is it i chose to wear my national championship hat here that i got my national championship shirt because i just want to get some good vibes going i i think we need some good vibes put out into the universe into the Twitter sphere and all that.

I want to talk a little bit with you just about like, it's not that bad right now. Yes, we are all like concerned and we can, you know, panic a little bit and want Michigan to win by 100 every single, every single day. But Michigan's still in a pretty damn good spot with the program right now. Yeah, I mean, I usually want Michigan to win by 90, but 100 is good too. But no, I mean, listen, I've been. I've been with Hoke when we went five and seven and 14 two years ago when I was playing for the Carolina Panthers.

We went two and 15. And that, when you talk about bad situations, bad, bad, bad culture, bad locker room, bad coaching, those are the things that you look at. You're like, man, like, I'm glad Michigan's not in that position anymore. I would love to be sitting and had played my whole entire career with a harbaw or with a Sharon Moore that gets the guys going, brings in the talent, and can, and can coach their ass off. Obviously, four and two is not where everybody wants to be.

15 and 0 is always the goal. And every team, except for maybe one or two a year, fall short of that. There's still a lot to play for these last six weeks of the season. I'm excited for these boys to bounce back. Sharon wore his work coat to oppressor, which for some reason people didn't like, but we've been doing that since 2015, I think, when Harbaugh first got there. It sends a message that they're trying to get back to the roots. And it's not as bad as you think.

So I'm excited for them to come out at home, a noon kickoff against the Huskies, and put on a show. Chris, what's it like, you know, as fans, we all freak out. I'm guilty of that for sure. But as a player, being in that building, knowing what you have to do to get back on track or get to where you want to go, like, what is the, how different is kind of that vibe in the building coming off a loss versus a win? And I'm not talking like a big, big win. I'm just talking like, you know, you got your job done versus, man, we fell short on the road. Yeah, I mean, it's never as bad as it seems, and it's never as good as it seems,

it's always somewhere in the middle, no matter if you win by 60 against Central Michigan or you get your, you know, you get your butt kicked by USC. So you go in, you watch the film, you see where you can get better. But after a loss, you know, everyone understands the situation. There's not a lot of smiles. There's not a lot of joking around. You're getting in. You're going to work.

you're putting in that time that you need to continue to get better because that's one of the beauty the beautiful things about football is unless it's the last game of the season like there's always another week to play another week to get better another week to prove to yourself and and the fans that you guys are better than what you displayed last week if you lost and if you won you want to continue that that streak and continue to build off of it yeah I mean going back to the srone wearing the the work jacket thing I think you know a lot of that is just like dumb Ohio State fans that are just like trying to take any jab that they can at every chance. But there were some Michigan fans who like had a big issue with it.

To me, that's 99% of the time. Just like it's fun if you're winning and if you're losing, it's stupid as hell, right? And it's like, you know, whatever. Like that's the perception. It's the same thing of like you go for two or you go for it on fourth down. You're the smartest man alive if you get it and you're the dumbest man alive if you don't. And so that's my take. on that. You know, you can dive into that if you want to. But I also, no, I just lost my train of

thought. So we'll go with that. Touch on that for a second. No, yeah. I mean, I like when a coach sends a message if, you know, if they fall off track for a week or two and they want to get back on track, it starts with the head coach. It starts with the guy at the top and he's the one that's going to set the tone each week. And he's the one that has to keep a level head no matter what the situation is. Like I said, he doesn't want to get too high or too low. And nobody's, does in that building but at the end of the day if he wants to you know express to to you know the country and to to the fans that they're willing to go back to work um maybe like it's a camp practice uh and to to work out those kinks and iron out some things i'm all for it whatever whatever

you have to do to win and that that should be the mindset throughout the whole entire building is players coaches training staff strength coaches nutritionists whatever let's get let's do what we can do your part to win a game, and it starts, you know, with Washington on Saturday. Go ahead. Well, yeah, I mean, you mentioned Washington outside of the Ohio State game, which I think we, unfortunately can all agree Ohio State's defense is pretty damn legit. It might be even better than last year's. That offense is hummed.

I mean, they kind of got put into a locker for three quarters against Maryland, and then it was just 24 straight points to win the game. So they've been humming all year. Chris, what do you think as a guy played at the highest level defensively? And what are you seeing for Michigan's defense that caused them a lot of issues against USC on Saturday? And then what are you

looking to see from them to kind of bounce back against this explosive Washington offense? I mean, my biggest take away from that game, it wasn't scheme and schematic, and you guys can go into that and people on Twitter can go into that. And I know the coaches have, you know, in the building, but they just didn't tackle. There were so

many plays where they just missed tackles in space one-on-one. And if you're going to be a great defense or if you're going to be a team that hangs their head on defense, which Michigan has for as long as I can remember, you have to be able to tackle, tackle in space, gang tackle, get to the ball. And for a large part of that game, I did not see that. And that, to me, was the most frustrating thing because you can have the perfect play, you can have the worst play. But if you don't have guys flying to the ball wrapping up and tackling, you're going to have a bad day no matter what the scheme is or how great of a play you called on that certain play, the tackling, I think, needs. to be cleaned up. And I think that's going to be a point of emphasis this week in practice. Yeah. And what's something that something that we talked about earlier this week on our

