Things Discussed:

• MSU: Craig is done playing them. Seth says that's crazy talk.
• MSU internet fans are off their rockers again. They've got their AD from RCMB adding up made-up malfeasances. They have beatwriters like Graham Couch and Chris Solari making up a stomp and when they're told it's not true they double down.
• The football: Played conservatively, Warren had three downfield passes. Oregon is going to have hard-triggering quarter safeties with better players. At least they ran Orji+1.
• Wink Talk: He brought back the thing that didn't work against Texas, and it didn't work, and didn't work again, and didn't work again. You know the Fry meme: Not sure if serious? That's his playcalling modus operandi. If you run the thing that looks obvious, you've got him. Mattison had a similar formation in 2012 to beat Northwestern, but it was a trap. Wink's bluffing when he has bad cards and slow-playing good ones, and once you figure that out you can wreck him.
• His results on 3rd and long are so bad that if he ran the same Cover 2/Rush 4 every play he'd be doing better. First of the long runs D-Mo was supposed to be in that gap but it's so wide that he wouldn't have been able to help unless he's slanting hard.
• Oregon? Their weak point is backup DT, but Michigan doesn't have the guys to 2023 Penn State them. Sam: only shot is their front four eat and M gets off the field. If you try to get exotic with these dudes. They went max pro and took shots because they thought they could run by Ohio State, and they could.
• Dan Lanning's a good coach. Reminds me of Michigan last year: You can come up with what-if-we…'s but they have answers for it. What if we're 2022 Illinois?
• Will Bryce Underwood be at the game? Does Michigan have a shot? Sam isn't committal.

1 hour and 56 minutes

The Sponsors

Thank you to Underground Printing for making this all possible. Rishi and Ryan have been our biggest supporters from the beginning. Check out their wide selection of officially licensed Michigan fan gear at their 3 store locations in Ann Arbor or learn about their custom apparel business at undergroundshirts.com.

Our associate sponsors are: Peak Wealth Management, Matt Demorest - Realtor and Lender, Ann Arbor Elder Law, Michigan Law Grad, Human Element, Sharon's Heating & Air Conditioning, Venue by 4M where we recorded this, The Sklars Brothers, Autograph: Fandom Rewarded, who just launched an app where you earn rewards for things like reading MGoBlog and listening to this podcast, Champion Circle, and returning this season Winewood Organics.

Starts at 1:00

Introducing the MGoBlog post-game incident scale: 1 -- Kerfuffle 2 -- Fracas 3 -- Brewhaha 4 -- Melee 5 -- Donnybrook What happened after the game on Saturday was a kerfuffle. It felt like Michigan State came into the game with a solid plan while Michigan was struggling. Suddenly, Michigan was leading at halftime. Davis Warren's job was to not lose this game and he didn't, the ball wasn't put into danger and it worked. Donovan Edwards is no Tom Brady but he's got a perfect QB rating.

Starts at 35:15

Defense only gives up 17 points but it doesn't feel super great? But for the most part they did okay. Junior Colson set the bar for consistent tackling and now missed tackles are weird. They put Mason Graham at edge and got weird and then got beat by Michigan State 3rd down frippery. They're preventing their best players from making plays. Michigan State didn't put this game on Aidan Chiles' shoulders so we didn't get the full Chiles experience. Brian finally has a nice thing to say about Cal Haladay. Maybe Jesse Minter was just so good that no matter who was the defensive coordinator this year they would be perceived as bad.

Starts at 1:01:08

We gotta have a brewhaha level of takes at least. Tommy Doman has continued to be inconsistent. Was State's on-side kick a good idea? The weird fair catch rule is something a lot of us didn't know about. Going for it on 4th down, tougher decision than last year!

