2018 peach bowl

"How we doin'?"

Good. How are you?

"Myth, man, the legend, huh?"

I wrote that myself.

How's your wife to deal with now that she got a trophy? [Deb Brown won the best performance award at the recent ChadTough Dancing with the Michigan Stars event]

"Well, it was a nice affair. Raised a lot of money for an unbelievable cause, so life is good. You know, that's good stuff."

And she won.

"Yeah, we'll take that too. [Inaudible] the front of the Paul Bunyan trophy. She did it on purpose, but it's all good. How's everybody doin'? Haven't seen you guys in a while."

It has been a while.

"Yeah, it has been a while. Good, we're off to a good start five practices in. Got some new faces. Boy, it's nice to watch young guys grow up and really improve. I can single out so many that have just-- starting to take that next step and it's just fun to be around to watch them do that."

Anybody in particular?

"Want me to go front to back? Start with this Donovan Jeter. Think we got ourselves a real inside guy. More than that, though, like young Mazi Smith is a talent. Obviously he's been here for about two days so he's not ready to go, but he's a great kid, and a hard worker, and will do a great job for us and he's same position and he's bringing him along unbelievably long.

"Because the reality is when you have organization you got a little bit of a chance at success. When you have some success, then you've got a chance to be confident and when you're confident then you got a chance for real leadership. Now, real leadership is from within, not coach-driven. It's when you have a group of guys that have been through it all, not perfect, but care about one another, care about the young guys, and being a Michigan football player is important to them. That's really a great thing.

"Luiji Vilain has practiced all five practices and you know: arrows up. I don't have to tell you about Kwity Paye and Aidan Hutchinson and that kind of group.

"At linebacker, Josh Ross doing a good job. Devin Gil might be the most improved guy—body-wise, speed-wise. He's gotten through helping this football team by being a steady eddy, classic guy that knows what to do, and he's hard to knock out of there. Well now he's playing at a high level. He should walk in and give [strength and conditioning coach ] Ben Herbert a kiss on the lips because he's helped him a lot. I would say him, Cam McGrone, Jordan Anthony, and this Michael Barrett, who's a freshman, I'm seeing really good things out of all those guys.

"If you said to me, secondary-wise, where you thought you'd be and where you are it's two different places. I thought we'd be fighting for our lives at this time. Ambry Thomas has really taken the next step—leadership-wise, being a role model for young guys. Vincent Gray is going to be a real guy. Brad Hawkins, J'Marick Woods: both vastly improved and more confident. This Josh Metellus has turned himself into a real player.

"You know, I like to do this little task--you guys might think this is crazy--but who would you really trust to put in the game, and we have about 16 or 17 names right now I could write on, and I think by the end of this thing, spring and obviously preseason because it's just an extension of spring, it's nice if you can get-- the larger you can get the group, the better, and I think there's a bunch of guys that are sitting on the fringe.

"Jaylen Kelly-Powell I can think of off the top of my head. He's playing full-time corner and doing a really good job, so he's a guy. He's just got to keep doing what he's doing.

"I'm trying to think here. Viper--Michael I talked about. Oh, up front the other guy too, the swiss army knife is Uche. He's 253 pounds. He can play a lot of places, and he will. He's a fast, explosive guy, so, you know, those are things that I feel really good about. A number of guys."

[After THE JUMP: more on potential leaders and Dudes, BEN MASON SMASH, the most disappointing experience of Brown's life, and hoppy toads]

12/29/2018 – Michigan 15, Florida 41 – 10-3, 7-1 Big Ten

I probably shouldn't have started the season with a dissertation on the Black Pit of Negative Expectations, because now what? I'm sure I've repeated myself in this space quite a bit, but I feel like I'm completely out of reactions to games that aren't so much deflating as imploding. I've talked about the Black Pit, mattresses, message boards, and Hell over little more than a calendar year. When I start writing something usually there's a kernel of something I've been thinking about to expand upon. Not so much right now.

This is mostly because I stopped thinking about Michigan's bowl game during the game. Like many people, some of them in pads and a helmet. Everyone knew that Michigan's season ended with the debacle in Columbus. This add-on exhibition was less an opportunity to accomplish something than an unwelcome reminder of college football's existence.

[After the JUMP: humorous name for one's billy berries]

David Nasternak, whom you undoubtedly know from our hockey coverage or Future Blue Originals or the podcast but will associate more with his sartorial choices by the end of this transcript, was in the scrums after the Peach Bowl and sent back audio. This transcript picks up in the middle of Winovich's presser, but it was 16 minutes of audio in which he honestly and thoughtfully addressed the big issues of the day.

“I mean, you can make excuses for stuff. We had a lot of problems, a lot of things: obviously the players leaving who were impact players even the last time we played Florida, injuries galore—in warmup I strained my calf and my hamstring, I’m dealing with a cold and I got to get surgery on something else, [and] that’s kind of just the way it went for the game; Kwity [Paye] got hurt, Devin Gil got hurt, we had players that were starters that weren’t playing in the game. The excuses, you could go on and on. Like I said, I don’t know if that would have even made a difference. They were just, like I said, a better team than us today. Hats off to them.

“For me personally, it was important that I felt like I came off the field and I didn’t have any regrets. I wanted to play until the last snap I could. And my mom was telling me, signaling, like, ‘Sit on the bench, just come off it, call it quits. They’re up 20.’ And I said, ‘That’s just not me,’ and…I tried.”

You shared a pretty special moment with Shea [Patterson] coming off the field, a nice smile and hugs. What has this year been like with him and what’s that bond like?

“It’s been a real pleasure. You know, the bond that I’ve been able to acquire and share with Shea has been one of the special—it’s unique to come across somebody that’s a lot like you and also in the same position in life and likeminded in the sense that we want to go to the same places: we want to play in the NFL and we’re both almost like high-motor, try-hard, want-to-win-at-all-cost kind of guys. It’s special. I mean, it’s rare. I could go on and on but yeah, it’s been a great experience with Shea and I’m lucky to have him as a friend.”

My last one is what did Coach say to you guys in the locker room after you got off the field?

“Something—I came in a little late so I caught the tail end of it. Just about we’ve got to tighten up. At the end of the day, next year, we’re not going to try to go backwards. We’re going to focus on what we did wrong and improve. What can you say at that point? It’s tough. There’s no words that he could have really said that would have made that any better, so yeah.”

[After THE JUMP: Comments that reach their intended audience, picking who should lead the defense from a pool of everyone on the planet (spoiler: it's Don Brown), and how the OSU game lingered]