on our post game pod from the USC game was just the leadership in that building. You know, you go back to a lot of people are obviously talking about Shroomer right now and, you know, the coaching staff and all that stuff, which is fine. That's what they're paid to do. They can take criticism. You know, we were talking a little bit about the 2023 team. just how many different guys on that team were leaders. You know, you could probably, you as a captain yourself,

you're looking around that locker in 2020, and like, you could pick 15 different guys that had the qualifications to be a captain. And if they were on a different team, probably would have been voted, you know, that. And so now, you know, after a game where, as you just said, like guys just didn't execute to the level that they needed to, what are you as a captain as a leader in that in that building going back and saying to your teammates to try and get guys like hey we can't collapse right now i know

we're forward to it's not where we want to be we need to get back in there get working get things right like how do you manage the the culture of the building when things are just like it sometimes i don't know i don't know if this is just an outside thing but a lot of you know things it feels like the walls are closing in and everything's falling apart you know what i mean at that moment what are you uh trying to do as the captain yeah you got you got you got to write the ship you got to you got to make sure that your guys aren't like you said falling apart giving up on the season because at four and two it's not the best but if you went out and go 10 and two i believe they're going to be in the playoffs 10 and two usually gets you in especially if you're a team like michigan you beat oh house state at the end of the

year i know that's five six weeks away from now but as a captain and for me it was easy back in 2016 like we had you know obviously me and jake butt but we had jordan lewis and uh the offensive line we're all seniors mostly so we had a group of guys that understood the situation a lot of upperclassmen and even even this year with the 20 25 season uh players you got guys like rod more and klein who have been in the building for a while and uh who else is a haiti who's been around for a while so those guys have to uh first and foremost they can't be the ones that you know, slipping up and having a bad attitude, they have to be the ones that set the example in that locker room and on that field every single day. It's not just the coaches. The coaches

can scream about culture and sticking together until they're blue in the face. But if you're a player, especially if you're a captain or an older guy, you have to set that example, whether that's with your words, with your actions, whatever it is, you have to continue to have that positive attitude when things aren't looking the best. Can you maybe remember a time as a captain yourself or even when you were younger looking up to a captain i i would love to hear about maybe both sides one when you're sitting at five and seven and things aren't right and like you can i mean sometimes the best way to know what good leadership is is to see bad leadership right and so maybe not that i want you to call somebody out but you know what i mean like maybe

there's some examples of you know of both of that and then um the other side where it's like hey man when, you know, when things aren't going well or when things are going great on the outside, I know, I know situations in a lot, for a lot of teams, you're 7 and O or whatever, things look awesome on the outside and shit's falling apart on the inside, you know? So I don't know if you have any examples of those that you've experienced yourself. Yeah, I mean, definitely those first, my first three years at Michigan with Hoke weren't the best and the leaders weren't the best either. I'm not going to call any names or point anybody out.

But, you know, as a underclassman, I'm looking like, this is what it means to be a leader on the team. This is what it means to be somebody who we're supposed to look up to and follow. So when I became captain, I wasn't the biggest kind of rah-rah guy. I was more lead by example. And that's what I tried to prove every day, whether that was how I prepared for a game, how I watched film, how I helped the younger guys out. But there were some times, especially that my last year when we lost to eye.

Iowa on a last second field goal. Instead of, you know, pouting and being mad, you have to be the one that gets into the locker room and make sure the guys aren't falling apart. We lose to Ohio State on the J.T. Barrett was short drive. That whole event was devastating. I was on that play with Delano Hill when we thought that we had stopped J.T. And the next play, Curtis Samuels goes and scores the game winning touchdown. You're reminding us of terrible moments right now.

Yeah, but that's what you're talking about. It could be a lot worse. You know, you could lose to Ohio State on the last play of the game and have to be that captain that, you know, I was sad. I was pissed off. But at the same time, like, I have to be accountable, not just to myself, but to those, the team because they voted me as a captain. They want, they're looking for someone to lead them and to let them know that it's

going to be okay in a dark, dark situation. When you're a captain, you mentioned leading by, example was there ever a time where you kind of had to have like like difficult conversations with guy either guys in your room or on the defense or just on the team like did you have to have those moments of like with younger guys or even guys that were in your class that like hey this is not the standard this is not what we do like did you have to have those difficult conversations oh yeah and and those are those are the worst ones because sometimes you know they're your friends or they're you know somebody that you that you rely on on a week to

basis. There were some younger guys in that 16th season that we relied on that played as true freshman or, you know, redshirt freshman slash sophomores. And some of them at certain points of the season weren't holding up to the expectations that no matter what your age is, you have to go out there and perform. And, you know, I'm not going to MF anybody, but I'm going to, hey, man, let's pick it up. Like, if you need help, like, especially if it's a defensive lineman, like, I got you. Like, I'm here to help. I'm here to help you out in any situation you need, whether it's on the field or off the field, those are the type of things as a leader that how I like to lead

and how I want somebody to treat me as a leader or, you know, when they're a leader, that's how I wanted to be, that's how I wanted to lead and be that type of person for the team. Yeah, the one thing I was going to ask too, you mentioned earlier, you said nobody's smiling on the way home and stuff like that.