Starts at 1:29:51 Indiana 31, Washington 17 Yardage was fairly even but Indiana grinded it out very consistently. They're 8-0 for the first time since 1967. Kurtis Rourke had surgery on his thumb and might be back this weekend. Ohio State 21, Nebraska 17 Indiana beat Nebraska 56-7, JUST SAYIN'. Ryan Day has a meltdown on the field and then tells fans to be happy about this game in his press conference. Ohio State fans are comparing their tackle situation to Michigan's QB situation. Penn State 28, Wisconsin 13 Drew Allar went out around halftime. It doesn't look like it's happening for Luke Fickell at Wisconsin. Penn State pretty much dominated down-for-down. USC 42, Rutgers 20 Pushed back til 11pm EST kickoff to accommodate the World Series?? How many of you sickos (me) watched this? Iowa 40, Northwestern 14 They benched Cade McNamara! Northwestern only had 163 yards of offense. Oregon 38, Illinois 9 Eek. Minnesota 48, Maryland 23 Never competitive.

MUSIC:

• "Rubberneckin'"-- Elvis
• "This Is Why We Fight" -- The Decembrists
• "When They Fight, They Fight" -- The Generationals
• “Across 110th Street”—JJ Johnson and his Orchestra

Things Discussed:

• Dusty May's recruiting: A+. Grady should be Wisconsin-level hateable. Oscar Goodman has the most beautiful line in a shooter's scouting report: good not great athlete. These guys will be around 3-4 years
• Craig: Grady has some Roddy Gayle, can shoot a midrange. Have pole position in the recruitment of impact Trey McKenney, fighting UNLV and BYU for a center who does everything they want.
• Oakland Exhibition takes: The ball does not stick on this team. Three guys are point guards, and then Danny Wolf also sees the court. It got a little sloppy as they got to know each other.
• Roddy Gayle's defense stood out. Sam Walters stood out, role this year is going to be a JAS.
• Question: do they wear out their centers? If you want to play fast you're going to wear out your bigs, which is fine if you're going to play Wolf at the five for 15 minutes, but now you need a four. Think that will be matchup-based whether they roll with Walters or Tschetter or Jones in those situations.
• If someone gets in foul trouble they can weather it. Weird to see a guard foul out (Cason) and not be worried. Means they can play more aggressively. Defense was impressive. They did play drop, but being able to flat hedge is important, and having huge guards is going to feel very different. So many arms!
• Another takeaway: Wolf's rebounding is very underrated.
• Toledo preview: they're a five-out team with a 6-7 center so we'll get to see a different configuration against a different challenge than Kempe's big guards.
• Babalola: Good to see Sherrone Moore's recruiting is what we hoped it would be. Way more athletic than most guys we've had, reminds me of when the early internet sent around a video clip of Jake Long dunking.
• Illinois review: Offensive line was better, Gentry had a couple of pressures given up (PFF missed one) but he moved people and it's hard to understand why he wasn't playing over Link. Crippen it's more clear why they were trying Giudice because Crip tends to get bulled back. Wasn't terrible. Tuttle was—some of his mistakes weren't on him but he fumbled, had two HORRIBLE interceptions, can tell he hasn't practiced much this year.
• They found a major: split zone. Then they went away from it. When they play-action they get the reaction they want, but can't complete the pass. Game over.
• Who's QB: doesn't matter.
• Illinois had a good gameplan, but defense was good. Game was lost on offense, which is 94% the quarterback, so it's hard for us to break this down. Everybody can see this.
• Special teams is the other issue: Doman's punts are giving up 30 yards on the exchange. Everybody knew Illinois was going to fake near the 50 except this team.
• Defense: Got a better Wink. Starting to build blitzes around his players, and they're more effective.
• Michigan State: Michigan has better players, MSU has better coaching. They got Chiles to not turn the ball over against Iowa and suddenly they look good. Fancystat numbers are based on horrible interceptions; down to down they're a decent offense. Marsh is a dangerous WR, wish we had a healthy Will Johnson. MSU's OL is not good, especially on the right side.

1 hour and 3 minutes

With David Nasternak and Alex Drain

This Podcast Has a Sponsor: Michigan Law Grad Jonathan Paul is the guy with the C you want skating next to the ref and pleading your case. He's also a good guy to sit next to at the hockey games.

