1 Hour and 14 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.

2 hours and 34 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, Champions Circle, Winewood Organics, Community Pest Solutions, Venue by 4M where record this, and Introducing this season: Radecki Oral Surgery, and Long Road Distillers.

Starts at :51

This doesn't even qualify as a top five weird Northwestern game (we list our top five). This week's snack of the week is organic pumpkin seeds. On one level, this kinda looked like Michigan's best game of the year on offense and defense. Michigan comes out slinging it and Bryce's confidence seemed like it was at another level, but he made young mistakes. What happened on Bryce's sacks? Playing Northwestern always kinda feels like they have your signs. Michigan was able to counter some of Northwestern's defensive counters. Most of the mistakes are coming from freshmen which is just something that happens. Missed cuts on zone is whatever but missed cuts on power isn't good. Bryson Kuzdzal came in and did just fine. Bryce's scrambles were pretty good and mostly improvisation, his interceptions were freshman stuff. Safeties were baiting him, can he anticipate that in the future? The first interception was not understanding how to read the coverage, the second one was just needing to throw the ball better. Andrew Marsh made the Michigan catch of the year, you have a dedicated receiver going into next year. You could have 12 of 14 boxes in a great position next year. Andrew Marsh is the best freshman receiver since... Manningham? How much does this performance mean against Ohio State? The reverse fumble is on Chip Lindsey. 

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

Starts at 44:15

Northwestern came into this game with a pretty good ground game and they got stuffed. This was a good game to run the 5-2 in, Northwestern is on the opposite end of the spectrum from USC. Northwestern's gamesmanship cost them two false starts, Michigan tipped what they were running multiple times. The defensive backs got beat a few times but sometimes a receiver just makes a nice play over you. You probably don't want to put Zeke Berry on Jeremiah Smith, Jyaire Hill is getting his star back. Brandyn Hillman tackled with his arms! He's grown as a much more mature player over the season. They're defending screens now! TJ Metcalf body-slammed a guy.  

Starts at 1:08:55

Takes hotter than suburban Chicago in mid-November. There seems to be differing views on how much people liked this venue for a football game. The camera shots were weird. Seth and Dave think the inside of the stadium is magical, Brian not so much. It might've actually been 90% Michigan fans. They did the best they could with clock management at the end of the first half. What about timeouts at the end of the second half? Zvada kicked the ball into the street outside of the stadium. Brian takes responsibility for the missed field goals by changing the preview. Semaj got replaced, he's a better player than he's performed but he may be overdue for a mental health break. 4th down decisions. NFL calculator says there's a complete coin flip in decision making. It shouldn't be a holding call if you're getting your ass kicked. Semaj was on the ground with the ball but they didn't overturn the fumble? There's no transparency between officiating and the fans, other conferences and sports are getting better at it.

Starts at 1:59:37

wsg Rodger Sherman, founder of Sports!, formerly of The Ringer, coiner of "Fetty Wapping," college football hero.

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, Ann Arbor Elder Law, Michigan Law Grad, Human Element, Sharon's Heating & Air Conditioning, The Sklar Brothers, Winewood Organics, Community Pest Solutions, Radecki Oral Surgery, Long Road Distillers, and SignalWire where we are recording this.

Featured Musician: Terry Klein

THE VIDEO:

[After THE JUMP: Things discussable.] 

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

Not necessarily in this order.

starts at the top

They're fine. Their offense plods but for one good receiver or when their QB throws an INT, which he's got accuracy problems that were visible when he was a Rhett Ashlee QB at SMU. Their defense is decent, rotates, plays sound football of a Lloyd variety. Alex likes edge Aidan Hubbard more than Michael Kilbane (whom PFF prefers). Their DTs are a little undersized so they jump behind the line of scrimmage, which Nebraska was able to exploit down the stretch.

starts at 13:56

What's it like being a Northwestern fan these days? It's spending $800 million on an unnecessary stadium instead of players, because you can't put your name on players.