We did actually see, you know, on the sideline, like, you know, it's a tough screenshot when you're down three scores or whatever and your quarterback smiling on the sideline. And I think, you know, Coach Moore had a smile on there too. Do you read into that at all or is it, you know, tough time for cameras to catch them? And it could have been a certain situation. We could have been reading it completely wrong. Yeah, I think in those situations, especially when it's a screenshot and it's not like a 15 to 20 second video of like an actual entire scene.

Like you never really know what's going on. Obviously, it's not a great look. but I don't read too much into a single screenshot or a single picture of somebody smiling. Like that's, for me, I'm not going to look into that. I know people like to have fun with that, but to me, it's a nothing. I've laughed being mad before, right? So to your point, Chris, it's hard to read into stuff like that. You have no idea of context, anything like that.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely agree. I think, again, it's so hard as, you know, you look at a Bryce Underwood, right and he's 18 years old and has had cameras in his face since he was like 14 you know and still now has cameras on him at all times and you know it's one of those things that um you know it's probably just an unfortunate situation at the time and doesn't mean much but um you know as as we're looking forward now you've got Washington on uh you know coming into town uh big home game all of a sudden it's kind of a must win game in my opinion right

Because otherwise, you know, you're, well, A, just for this season, you know, playoff contention or whatever else. You're fighting for playoffs every single week. But also just the momentum of the program. You know, I think in the transfer portal world, I mean, you look at what's happening at Penn State right now. You look at what's happening a lot of places, you know, things can crumble really, really quickly. I actually saw a clip of a reporter asking Ryan Day about this today. And he had a great answer basically of just like, listen, you can't take, like, you still got to come to work every day with a plan and execute your plan.

And you can't get like, you can't let what's happening right now deter you from what's ahead of you. So as these guys are coming into the building this week, you know, what is the mindset of like, hey, we're still, you know, doing what we got to do? We go into practice. We've got our practice plan. We've got all that stuff. you know is there any like tightness is there any deterrence from what the plan was originally or is it just full go ahead

i mean maybe there's i mean i personally as a player i'd feel some tightness like especially if i'm a senior or somebody that's looking to go to the NFL and uh there's only a certain amount of weeks left that i have to to play at the university of michigan i'm i'm feeling some type of way and i think that's good i think a little a little stress a little uh i wouldn't say anxiety but a little pressure's good And go in there, show, you know, on a day-to-day basis that you're putting in the work. And let's get back to Michigan football. Let's get back to what our identity is. And I think, especially in those two losses, you're kind of scratching your head.

Like, what is our identity when we're on offense? What is our identity when we're on defense? And it seems like maybe when the games get a little tighter, when the moments get pretty big, It's like you got to stick to your identity. You can't go and change things up. You can't go and switch up your play calling. You got to stick to what you know, stick to what you're good at.

And maybe at halftime or you come off the sideline, you make tweaks here and there. But for the most part, you've got to stick to what Michigan football is. That's playing great defense. That's running the ball and having a great offensive line that can move people and impose their will on opponents. So I'm looking forward to them to getting back to what they do well. I'm really hoping Justice Haynes is as healthy, and the situation isn't as

worse as they're, you know, trying to make it seem or not seem, but get back to Michigan ball, and I think a win on Saturday will cool a lot of heads off and make people feel a lot better because five and two looks a hell of a lot better than four and three. Chris, former defensive end, obviously. And one thing I noticed was the amount of kind of feel, I felt like Derek Moore had about 50% of the snaps in this USC game. TJ Guy only played 15 snaps. Because I can tell you in 2016, Chris, I wanted you on the field, man. I was really excited about those young guys, obviously with Sean Gary and some other

really talented players. And it's kind of a similar situation where in 16 and this year, there's a lot of guys that can play. But I want almost 95% of snaps going to Derek Moore because that guy has been really, really good at Michigan. Do you read into that? I mean, you played it at Michigan. You played in her wink.

Like, what are your thoughts? Do you, you know, is it fair or foul to have Derek Morgan, 50% of the snaps in the game against USC? Yeah, I'd love to see Derek get a few more steps, especially after the game he had. I think it was against Nebraska a few weeks ago. I thought it was kind of his coming out party for the season. It was his, I thought, best, at least production game of the year.

Yeah, he's got to get more snaps. He's one of the, obviously, he's a captain. He's one of the guys that stuck around and kind of gone through that Harbaugh transition, and if he's only getting 50% of the snaps, there's something that's going on, and I'm not too sure what that is, but I would want him to get upwards of 75% of the snaps. Obviously, Barham on the other side is going to play a good chunk of plays as well, but everyone's going to need a break at some point on that offensive side of the ball, but as Derek Moore, I'm looking to get more snaps as well. Yeah, I'm not going crazy. I just wanted to make sure.