• Opener
• Struggled in the First
• Flipped the script except for Posch
• Made Plays!

• Five for High Sticking?
• Even Strength Struggles
• Old Friends and the League
• Early '25 Preview

MUSIC

• NHL on ESPN Theme
• "Broken Horse" -- Freelance Whales
• Ice Hockey (NES) theme

1 hour and 23minutes

The Sponsors

Thank you to Underground Printing for making this all possible. Rishi and Ryan have been our biggest supporters from the beginning. Check out their wide selection of officially licensed Michigan fan gear at their 3 store locations in Ann Arbor or learn about their custom apparel business at undergroundshirts.com.

Our associate sponsors are: Peak Wealth Management, Matt Demorest - Realtor and Lender, Ann Arbor Elder Law, Michigan Law Grad, Human Element, Sharon's Heating & Air Conditioning, Venue by 4M where we recorded this, The Sklars Brothers, Autograph: Fandom Rewarded, who just launched an app where you earn rewards for things like reading MGoBlog and listening to this podcast, Champion Circle, and returning this season Winewood Organics.

Starts at 1:00

It’s a lot worse than we expected. There are Dungeons and Dragons references and they aren’t even coming from Seth (we’re rolling 1s, folks). They’re not doing any of the things we thought they’d be good at in the off-season. They don’t have a plan and they never had a plan. Sherrone Moore isn’t getting fired after one year, so how do they get out of this hole? Kirk Campbell is in trouble. Is there something going on with this team in the background that we just don’t know about? Neither side of the ball is getting better throughout the season. What would YOU do if you were Sherrone Moore?

[The rest of the writeup and the player after THE JUMP]

Starts at 26:59

All things considered, the defense did pretty good. They held Illinois to under 300 yards and Luke Altmyer only had 80 passing yards. Illinois’ draw plays worked really well. The defensive line has been struggling with mobile quarterbacks this season. The refs got Michigan for all their holds and DPIs.

Starts at 40:00

Takes hotter than a random post on any message board. Do you think you could punt a ball 33 yards? Welp, let’s talk about the fake punt. Michigan plays too slowly to be down two touchdowns. What is the maximum you’ve ever seen the refs get the spot wrong? Big Noon Indiana is a silver lining!

Starts at 59:38 Indiana 56, Nebraska 7 495 yards to 304, one turnover to five for the Hoosiers. Indiana’s backup quarterback comes in and it doesn’t matter! The Hoosiers have a 51% chance of going 11-1 according to Bill Connelly.

Maryland 29, USC 28 USC was up 28-14 in the 2nd half. They are now 1-4 in the Big Ten and have lost all four games by a combined 14 points (they led all of these games at some point in the 2nd half).

Michigan State 32, Iowa 20 Aidan Chiles is pretty good when he doesn’t turn the ball over and he only turned it over once. Iowa scores a 75 yard rushing touchdown and that’s about it for them.

UCLA 35, Rutgers 32 Congrats to UCLA for their first Big Ten win. The passing stats in this game are upsetting for Michigan fans.

Wisconsin 23, Northwestern 3 Just lean on Northwestern and they’ll fall over.

Oregon 35, Purdue 0 Yeesh

MUSIC:

• "Losing It"--Fisher
• "Heel Highway"--The Hard Quartet
• "Casimir Pulaski"--Sufjan Stevens
• “Across 110th Street”—JJ Johnson and his Orchestra

wsg UM Regent Jordan Acker

We want to thank Underground Printing for starting this and making it possible—stop by and pick up some gear, check them out at ugpmichiganapparel.com, or check out our selection of shirts on the MGoBlogStore.com. And let’s not forget our associate sponsors: Peak Wealth Management, Matt Demorest - Realtor and Lender, Human Element, Ann Arbor Elder Law, Michigan Law Grad, Venue by 4M, Winewood Organics, Sharon's Heating & Air Conditioning, Royal Oath Insurance Group, which is Owen Rosen's new firm, Autograph: Fandom Rewarded, Champion Circle, who just launched an app where you earn rewards for things like reading MGoBlog and listening to our podcast, SignalWire where we are recording this.