starts at 27:45

How many ways can we say Mara is a star? Defensive ceiling is ridiculous. Three-big lineup needs a name. We also talk about Matt D's findings regarding the defensive play of Michigan's guards, which was not at all what we expected.

starts at 44:58

Young offensive line plus Zack Marshall and Jalen Hoffman continue to be good blockers—might meet their match vs Ohio State. Jordan Marshall is a beast. Bryce's second half wasn't great either—he was not feeling comfortable in the pocket, missed some RPO reads he made earlier. Need a bye to get right. Defensively, I wasn't mad about Wink. Don't say on the internet that I was mad. Defensively the kids were not alright and the defensive rotations were still weird, but more explainable given the injury circumstances. Long drives were explainable until Purdue figured out they were just running nail (where you insert a blitzing LB as a 5th lineman and play 5-1). Interested in Lugard Edokpayi.

I usually don't go for country music, but I do when it's made by Terry Klein (LSA 1995), a folk country artist from Austin who's been touring festivals the most hallowed singer-songwriter venues across the country for decades, and reading a lot of MGoBlog between stops. His last album Leave the Light On won a bunch of acclaim, making American Songwriter's list of the best records released in 2023. His fifth album, Hill Country Folk Music, just came out.

Songs:

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

Things Discussed:

HOOPS

FOOTBALL

TONY PETTITI IS GOING TO END THE BIG TEN

1 Hour and 28 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.

2 hours and 26 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, Champions Circle, Winewood Organics, Community Pest Solutions, Venue by 4M where record this, and Introducing this season: Radecki Oral Surgery, and Long Road Distillers.

Starts at :53

Everyone said "nice" at the halftime of this game. At first it didn't seem like the results meant much because Oakland looked really bad, but then they went and had a close game against Purdue. How much can you gather about Michigan fromhere? Trey McKenney was 6-8 from three and looked the part. He also had four assists and no turnovers, there were some Darius Morris qualities about him. Do they go with the very big rotation with Yaxel out? Will Tschetter seems to get more minutes when Yaxel is out, would like to see him step up as a four year player. Wake Forest was a bubble team last year and look like one this year, that game will tell us more about Michigan. 

Starts at 21:31

Rutgers

Starts at 1:15:30

Takes hotter than the opposite of Kinnick Stadium, that looked miserable. Michigan split with Wisconsin over the weekend in a return to reality series. But it felt like worse than a split for what got exposed. Michigan couldn't get out of their zone but most teams on the schedule won't be able to replicate what Wisconsin did. Goalie Jack Ivankovic also just had a bad weekend which happens. Friday was such a fun game that was getting ruined by piped in music. They're being told to turn it down. Wisconsin seemed to really get under Michigan's skin and the frustration came out. The Big Ten is one of the best hockey leagues in the world and the league barely broadcasts games. 

Starts at 1:45:28

Things Discussed:

Men's Hoops:

Women's Hoops:

1 Hour and 0 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.

MUSIC

1 hour and 55 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, Champions Circle, Winewood Organics, Community Pest Solutions, Venue by 4M where record this, and Introducing this season: Radecki Oral Surgery, and Long Road Distillers.

Starts at :57

This podcast starts out telepathically but then Brian's intrusive thoughts got telepathed so it had to stop. Dave introduces the Snack of the Week. Would you rather talk about this game or Dunkaroos? Bryce Underwood - not good in the first half. A fumble on the sideline is usually harmless unless it involves the silliest rule in football. His scrambling was good but you can't build a business in this industry by scrambling, that will get you killed against Ohio State. Too many missed passes, he doesn't really settle in. By the Georgia game, JJ was probably where Bryce is now - many mistakes but you can see the talent. On the flip side, the offensive line had a great game. Purdue loaded the box but Jordan Marshall rushed for 185 yards anyways. You can't tackle him with just one guy, he will emerge from piles. This is the fourth straight game where Sprague has been incredible. Bryson Kuzdzal had some nice runs on the game-sealing drive. Tight ends were fine, more catches by Zack Marshall. There's not a lot of separation between Marshall and Klein. Semaj had way fewer snaps, Goodwin saw more time. You have six 2nd or 3rd year players on this offensive line that can absolutely play in this conference. The future of the offensive line is bright. 