I was like, am I, what's going on? No, yeah, listen, back in 2016, I had Rashon as my backup, and I knew what the type of player he was going to be, but at that time, like, I was still that guy. You know, I was four years older than him or whatever, but I knew that my time was still now, and he would have, you know, two years at Michigan after that to show everybody what he was,

and obviously he's having a phenomenal career in the NFL. But as a guy who's stuck around as a senior in the captain, Derek Moore, I know, is looking for more snaps for sure. Was there ever a moment with you and Roshan where you're like, all right, little boy, like you'll have your time, but right now is my time. You've got to step back for a minute. No, man, I think I told the story a couple weeks ago on the pod with Jordan. And it was like, I thought I was going to either have to transfer or transfer or like be a backup.

And Willie Henry at the time was thinking of. either leaving for the draft or coming back. So, and he eventually left, but there was a period I'm like, man, like, this is the number one recruit with Sean. He's coming in. He looks like a, looks like a 25-year-old man already at 17, 18 years old. I thought I was going to have to move inside. I gained a bunch of weight.

I was like pushing 320. And when they said, hey, like, you're the guy still. I'm like, all right, cool. And it's, I don't think I was ever like too worried. But as I look back at, I'm like, man, like, this could have went different. Like, if they were trying to push. their number one recruit to start and play right away. Like, you know, I don't know how many years in the league I would have played if that was

the case. But things like that, like Roshan, he understood the situation. I think he was, you could tell he was ready to play ball right away, but we just had some guys. We had some guys on that D-line in 2016. Man, outside of, I think it's really close with 23 and 16, man, that 16 defense. I mean, that Penn State game, like, I was, I was 21 at the time, Chris, you know, You got, we're about the same, we're all about the same age.

I'm, you're on the field. I'm eating, I think, chicken wings watching the game, having a beer. And you're just, you're getting after old Trace McSorley. So, that was fun. I think, I think, like, 45 yards or rushing or something like that. I think he was a freshman, but, like, you know, obviously what he's doing in the league now is pretty, is pretty cool to be able to, you know, talk with the guys that played with us on that defensive side of the ballroom.

You guys shut him down twice. Yeah. And then his junior year after you guys, after your class left, he, he had his revenge. Yeah, he had a day. He had a day for sure. That was, was that when, was DPJ on that team or not yet? That was the 2017. Okay. Well, I feel like it was like, there were a couple years when Michigan and Penn State were going back and forth.

And I think DPJ started doing the Sequin Waddle, like, you know, his celly. That was a revenge tour year that Chase Winovich talked about. 2018, yeah, yeah, yeah. It all chase. Yeah. Those are some good battles, good battles. So also, okay, obviously you've never been a coach, but you've been around to some unbelievable coaches in your tenure.

You know, John Harbaugh, Mike Tomlin, you know, Jim Harbaugh, Wink Martindale. You know, the list goes on and on. You know, you look at what. you know, James Franklin just got fired, right? And Penn State went from, I mean, 15 days ago. I saw that tweet. It was 15 days ago or something when, you know, they're, I don't know, two plays away from winning that Oregon game and everything's completely different, right?

And then all of a sudden he's fired. Are you like, this kind of goes back to the mentality question that we had a little bit ago, But if you're Cheryl Moore right now, you know, is there ever, is there a moment where you're looking around like, damn, that happened real fast. And, you know, is there like, should I be worried? What's what's going on? You know, is there, do you think that coaches like think about that or is it, again, just kind of like put your blinders on and go to work? I mean, I think every coach thinks about that. I mean, there's maybe one coach that I can think of that Nick Saban was probably the only one that never.

had to worry about his job you know um i remember i mean harbaugh in 2020 like there was all those rumors like is he getting fired um so i think every coach thinks about it especially because of how many times they have to get up and move whether that's their own fault being you know uh as an assistant or you're they're the head coach and they're just not getting the job done um i think that charon thinks about it but i don't think he thinks he's going to get fired anytime soon i don't think he I don't think he's going to get fired anytime soon. I'm going to agree with that. Yeah, the seat gets hotter as every loss that they have.

But at the same time, like, I think he sleeps okay knowing that, like, I'm going to be around for a little bit, but also, like, I got to produce. I got to win games. I got to put my players in the best position to win. I got to put my coaches in the best position to win. And that, as a head coach, you're the CEO of a company, basically. And you got to get your guys to perform. at a high level so you not only you keep your job but coaches can ascend and go other places

in better positions or you keep your guys and keep them hired it's it's it's a it's a tough position to be in but guys like chiron i know are built for that situation and they they want that you you don't get that far as a head coach or as a coach in general and not be ready for the situation or not know what comes uh with with the territory of being a head coach i just got to say I would love to be fired for like $45 million, guys. Just throwing that out into the ether. Listen, I know, I know James Franklin is probably pissed. Of course.

