2 hours and 6 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

This game was like losing the equalizer in British People Football. Alex Orji has 12 rushing yards which is concerning. They're not running QB power which is not even an expensive install. No we do not want Rich Rodriguez back! But they're not running the offense that optimizes this team's strengths. Alex Orji opened it up a bit in the passing game and at the very least kept the ball out of harm's way. The whole philosophy of this offense under Harbaugh was that you have an NFL quarterback and don't have to run a lot of College Crap™ - but now they should. Offensive line loses Myles Hinton in this game. Semaj Morgan played very little of a role. Nick Sheridan is killing it at Alabama!

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

Starts at 38:37

Not a whole lot of nits to pick considering they were down their two best players. A bit of a sharp drop-off with a lot of the backups. Not much to say about the starting defensive line - they're awesome. Zeke Berry had the play of the game. Barham always finishes his tackles, Hausmann was out of position at times, Rolder has been improving every game. Wink's defense blitzed less which was nice; had a bad one on a 3rd down conversion, though.

Starts at 1:00:50

Takes hotter than Nick Sheridan in the first half of the Georgia Alabama game. The Minnesota guy touched the ball before ten yards so quit your yappin'. The off-sides was very close. Is there a kicker in Michigan history you would take over Dominic Zvada? Going for it on 4th and 1 makes sense when you have Kalel Mullings. Tommy Doman: fine.

Starts at 1:36:00 Indiana 42, Maryland 28 Indiana is 5-0 for the first time since 1967. Will #9Windiana finally stop being an internet meme?? USC 38, Wisconsin 21 A tale of two halves, USC mostly shot themselves in the foot in the first half. Nebraska 28, Purdue 10 This game was tied 0-0 at halftime, if you're a computer science major this spells NOOP. Penn State 21, Illinois 7 Illinois scores six minutes into this game and decides that they're done. Drew Allar descends back into 2023 Allar. Ohio State 38, Michigan State 7 The Jeremiah Smith coming out party. Sparty can't convert in the redzone. Oregon 34, UCLA 14 UCLA is very bad!! Rutgers 21, Washington 18 Washington outgained Rutgers 521 to 299! Washington is not as bad as their record but they may be limping a bit into the Michigan game.

MUSIC:

• "For Beginners"--M.Ward
• "Flowers"--Real Estate
• "Superbad"--James Brown
• “Across 110th Street”—JJ Johnson and his Orchestra

Things Discussed:

• Love to Sam Webb, who's attending the funeral of his younger brother.
• USC game: They couldn't pass the ball because they couldn't protect him long enough to drop back.
• Craig: A whale came in late for Michigan in the betting markets.
• Brian: Michigan not running zone read offense much with Orji, doesn't feel like they know what to do with a running QB.
• Seth: You can play no-read, and they did some of that, but you need play-action off that and they haven't built any constraints into those plays. Harbaugh always recruited an athlete and a pro-style QB but usually the athlete becomes something else, doesn't seem like this program was prepared for the athlete.
• Brian: the big runs were more USC blowing something, now that teams have scouted Michigan's Orji offense those cracks are going to go away. Time to celebrate the win was Mon-Tues but on Thursday we have to face the grim reality that there isn't much upside because it's not what this staff wants to or knows how to run.
• Passing game? Orji got one dropback when he wasn't under pressure and he didn't see an open Marlin Klein.
• Brian's pretty down on this offense staff's ability to adjust to their personnel.
• Defense: Wink Martindale's presser pushed back against the narrative that he blitzes too much. Not a good look, not because he's wrong but because he's getting defensive—we think he was responding to Klatt not this site by the way.
• Actual Wink complaints from this site: Design of his blitzes are leaving the spot open where the pressure's coming from, which is the thing Mac and Minter were very good at taking away.
• Other issue is Wink doesn't have a feel for when to call things, IE on standard downs. Like, someone busted on the cover zero (minus-one), but why is that blitz coming from Mars, because there's no way for it to be relevant. Play before that they had Iwunnah set an edge. Big run on 3rd & 2 they slanted with Grant stunting, and two LBs taking the interior: it's a Barham-3 play, but why are we playing games? Play football.
• Not saying don't do anything weird; if you want to get weird get weird but make sure it's a passing down.
• Seth: This is all fixable. Macdonald had to make the same adjustment, he already
• Brian: Probably not fixable, since John Harbaugh let him go and New York let him go. Is he self-correcting or this being forced upon him? Because it's not a good sign that he's accusing people of not knowing how many people are crossing the line of scrimmage..
• Wink is right about one thing: If the narrative he's going to blitz it helps them. We saw this vs USC, which ran split flow to the TE in the flat three times hoping to get a nickel blitz and all they got was two zero yard plays in the red zone and the Jyaire Hill upending of a TE when Michigan sim blitzed the nickel.
• Bringing Three: Works when your coverage is great. Josaiah Stewart was great in COVERAGE too: that guy's going in the first round.
• Minnesota: If they can't run anymore they've lost who they are. If they can't tackle a running back I've got bad news for them against Michigan. Stewart has already had a great game against their star LT Aireontae Ersery.