Featured Musician: King Lynxx

The Video:

[After THE JUMP: Things said.]

---------------------

starts at the top.

UM Athletics recently put out a survey that fans found pretty offensive. Rather than have this out over Twitter, we invited a regent to come on and discuss what they're seeing as revenue tradeoffs versus what the fans are seeing in terms of asking us to pay more for a cheaper product.

starts at 37:46

They've got a quarterback and a receiver, but maybe not so much an offensive line.

starts at 49:39

The 5-1 defense is still alive post-Walters, and still has lots of cornerbacks playing man coverage. Can they stop the big run though?

starts at 1:03:13

Coverage was wore than we thought. What can Tuttle do for the offense?

The latest album from socially conscious Detroit hip-hop artist King Lynxx, featuring Tez the Don, is a lot like Lynxx himself: grown up, witty, earnest, and honest. King has his own studio that rents out to a lot of local Detroit artists across genres, and has helped a lot of bands perfect their sound, so it's a bit of a local celebration whenever he comes out with a new album of his own. We've shared the radio versions.

Song choices:

• "God Body"
• "Walk It Better"
• "Step Daddy"

Also because Across 110th Street will get our Youtubes taken now now, the opener and outro:

• “The Employee is Not Afraid”—Bear vs. Shark
• “Ruska Vodka”—Motorboat

Things Discussed:

• Basketball talk with Seth: They're a fascinating portal team because they're not just the best players they could get; they're players who fit the kind of team May wants to coach.
• How much do we take preseason rankings seriously? Torvik and Kenpom have good numbers but the more transfers you have the dirtier their data. Projection is a larger component than it was in the past.
• Basketball talk with Brian: The one interesting spot is the four, because they want to play Wolf there, but not sure they can play against a small lineup.
• That's the thing about this roster: they can morph to play any kind of team. Rubin Jones gives them the flexibility; he can be a point in a huge lineup or he can play the four against guard lineups. Use Wolf against Iowa, use a small lineup against IU, etc.
• Basketball talk with Craig: Wolf and Goldin should work very well on the offensive end because Wolf has ball skills. Can Wolf guard a wing though? We'll have to see.
• Tschetter is more important than you think: he's slimmed down, is a skilled offensive player. Seth wants him to be the microwave off the bench, but if he can keep in front of wings a little bit more he's your other 3/4.
• Freshmen? Cason is going to be a starter next year probably so they're going to bring him in. Players might want to redshirt if they're D-I players who aren't NBA players (e.g. Brooks). Different math for Pippen, who could blow up this year or next, and is unlikely to stay in college if he becomes the player we think he'll be. Bigs should redshirt now.
• OSU-Oregon: Glad OSU lost because it fixed a rule hole and both OSU's schedule's a joke. Penn State's schedule's a bigger joke. Seth: they're flat track bullies.
• Football Talk: The coverage is in bad shape. Zeke Berry has me very worried.
• Could have been more about the Washington surface as guys were taking 3rd steps to gather themselves instead of moving like normal. Last time that field was tested for traction they were right on the border of acceptable, especially mattered when Giles Jackson is stopped and Berry is still in motion.
• Craig thinks Evan Link did better, Brian thinks the body of work says he's still the worst FBS right tackle so how much better can he get?
• Iowa-Washington: UW always comes away with 0 points in the redzone, but turnovers were the difference, and that came from Iowa knowing their defense versus Michigan giving away early open outs to Rogers. After watching Rogers vs Michigan I wasn't surprised a defense that knows who they are were able to exploit that.
• Guys coming along? Offensively no. Brian hasn't seen anything from the OL to think they can turn a corner, Orji stuff is tossed out the window, Tuttle's gonna get hurt. Brian is pretty checked out on football. Feels like modern college football has undermined how we invest in our teams, because once you lose a few games you're just looking at the portal instead of wondering who on your team you can develop.
• Defensively: Seth thinks Brandyn Hillman is going to be a really good player.