But then he's like, hmm, let me get a lot of $55 million. And I'm going to take all that and I'm going to go somewhere and I'm going to be just fine. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like you're obviously so mad and disappointed because, you know, in the moment. And probably forever will be, right? like I you know when you get to that level you're a psychopath and you all you want to do literally every single second you're thinking about winning and I'm sure he's had he had that

dream from day one of you know doing what Jim Harbaugh did and then finally hoisting that trophy after all of the ups and downs right um and then you go on a cruise and I'm not going on Cruz was 55 million. I'm taking a private jet somewhere. What did, what did, uh, what did the clue? Was it Cliff Kingsbury? He was in like Thailand for like three months. And they called him and he's like, no, I'm good. I'm okay. Thank you. He's got the clause that he has to try to find work. Like he has to in good faith, try to be employed. I saw it. It could be a media job, though. So I say we, we hire him. We hire him. we'll take like hey we'll take just a one million of the you know however many million like we'll take that and then we'll you know that'll be his job so um you're open offer open offer to james franklin uh at any if he's listening if he's listening if he's he does listen he did i'm sure he does um all right so uh back to this week though um so you know michigan again the huskies are coming to town um it is you know it does feel

like that must win week and i don't think like i think there are a lot of people out there it's a you know loud minority right probably of people that are like if you don't win this week you have to fire him which is insane talk because he's 18 months into the job you know with a freshman quarterback that's the best player could you know best player in the country from a recruit standpoint and has all the tools you got two five star tackles coming in that will play for you next year recruiting you're recruiting at a super high level like that's we just got to stop with that as a fan base um but from a like direction and where the program is going it feels like a must win week in terms of let's keep the momentum going let's you know like i said with a transfer portal and

you know you lose and all of a sudden Oregon's calling every one of your players that's just how it works these days um so i think that you know this is where like I'm sitting here with Wink, you know, looking at Wink Martindale, who is your guy. We know that for sure. And I'm a big, like, the people that are like, oh, you got to fire Wink, like, before USC, he gave up like zero yards to Wisconsin, which I know they're a terrible offense. So, you know, there is a caveat to that. But there, you know, you're sitting, I'm looking at Wink Martindale like, all right, we like, we do

got to get our shit together really quickly, and you got to go out and put a performance together against a really good Jedfish Washington offense. Yeah, you know, Wink spent, I don't know, 99% of his career in the NFL. So like, you lose two games in the NFL, it's like, okay, let's go back to work. There's, you know, 17 games you can go 8 and 8 and 8 and make the playoffs. Right. There's a little more sense of urgency in college, and I know he understands that. And I know that he's looking forward to putting a stout Michigan defense game plan together for this upcoming week. It's going to take not just him, but his staff to get on board, dive in a little deeper, stay maybe a couple hours later than they normally do. Because when you talk about people's jobs being on the line, like it's not just the head coach.

The head coach goes, everyone goes, usually. That's how it goes. So I know those guys and the building are feeling the pressure, but at the same time, they just have to go back in doing what they're doing, to doing what they know what to do. And that's playing Michigan defense. The standard doesn't change no matter who's in there or who's coaching. There's people that, you know, I've been watching Michigan football for a very long time,

and they have an expectation. These players have an expectation to go out there and play a certain way. They just have to go out there and execute. I know Wink's going to have a great game plan. But then also you've got to put some onus on the play. players to go out there and execute that play, execute that game plan, tackle, not play 12 yards off, check out of a seven-man box when it's empty, and go out there and play Michigan defense. I'll keep saying that, I guess, until I'm blue in the face, but I'm excited for this

challenge for them. Chris, when you were in college and you were going up against, because you played some mobile quarterbacks, maybe not the, you know, the shiftyness. And, I mean, this, DeMond Williams kid is, is starting. I mean, he's thrown for 1,600 yards, but he's also running the ball extremely well. He's only got one pick on that. the year when you were preparing and you were getting coached you were watching film on an opponent with a mobile quarterback like that like what was the most important kind of point of emphasis from the coaching staff was it was it the rush lanes was it something else like what was that like because michigan's those defensive ends and those de linemen are going to kind of have

those same conversations this week yeah i mean even just going back to like my professional career playing against lamar and josh allen it's like you have to keep those guys in the pocket their numbers are significantly worse when they're in the pocket and letting those guys buy time, getting three guys on a defensive line to one side of the ball and giving him a rush lane up to B gap is not going to fly. Knowing what coverage you're in as a defensive lineman is huge because if you're in a cover one and all the DB's backs are turned

and everyone's covering somebody and you get out of your rush lane, there's 10, 15 yards before anybody even notices is that the quarterback is running. So this is going to be a game plan of not just doing the fundamentals, but like knowing where that quarterback is at all times, having the right game plan to make sure he doesn't get out of the pocket or run up the middle. It's going to be challenging. He's obviously the best player on the team. So he's going to be, you know, he's going to have, you know, numeral number one or whatever the hell you want to say to stop him. But at the end of the day, especially the defensive line, keep their rush lanes, keep him contained. And

I think they'll have a lot of success if they can do those two things. What do you take from looking at what happened versus USC where I thought, listen, I am no X's and O's guru by any means, especially on the defensive side of the ball. I played offense. But I thought that after the first drive, it was very obvious that they were going to let us overpursue upfield on defense and dink and dunk right over. over the top of us, and we just never really made a, you know, an adjustment all day. What's your take on that, why that happened?

