2 hours and 5 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.

1. The State of the Football Program

Starts at 1:00

Oh boy, we haven't done a podcast like this in a while! The weather was nice. A lot of issues from the previous regime are resurfacing right now, especially QB recruiting. Jim Harbaugh ultimately is the one who ran Jim Harbaugh out of Michigan. How was Sherrone Moore going to get a quarterback given all the circumstances? This year is a cost of last year. How is this offense better with Kalel Mullings on the bench? It feels like Sherrone is coaching this team like it's still the 2023 team. 

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

2. Offense vs Texas

Starts at 27:06

Michigan has decided to put one of their best offensive players on the bench on almost every snap. Evan Link got pushed around a lot. The things they were saying about Alex Orji in the off-season feel fabricated. They’re not even giving Alex Orji the chance to throw. Maybe they made an offense for him and it just didn’t work out and they had to switch back. There are a lot of veteran offensive linemen that are getting passed by younger linemen who aren’t quite there. The floor is getting lowered. Sherrone Moore is a young head coach and younger head coaches have hiccups early in their careers. It’s not that any individual player is at fault every time but enough players make enough mistakes that a lot of plays end up not working. This game was the other side of the 2021 Wisconsin game. 

3. Hot Takes and Defense vs Texas

Starts at 50:50

Takes hotter than Northern Illinois’ coach after beating Notre Dame. Jyaire Hill got picked on a lot in this game and Wink Martindale got his butt handed to him. They moved Mason Graham to defensive end on 3rd down?? Jesse Minter ran the good stuff, Wink is trying to run the “cool stuff”. The amoeba defense is nice in the NFL but just isn’t going to work with younger college players. The blitzes work because they’re weird but if you do them too frequently then they’re not weird anymore. If this game happened either of the last two seasons it would be doom but right now it’s fine, it’s not great, but it’s just whatever! We are kicker U! 

4. Around the Big Ten with Jamie Mac

 

Starts at 1:29:35



Rutgers, Minnesota, Washington, Ohio State, USC, and Indiana all had blowout wins. 

Washington did have a zero yard punt, though. 

Penn State 34, Bowling Green 27 

Total yardage is pretty close in this one. Bowling Green was running all the right plays but just didn’t have the talent to finish the job. 

Wisconsin 27, South Dakota 13

Wisconsin just doesn’t have any explosiveness out of the passing game and doesn’t dominate in the run game. 

Oregon 37, Boise State 34

Felt like Boise State dominated both lines of scrimmage. Oregon is a mess in pass protection.  

Nebraska 28, Colorado 10

Colorado has 16 rushing yards, they’re just fundamentally bad. 

Illinois 23, Kansas 17

First ranked win for Illinois in (I’m not looking it up)

Northwestern 20, Duke 26

This was just a beautiful, beautiful, disgusting Friday night game. 

Iowa 19, Iowa State 20

Ended on a game winning field goal, how all El Assicos should end. Cade McNamara completed more passes behind the line of scrimmage than in front of it. 

Michigan State 27, Maryland 24

Aidan Chiles’ boxscore is everywhere (good and bad). Michigan State could be the chaos team?

 

MUSIC:

• "The Loop"--Marlon Craft


• "Gorilla"--Little Simz


• "Save it for Later"--Eddie Vedder


• “Across 110th Street”—JJ Johnson and his Orchestra