MGoPodcast 10.1: Think of the Worms Comment Count

Seth

1 hour and 39 minutes

Ace still out so Seth and Dave sit in.

The Sponsors

We can do this because people support us. You should support them too so they’ll want to do it again next year! The show is presented by UGP & The Bo Store, and if it wasn’t for Rishi and Ryan we would have office jobs and STILL be depressed about losing by a touchdown at Notre Dame.

Our other sponsors are also key to all of this: HomeSure Lending, Peak Wealth Management, Ann Arbor Elder Law, the Residence Inn Ann Arbor Downtown, the University of Michigan Alumni Association, Michigan Law Grad,Human Element, Lantana Hummus and debuting this year, The Ann Arbor District Library

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

1. Mourning

starts at 1:00

David talks about the press box. Brian is staring down a season of everyone angry at each other and the takers leaping over themselves to channel that anger into relevance. We try to talk Brian into continuing to do this for a living despite doing this in the most depressing period in Michigan football history since the 1960s.

2. Offense

starts at 19:12

Half of the time Michigan's offensive tackles were asked to not get the quarterback killed they didn't get the quarterback killed. Runyan even managed to ruin plays where he was given a job like "pretend to lose this block" and still screwed it up.

3. Defense

starts at 42:52

Much happier section, for the second half. Brad Hawkins got lights in his eyes. Hill got beat. A few bad calls made it harder than it should have been to get off the field.

4. Around the Big Ten wsg Jamie MacMillan

starts at 1:12:06

Spend some time wondering if Penn State and Michigan State are bad because of near losses to bad teams. Spend not enough time deconstructing Maryland beating Texas AGAIN. You won't like the theme that emerges.

MUSIC

  • "The Heart Of Saturday Night"—Tom Waits
  • "Bills, Bills, Bills"—They Might Be Giants (orig by Destiny's Child)
  • "We Are ND"—Freekbass
  • “Across 110th Street”

THE USUAL LINKS

It was a performance as bad as Braylon Edwards's tweets.

Comments

Sopwith

September 4th, 2018 at 12:33 PM ^

Spending the first 20 minutes of a podcast (which is the entire length of some other crisply edited podcasts I listen to routinely) whining with no substantive discussion of the game, which is the entire reason anyone is listening to begin with, is just not a good approach. An (unpaid volunteer) editor would help improve the MGoPodcast product dramatically.

That said, though this was never going to be a fun listen, after losses I find the podcast to be a bit cathartic as insofar as it performs a post-mortem and brings some closure. 

 

imafreak1

September 4th, 2018 at 12:34 PM ^

Watching the offense, I thought how "undangerous" every play looked. It reminded me of Nussmeier's offense inching down the field 3 plays and 10 yards until they screw up. At half, something like Michigan had 90 yards and 7 first downs. I think people are putting that too much on bad OL play--ND's tackles weren't stopping anyone either and they managed to gash Michigans defense.

Michigans WR only caught 3 TDs last year. And this Saturday will make one year since Michigan has had a WR catch a TD (Black had one against Florida and Crawford and Perry each had one against Cinci.) That is a design flaw in the offense. It is anti-dynamic and undangerous. It is plodding. They set up play action to throw a 3 yard TE drag.

Since Fisch left, the offensive coaches have been unable to dial up dangerous passing plays for the WR. Despite having a stable of highly recruited options.

It isn't the OL. It isn't the QB. It is the offensive design.

Sopwith

September 4th, 2018 at 12:39 PM ^

Agreed. There was nothing about the O that seemed to put any pressure on the defense to make hard choices, which is the kind of thing that lets you scheme your way to free yards and wide open receivers. That's what I miss about Rich Rod's O philosophy... at least you could count on some coverage busts (i.e. "Worst Waldo" in the MGoBlog vernacular) because of design almost every game. This O just doesn't make anyone on D make bad decisions.

The Man Down T…

September 4th, 2018 at 1:34 PM ^

"not the Penn State we saw last year".  No.  Because Barkley and their great OC (moorehead??) is gone.  Brady Hoke  PSU style is coaching again.  Remember, this is the same coach that kicked a FG down 28-0.  He hasn't changed.  They'll lose at least 3 this year

Salinger

September 4th, 2018 at 1:43 PM ^

I listen to Brian talk and I think "this is my brain. He is channeling my brain."

He's being honest when he talks about feeling bad about having to be a person who makes his living from something that isn't very good and he obviously cares a lot about. 

Why do people shit on that?

I mean look at all of us?

Michigan loses a tough game in a tough environment against a team that much of the fanbase discounts but who is arguably the closest Michigan analog that exists currently (good football school, good academic school, past glory, present ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) and the fanbase loses their collective SHIT... and now go and make a living in that environment. 

Granted, he doesn't sell shit door-to-door and that is true depression right there cuz that is haaaard work, but this is what dealing with this fanbase longterm looks like. Get off the dude's back. Many of us were similarly ridiculous post-loss. 

Elwood

September 4th, 2018 at 2:20 PM ^

The board is a tire fire.

There is no other coach we could want and the program needs stability. 

The offense was bad mostly because of tackle the play and then play calling. The defense had some odd calls, made stupid mistakes and just got unlucky. 

Big (lucky) plays and a weak offensive showing by UM was the only way ND was going to win. That’s exactly what happened. Suck it up. Good teams lose games to other good teams all the time. 

MGoStrength

September 4th, 2018 at 2:38 PM ^

So, it sounds like the beginning of our program sucking coincided with the start of Mgoblog.  Maybe we are the problem.  Shut the blog down & our program will revive. ;)

Nobody Likes a…

September 5th, 2018 at 9:02 AM ^

I’m with Dave on this. Kudos for keeping a level head in all of this when I’m sure I would have gone completely Eeyore.  I need to remind myself that I am having a mope because some 20 somethings who aren’t being paid lost by a single touchdown on the road to a ranked opponent. Sucks, sure, hurts, yup, but given the other truly criminal things going down in the B1G lately I can take solace in it just being a loss.