And then also, do you, like, how do you stop that from happening again once a team sees that on film, they're like, oh, shit, that worked really well. We should try to do the same. How do you stop that from happening again? Yeah, as a defensive lineman, you have to know. who you're going up against. You have to know what type of quarterback you're going up against. You have to know what type of offensive line when you're going up against.

And when they're just letting you run by them and then you just kind of dump the ball off, you have to realize that. There's those small in-game adjustments that you have to make and you have to realize, whether that's people up top, you know, watching and seeing how the game is unfolding from a bird's eye view, players on the field saying, hey, they're letting us do this. We have to sit down more on the line or have a more controlled rush and not let that happen. but you know when you go back and you watch the film after the game those are when you can make the big time adjustments obviously hindsight's always 20-20 but for the next week you got to

understand what's coming understand what plays worked against you in the NFL it's a copycat league you know you get gashed on a certain play by the team the week before the next team's going to look and be like okay let's let's run this play and see if they see if they stopped it so those first you know 10 to 15 scripted plays of the game are going to tell a lot and see in terms of has michigan figured this out or not on the defensive side of the ball and if they haven't washington's just going to continue to do the same thing for the next three quarters or whatever you know three and a half quarters so i'm looking forward to watching those first 10 to 15 scripted plays seeing what jed fish has planned for this michigan defense because

um it it it could be a fun challenging game and they come out on top or can be another game like USC where they don't really make too many in game adjustments and and it's it's a long night or a long afternoon of watching Michigan ball. Well, Chris, when you had Jake on the show the other day, you know, I'm editing it, I'm listening to it, and, you know, it really is kind of a crossroads moment, at least in the 25 season, because, you know, if you come out and you make a stop and you get them off the field during their scripted drive,

and then you let the offense go down on the field with Bryce and you score, that can completely change the trajectory of what the programs feel, what the fans are feeling, what the coaches and players are feeling. But on the flip side, it can completely go a complete opposite way, too. I think we all know this is an extremely important game, but I think the game within the game for me is the first like 10 minutes of the game because it's kind of in the same way that USC owned the middle eight, right? Like if Michigan doesn't give up a touchdown there,

maybe they're able to go and have a little bit more momentum getting off the field. Instead, you know, you go three and out coming out of halftime as 21-7. So, you know, 18 to 22 year olds, man, like it's sometimes a craft shoot and momentum is a huge thing. So I'm really looking for, you know, whether Michigan gets the ball first or they kick off like a good first couple drives offense defensively would be huge for for everyone I think yeah and and as a defensive player like I want to be on on the field first we we want to you know defer the kick or you know have them take the ball and and we want to be the ones that stop them three and out you know not a long drive and these past two weeks from Michigan have been

on the defensive side of the ball for that first shot I've been pretty bad it's been a poorest defense whether it was Wisconsin running down the field running the ball down the field or USC kind of airing it out that first drive. So I know they're looking to the defensive side of the ball to not allow them to score, not allow them to have that first drive success that the last two weeks have had. Obviously, they bounced back against Wisconsin because that offense was bad and obviously not the same against USC when they put up 31. So like you said, I'm interested to see this first drive.

I'm interested to see how they respond to not just last week but the last two weeks because it can be telling for the rest of the game. To give that offense a chance to go up, being up 7-0 or trying to come back, being down by 7-0 is a totally different thing, especially for a young quarterback and their confidence. If they can go down, Bryce can go down there and score right away, I think that leaves a lot of room for some early success and success leading into the rest of the game.

Yeah, and let's talk about the offense for a second, getting more into that. we obviously you're a defensive guy but you're sitting here with you know that the freshman quarterback obviously now you're you're halfway through the season so he's at least he knows what happens in a in a you know collegiate football game right like so you've got those first game jitters out of the way you know feeling a little bit more comfortable um with what goes on but while all that's happening the offense is sputtering or at least you know i i i thought it sputtered against obviously USC, but it sputtered a little bit against Wisconsin. And I know that they do have a good defense. That's pretty much their only strength.

But, you know, you're looking at that offense against Wisconsin to, all right, your defense has stopped them literally every drive. You know, let's go put, you know, a bigger lead, put a couple scores on the board. And let's let's put this thing in the books. You know, what does this offense need to get going a little bit more? You've seen Andrew Marsh come on. You've seen McCulley come on. Obviously, Justice Haynes has been the one thing that we can point to throughout every single game. Again, hopefully he can play. What are you looking for for this offense to come out versus Washington to say, all right, listen, we're starting to put it all together here. I'm looking for consistency. Consistency on drives. No more, you know, three and

and then all of a sudden having like really long drives. Let's have some consistency there. Let's have some consistency on the offensive side of the offensive line. I thought they played God-awful on Saturday night. I know they're looking to bounce back. I know Grant Newsom is doing everything he can to get those boys right in that offensive line room. But consistency with obviously Marsh has come on in the last two weeks.

