1 Hour and 7 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
• Explosive first period
• Two Blown three goal leads
• Hage beats Grannan

• Goal Count
• Weekend Takeaways
• Old Friends and the League
• Checking in With Awkward Cousin

MUSIC

• NHL on ESPN Theme
• "Ain't No Use in Tryin'" -- Trampled By Turtles
• Ice Hockey (NES) theme

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, 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

We got in a time machine and went back to 2023 and it felt pretty good. Michigan and Northwestern were about even in yardage towards the end of the first half and then Michigan runs the worst two-minute drill to result in a touchdown ever. Can you do anything Michigan did in the 2nd half against Ohio State? No. A rare compliment to Kirk Campbell. Looking ahead to Bryce Underwood. Michigan is also going to portal a quarterback. A few guys who will contribute next year got to play in this game. There's a vibe about upcoming coaching/coordinator changes.

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

Starts at 34:01

Michigan was playing one of the worst offenses in America and made them look like it. Who comes back next year? The defensive tackles are gone but some ends are probably back. Will Johnson is gone but Hall is probably back. Zeke Berry is a safety playing corner so he has his limitations.

Starts at 48:06

Takes hotter than Tavierre Dunlap. What would be this team's record against last year's schedule? What would this team's record be with last year's coaching staff? Zvada is 6/6 on 50+ field goals this year. The transfer portal opens in one week and is only open for three weeks! Evaluating next year's offensive line. It will be interesting to see how a new offensive coordinator would evaluate the talent. They're probably fine at linebacker next year but the secondary is a concern.

Starts at 1:19:27 Ohio State 38, Indiana 15 Indiana's offensive line got destroyed which doesn't bode well for Michigan! Indiana's coaches are great but they played this game with James Madison's talent. Michigan State 24, Purdue 17 This one was fun to watch after the Victors signing event. This was being enjoyed by anyone who wasn't a Michigan State or Purdue fan. Michigan State has a "win and you're in" against Rutgers! Illinois 38, Rutgers 31 A wild ending to this one. Rutgers just stops playing defense on Illinois' game winning touchdown. Penn State 26, Minnesota 25 Penn State just hanging on by the skin of their teeth all game. There's a blocked extra point for a 2-pt return! This was a very MGoBlog score. Nebraska 44, Wisconsin 25 Nebraska is bowl eligible for the first time since 2016! Another poor performance for Wisconsin on both sides of the ball. Wisconsin hasn't had a losing season since 2001 (they're 5-6). Iowa 28, Maryland 13 Iowa runs their running back 35 times, naturally. Is it time for Maryland to move on from Locksley? Iowa Nebraska on Black Friday is now a fun tradition we're excited for. USC 19, UCLA 13 One of the Big Ten's all time greatest rivalries! There was a kickoff at the 5 yard line. The decision to bench Miller Moss is weird because he didn't appear to have been the problem.

MUSIC:

• "Life Is"-- Jessica Pratt
• "Lou's Tune" -- DARGZ, Moses Boyd
• "The In-Between" -- In This Moment
• “Across 110th Street”—JJ Johnson and his Orchestra

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, Champions Circle, Human Element, Ann Arbor Elder Law, Michigan Law Grad, Venue by 4M, Winewood Organics, Sharon's Heating & Air Conditioning, Royal Oath Insurance Group, Community Pest Solutions, Autograph: Fandom Rewarded, who just launched an app where you earn rewards for things like reading MGoBlog and listening to our podcast, and SignalWire where we are recording this.

Featured Musician: Magic Toaster

THE VIDEO:

[After THE JUMP: Things said.]

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

starts at the top

High-five everybody! Is he the starter next year? What does it do for the class? Guessing this means Michigan gets Derek Meadows, who was a package deal, and keeps Olesh, and can finish strong. What to make of other flip possibilities, including an OT committed to Alabama? What happened to Jaylen Williams?

starts at 24:19 (offense) and 35:38 (defense)

Offense isn't SO bad but still quite bad. Offensive line issues are not just injuries. Mirror Michigan in that they have similar weaknesses and an OC who doesn't really know what he's doing or how to evaluate what he has. Defensively well-coached guys but few dudes. One dude they do have is a cornerback who's playing hurt.

starts at 46:57

A glitchy shooting night and a lot of fouling in a low-care blowout, but we only care about the turnover rate. Well not ONLY: Vlad Goldin needs to stop and gather when he gets the ball low in transition. Defensively the starters are so much better than other lineups. Seeing good play from Pippen—has he earned a role?

