Things Discussed:

• Keep Bryce Home tailgate tomorrow at Belleville. Also Keep Avery Home as Groves faces Seaholm in the playoffs tomorrow.
• Oregon: Figured they'd get slaughtered when Jyaire was out but!!!
• Offense: Took awhile to learn not to run outside against the outside team. Mistakes are less important when you're a good team.
• Warren looked plausible in the 2nd half but you can tell they don't expect him to make 5 yards when they need him.
• Defense: Took them a half to realize they have to lean on their front four and spend a guy helping their CBs—they mostly helped Zeke so Hall got exposed. Uncomfortable for Wink to play the way this team was designed, also only works when you have your starters.
• Should they be more of a pass team? Craig: yes. Seth: play-action off what you do. Brian/Seth: They don't have constraints to stop teams from overplaying their runs.
• They have plays but they're one-offs. Used the example of the Orji at WR play where it shows they understand how the Lanning defensive checks work, and it gets them a 3rd & 5 on a screen. But there's nothing else off of that.
• Split zone should be their bread and butter,
• Indiana: They've had an easy schedule, they give up points, kind of built like Oregon in that they have two good tackles, a good QB and RB, may be a little soft on the interior. Defensively they imported Cignetti's JMU roster; CJ West at nose is a big pickup. They cascade. Stay disciplined and focus on your bread and butter, because the game runs away. Worried that IU is the kind of team that will really expose our coordinators' weaknesses.
• Officiating: It should be a guy with a DVR talking into the referee's earpiece.
• Basketball! The best opener you can ask for. Cleveland State was a good program but they had a lot of transfers and were discombobulated: throwing the ball out of bounds, missing threes. Still an awesome performance, especially from Danny Wolf. They were getting after it on D, playing upbeat.
• Used to be frustrated by Izzo teams that run out after you score, and Michigan was doing a lot of that.
• LJ Cason is a find! How was this a 3-star? He gets after it on defense, has length, is impossible to keep out of the lane.
• Roddy Gayle is faster than we realized, maybe smaller than we realized which could scare away the NBA an extra year.
• Tre Donaldson had a great game: zero turnovers as the primary initiator, 7 assists, looked like a real PG.
• Goldin: Not the best game, not reading much into it.
• Wake preview: Mostly road (Greensboro) against some names you'll remember from Michigan recruiting: Hunter Sallis the scoring guard, and center Efton Reid, both who came from Gonzaga last year to key a bubble team. Return 4/6 of their main rotation but struggled to score vs the team that was #360 in Kenpom.

57 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
• Domination but no goals
• One PPG and not much else
• Here Come tthe Goals

• Goal Count!
• Weekend Takeaways
• Old Friends and the League
• Looking at the Leprechauns

MUSIC

• NHL on ESPN Theme
• "The Bomb" -- Pigeon John
• Ice Hockey (NES) theme

2 hours and 2 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, The Sklars Brothers, the Autograph: Fandom Rewarded app, Champions Circle, Winewood Organics, Community Pest Solutions, and Venue by 4M where we recorded this.

Starts at 1:00

This was a Fetty Wapping at the hands of Oregon. Davis Warren didn't really have negative throws but he's missing receivers and not pulling the trigger on open guys. Oregon's linebacker said in the post-game that when Orji is in the game it's pretty simple. Michigan isn't running stuff that looks like the other stuff they run, it's more of a grab bag. When was the last time they threw over the top of a safety? They don't really have packages, they just have plays. Gotta talk about The Razzles.

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

Starts at 35:15

Twitter had some harsh comments about Wink! But by the end of the game it was okay in context, especially with only one cornerback. Oregon has an extremely efficient offense that doesn’t have to attack downfield so they didn’t (much). You know it’s a good catch by the away team when they show the replay and the big screen and the home crowd goes “woah!” Linebackers/safeties missed some tackles but it was a much better performance than against Michigan State. You have to take this defense in context with all the injuries and transfers.

Starts at 1:01:08

Takes hotter than Jason’s immune system which is working overtime to make him better. Accidental hockey segment! What is the point of video replay if you’re not going to use it, Big Ten?? Is Dan Lanning scheming some of these miscues that Michigan had? Did the boos from Michigan Stadium convince Sherrone to challenge the Loveland drop? Shout out to Joe Taylor on special teams.

Starts at 1:29:51 Indiana 47, Michigan State 10 9Windiana has finally happened! Kurtis Rourke is back despite the injured thumb. They just played good, solid Indiana(??) football. Michigan State finished with -36 rushing yards.

Ohio State 20, Penn State 13 We’ve seen this game before. A lot of weird things happened, though. There’s always time on the clock for Frames Janklin. What was that goal line decision making?

Minnesota 25, Illinois 17 Luke Altmyer didn’t put the ball into danger but didn’t add much. This was like the Michigan Illinois game but not stupid.

Washington 26, USC 21 USC throws three interceptions, they’re 0-3 when they throw more than 50 times. Are they even going to make a bowl game?

UCLA 27, Nebraska 20 This came out of nowhere. Here comes the annual impending collapse of Nebraska.

Iowa 42, Wisconsin 10 Before the season started, we thought Michigan was good Iowa. Turns out Iowa is good Michigan. Wisconsin had only a 5% havoc rate and their linebacker factory is dismantled.

Northwestern 26, Purdue 20 Purdue gave up 302 passing yards to Northwestern!

MUSIC:

• "I Don't Love Anyone"-- Belle and Sebastian
• "Our Hometown Boy" -- The Hard Quartet
• "Mystified" -- Same Eyes
• “Across 110th Street”—JJ Johnson and his Orchestra

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.