Let's get a game of, you know, 250 yards passing, 150 yards rushing and a balanced, consistent game because consistency is key. You can't be too high and too low, up and down, up and down. And that's really been the story all season for this, for this offense is just consistency. Let's have a nice,

well thought out game plan. Let's go out there and execute it at a high level and put some points up and, you know, quiet some of these haters, fans and non-fans alike. Yeah, look, I've been pretty, I'm a negative Nelly this week, Chris. Unfortunately, I don't

like it, but I am, just how I am. So we're trying to shut up Tanner right now. Please, man. Show me up. No, I wanted to ask with regards to the offensive line, you know, Gio, you know, fifth year guy paid his dues, right, is hurt, comes back in. I thought Central Michigan game as Central Michigan, but I thought through the Nebraska, even Wisconsin, I thought that there were some things that they found.

And obviously, in my opinion, I think you want Gio on the field. But do you think there's like a, as a. Is there a period of time where it's like, man, you're just not, you know, it was a phobia. Now it's, now it's El Hadi for these other guys, you know, for Crippin and for the other guys around him. Like, do you, do you buy into that? Is there, you know, is it really going to look that bad during that adjustment period? Or is it El Hadi being a little rusty or a combination of both? Or, you know, what do you think about that?

Yeah, I mean, maybe El Hottie's more hurt than he wants to lead on and, you know, let people know. But, you know, we talked around the pod. There's those two younger guys, those five-star tackles that are, you know, one's hurt, one's, one's in, of in the waiting. I thought, I think it's Guanera. It looked pretty good. I thought the last two games filling in for Al-Hadi. So, you know, I think as a captain, like you say, you pay your dues, but this is a results-driven business, a result-driven sport, and you got to produce, whether you're, you know, the fifth-year guy and getting replaced by Rashon Gary, like I thought I was in 2016, no matter what I had done of the previous three seasons. But at some point, you got to,

you got to produce you got to put up um i mean obviously offensive line don't have numbers but you you got to be able to to block for for justice and block for bryce because um that that's the name of the game and that that's your job so um i don't know i'm i'm i'd give el hadi a week another week or two to see if he can bounce back from from that and i mean really the whole offensive line yeah you can't scrap the whole offensive line but um you know if in a week or two it looks the same something's got to change Yeah, and speaking on, I don't know what's going on, speaking on Bryce too, speaking on Bryce too.

So what are you seeing from him specifically? I know that I don't think my take is they're not putting like everything on his shoulders, which I think is probably a smart play. you know there was a ton of uh there was a ton of talk early on about like unleashing bryce underwood right and like all that type of stuff um you know what's your what is your uh you know what are your thoughts on brys underwood now halfway through his freshman season i mean i think just as like i talked about just with the offense in general like it's just consistency like you know i think obviously there was those first couple weeks where they were holding them back

and then they kind of unleash him against i think central michigan but it's like, I don't know, I didn't really need them to unleash him against Central Michigan. I needed him to unleash him the week before against Oklahoma. And when you look at some of his, some throws, what was it, last week against USC, there were some that were kind of in the dirt. So just more consistency in his accuracy. I love when he gets out of the pocket and makes those kind of bullet passes for completions, those are fantastic.

I'd love to see him run a little more, just knowing what he can do with his arm and his legs. I think you've got to have to showcase what he can do on a more consistent basis. But that seems to be the story that I'm going to continue to talk about on the offense until I see some more of that is consistency. But so far, I've loved for what I've seen from Bryce. Obviously, you know, people want more. I want more out of him. I think he wants more out of himself, which is exciting to see that a player like him knows that there's room for improvement. And I'm excited to see him continue to take those steps moving forward. As as he can continue to make those steps and make those, you know, small adjustments

week in and week out, I'm excited. I'm, I'm happy that he's, he's the quarterback for Michigan. I got to say, though, guys, I mean, where we're sitting with him, and yeah, it's been some inconsistencies, but, God, there's like, it's like five or six times every week. We're like, holy shit. He just made that throw. Like, even the throw to Marsh, like, he kind of, he kind of adjust and then just, it was almost like, it's almost like a three-quarters throw and just fires that thing in there. and Marsh is able to go. Speaking of, Andrew Marsh has, I think,

eight for 138 in a touchdown. That's just huge for the offense in general. I think his emergence, we've talked about it all year. I know you guys have talked about it too, but, like, you know, Donovan McCulley is a really, really good wide receiver, but you need somebody opposite him. What did you see from Andrew Marsh? I mean, obviously the stats are there, but, man,

it just feels like he kind of grew up, you know, in like a two or three week period, where in the first part of the season, the first game, he's not ready for a pass on a play that's basically designed for him. So him kind of just maturing so quickly, I think is a great sign for the offensive for the program. Yeah, I think as he continues, as Bryce continues to evolve, and obviously McCulley's kind of been that number one guy, but it looks like Marshall might be that number one guy now and is continuing to evolve alongside Bryce.