Fort Myers: Virginia Tech is Not Good but also important to beat because South Carolina and Xavier would both be very good resume games we'd like to get to. Xavier is on par with Michigan; South Carolina looks like Wake and TCU.

As far as I can tell we're getting in on the ground floor of this local dude—and I have to know is that a sample from Chrono Trigger at the beginning of Blue Night Oberon, which is his latest single? Magic Taster calls his music "igneous rock recorded in my basement" but it's got deep prog and rock roots. The lyrics are accessible, smart, and funny. He came up on a playlist of Indie Ann Arbor music and I wrote the last couple of articles with him on in the background. I don't know any more about him but I'm featuring and finding out and giving you a selection of three different songs that show off his range. FWIW the third one—Saturday Nite—is the one that caught my ears.

Song choices:

• Blue Night Oberon
• Anything's Fine
• Saturday Nite

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:

• Northwestern: Offensively they’re terrible, defensively they’re well-coached.
• QB is Davis Warren except they actually run with him.
• Michigan’s offense: coordinating has been the worst we’ve seen for decades. It’s not a quick fix or even a bye week thing: they don’t evaluate their players, their stuff doesn’t look like their other stuff, and they didn’t have a plan.
• Can they get a new OC installed by December 1st? Because I’d hate to go through a second straight portal season unable to answer “who’s going to be coaching me?”
• Craig: Women’s BB is *FUN*. They’re blowing teams out, they don’t turn it over, they play fast, and they’re the hardest working team in basketball.
• Men’s basketball: Not going to be top-50 in turnover rate but this will come down. They don’t have a single originator, but a lot of guys who can create a little.
• They also won’t be 350th in TO-rate; they’re still getting to know each other.
• The shots they do get up are super high-efficiency.
• Getting Vlad going:
• Nimari Burnett had to come to Michigan to become the perfect Alabama player

Things Discussed:

• Wake game: Brian thinks it counts as a road game for NET purposes so this will be a NET Tier 1 as long as Wake's in the top-75.
• A few moments of bad luck but the problem was Michigan's: they're not hitting the role man, way too much usage on Cason way too little on Goldin. Goldin himself has to be assertive. As a team they shied away from the rim when they saw length but the plays were there.
• Things working: Sam Walters looks like a real defender at the wing, which is a big development because you don't have to play Wolf at the four against teams with a lot of good scoring wings. Jones is everything we thought he was. Phat Phat is a defensive dude too.
• Playing games at LCA: Deacon-Wolverine Challenge? EMU game was a good atmosphere but if you're not playing them or Oakland what's the point? Seth: LCA is actually pretty terrible. They have great staff, but the design is 100% modern revenue-maximization and the cheap seats are extremely far away and extremely vertical.
• Hockey v Notre Dame: Not like most Michigan teams because the talent isn't there—Hage and maybe a couple of other guys are Power Play-worthy.
• CHL players now eligible, one CHL coach is mad about stuff, says people are gonna go play for Brandon Naurato.
• Hallum in a race for the puck: yay!
• Goalie plan? Friday/Saturday guys until you have to pick a guy. Stein's got a .934 save% right now so he's got the edge, but saw a couple of fantastic point blank stops from Korpi and you want to develop him.
• They're old (mostly juniors) so we might be pretty good. Craig uses the BGSU example. CHL route might be a way for Michigan to get talented and older.
• Football: Offense doesn't have their answers prepared, haven't figured out who their best players are—the Link thing, the Mullings thing.
• Think it's the end of the road for Kirk Campbell.
• Defensively they might be elite next year: Brandt came on, Benny is great, Guy is great, the linebackers might return? I doubt the NFL will let us keep Barham but Hausmann could use another year of weight training to see what he's going to be. Both had great games.
• Wink's getting a 'B'. No he's not Jesse Minter but Minter is going to be an NFL HC in a minute. Interception was a good gamble, and then Wink was ready when Indiana tried to test that behavior.
• IU was more the kind of offense this defense was designed to stop: Like Stroud teams they want to get 1-on-1 deep matchups. Quick-passing teams beat Wink shit, screen teams exploit our tackling issues.
• Paige's tackling issues are manifest.
• Secondary: They're playing Berry at CB and Paige at nickel but they have some young safeties so it's working as long as Berry can hack it. He had a good game: TD was a perfect throw.