Starts at 41:43

How do we even feel about the defensive performance? We've seen Purdue all season be an offense that moves the ball down the field but can't score. That happened but it felt bad. Cam Brandt was too far upfield on a couple big run plays. Why are the good defensive ends not on the field for 70% of the snaps that they should be out for? Why are the starters rotating out so much throughout the game? Assuming he's healthy, do you put Jaishawn Barham at DE or LB against Ohio State? Michigan didn't commit to a position for him and it's hurting his play. Way fewer three defensive tackle sets, yay. If your name is going to be "Michael Jackson" you need to go by "Mike". Jyaire Hill got sealed a couple times but was otherwise fine. The endzone DPI was DPI. Metcalf got sucked in during the touchdown. 

Starts at 1:06:04

Takes hotter than the amount of trouble Jason would get into if he did the Hot Takes voice at a golf tournament where he was during recording. Michigan has not been good at Special Teams Things, why are they running kickoffs out of the middle of the endzone? Another punt that Semaj didn't field that gave up 20 yards. Did Jay Harbaugh have a heat map for punting? We've never had to talk so much about shield punting positioning but now we have to. Clock management at the end of the first half was pretty on-point. Purdue's 4th down decision making was aggressive which you do if you want to try to win the game. Shout out to Michigan fans for feeding energy back into the team in the 4th quarter. The students did the shirtless thing that's become a college football thing. Also shout out to Barry Odom for getting the Purdue bench fired up. 

Starts at 1:28:22

No Brian this week

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, Ann Arbor Elder Law, Michigan Law Grad, Human Element, Sharon's Heating & Air Conditioning, The Sklar Brothers, Winewood Organics, Community Pest Solutions, Radecki Oral Surgery, Long Road Distillers, and SignalWire where we are recording this.

Featured Musician: Grand Gesture

THE VIDEO:

[After THE JUMP: Things discussable.] 

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

starts at the top

Injured Mockobee, injured, turnover-prone starting QB in a battle with Arkansas transfer. OL gets worse from left to right. Receivers drop more than ours. Tight end was one dude who's hurt and three weirdos. They move the ball with College Crappe: screens, GT Counters, lots of RPOs, and the occasional baller play by Ryan Browne. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES WINK.

starts at 25:22

That secondary is rough and getting rougher. They have one good lineman, plus maybe a second in Breeon Ishmail. Linebackers came with Odom. Do the Nebraska thing where they give you lots of weird fronts, 3-3-5, 404 Tite, Mint, etc. so they confuse your reads. Going to be fits and starts, need to take advantage of the cracks without Haynes.

starts at 45:51

Defensive UFR things: Jimmy Rolder was a star for more reasons than you think. Jyaire Hill took away their main thing. Chiles looks broken, MSU OL look broken, they are down bad.

starts at 1:03:29

Open and soon to be open coaching jobs, person who has to approve, person we would choose. We ship LSU, PSU, Florida, Arkansas, VT, Wisconsin, UCLA, Stanford, MSU, Oregon State, and Oklahoma State, plus Seth has one more because we stole a coach from somewhere.

We featured Grand Gesture on this show back in 2017 and I rediscovered their album I downloaded (for free) from Bandcamp. Reader Ryan Dembinsky (class of 2000) is one of the guitar players in this NYC band that promises "Protean fjord jam rock." I'd actually characterize it as a great example of the more interesting stuff that came out at the end of the garage rock era (other examples: Apollo Sunshine, Starlight Mints) that I thought was better than the genre that birthed it. Ryan also used to write the Ghosts of Wayne Fontes blog back when MGoBlog was young (2006-2009) and sports blogging was a budding industry.

I'm not sure they're still together—the last show on their FB page was pre-pandemic—and even then they were all musicians on the side with full-time jobs. I wonder what would have happened if they took this professional though, because they're pretty good and got some buzz in the NYC music scene around 2017.

Songs:

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