They're going to need each other for the next two to three years, and that's exciting to see that their chemistry is already pretty solid. At least I thought at the beginning of the season it was going to be those tight ends that were going to be his safety valve and safety blanket. But those guys just haven't produced like we thought they were that I thought they would. And, you know, it's exciting and it's cool to see somebody like Marsh who is a freshman. He's young. He's still raw, but he's still emerging and becoming one of those guys that Bryce is going to lean on for the next six weeks.

And to see him continue to take those steps alongside Bryce is a positive. It's something that I think Michigan fans should be happy about. out. For sure. Well, want to give a shout out to Feldman Chevrolet of Highland. Go check out what they've got going there, as well as Woodson Whiskey. We had a great time with Charles a couple weeks ago. And, you know, looking forward to getting back to the tailgate this week with Feldman Chevrolet of Highland as well. So, Chris, before we jump off here, tell the people a lot of little bit about the stadium and made podcast that you've got going on with jordan strack yeah man stadium and main pod uh it's with me chris wormley big worm and jordan strack uh we've teamed up this

year with blue by 90 which is uh thank you guys for allowing us to be on the on your guys's platform and uh yeah we're talking michigan ball we're bringing on on guests uh every week and this past week was jake butt he came on and and blew jordan eye out of the water when it comes to the way he talks ball i'm like man like i need to take some notes but yeah man stadium and main pod get it on the blue by 90 youtube page get it on uh apple and spotify podcast wherever you get them and uh tune in because uh we got some pretty cool guests coming up in the next couple weeks as well there you go go for it tanner no i was just going to say i mean i've been you know i've been listening i've been editing and it's been awesome

um just you know you and jordan and um you know have watching you at michigan i mean i remember when you committed because i was a nerd and i loved like i played football and stuff but i was so i was so invested in Michigan football. So I was just, I think we might be like a year part or like the same high school class. I don't remember. But like just I remember watching you play and then, you know, I followed Jordan forever. So it's really cool to see you guys on the show. But then some of the guests you bring in, you know, Chase Winovich is a madman. Fun fact, I was in an online dynasty. Not on the new games, but the old one, but like three years after they stopped making it, the one with the Nard on the cover. Yeah. He ran it. He ran the dynasty. I was like, you got it, brother.

You know, randomly was in the dynasty with Chase, but, no, they've been crushing it. The podcast has been awesome. The one with Jake Butt, it's phenomenal. I mean, not even just talking football, Chris. Like, you know, we all have, you know, we speak with impressive people and you hear people speak or you go to conventions for work. And Jake Butt is as impressive as they come. And it is, it comes natural to that guy. So go check that podcast out.

It's awesome to hear. A little depressing at times. But there's always a way out of this thing. And I'm excited for Saturday. and I'm hoping I'm drinking Woodson Whiskey for a good reason, Justin, not to draw my sorrows away. Yeah. Worm, I do love, you know, I think Strack is an inherent. He's kind of the negative guy on there while you're like, all right, we're okay.

Everything's going to be fine. You're the more realist. So you guys got a good balance going. Yeah, I mean, I've played this game for 20 plus years. I live in Ann Arbor, so if I see Wink in the supermarket or Sharon, and I'm, I'm talking some shit like i don't come up impress me no i'm just kidding i i got a lot of faith in those guys but um i will say for this this upcoming episode uh when it drops on tuesday i think people are going to be pretty surprised as to who it is uh this guy uh played back in the mid 2000s and uh

he doesn't do a whole lot of media but somehow i got him on on the pod and i think people are going to enjoy it so it should be a good one yeah he he may or may not throw the ball around a little bit or have thrown the bone on. Matt Gutierrez. You guys are good. I'm excited. Well, yeah, thank you so much for coming on. It's awesome to be able to chop it up with you and just get your knowledge as well.

We can get, you know, hopefully I think we just got to continue. Obviously, we'll see what happens on Saturday. But continue the, you know, it's not as bad as you think it is campaign that we have. and the, you know, hey, you know, the world isn't, isn't, you know, ending. I've got a good friend who will text me all the time on Sundays after, you know, we do take an unfortunate loss. And he's like, well, the sun still came up this morning. You know, it's, we're still all alive, you know.

So, but thank you so much for coming on. I'm, I'm excited, you know, for you at the frat tomorrow, too. I feel like this is, this could be like a project at situation. the making i pray that it's not i don't know if my my uh my body could take that um calling my wife at 2 am to come pick me up i don't think she'd be too happy either but uh no it should be fun i'm excited to talk to talk uh it's going to be fun it's going to be light we're going to talk uh you know obviously michigan ball but include some fun things in there as well so should be good there you go all right well uh for us you can follow us at blue by 90 on twitter instagram facebook

Okay, Blue By 90 podcast on YouTube and Blueby90.com. We appreciate you. Go Blue. Go Blue.