transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:26] This is a pre-recorded version of the WTKA roundtable. On WTKA, unsurprisingly, nine o'clock Thursdays, it is recorded, however, so if you call in, no one will answer. And we're live on radio in five, four, three.

Speaker 2:
[01:04] And we are back, I'm here with The Michigan Insider on the Big 1050 WTKA, online at thebig1050.com, Sam Webb, Mr. Ira Weintraub on the other side. And the band is back together, the boys are back in town, the MGo Blog Roundtable crew, my fellas, are here with us. Michigan is still the national champion. You can't bring me down no matter what happens. Fellas, how are you doing this morning?

Speaker 3:
[01:32] I agree. Thumbs up.

Speaker 4:
[01:35] You know, I saw last night a playoff victory at LCA, which has never happened before. And the way to do it, the way they finally made it happen, is they brought in the Michigan National Championship basketball team, sat them across from Tom Izzo and made him stare at them the entire time.

Speaker 2:
[01:58] Oh, that is so great. That is so great. You celebrated with Tom Izzo. I was like, oh my God.

Speaker 4:
[02:07] I was like, look, this really didn't happen.

Speaker 2:
[02:09] I was in the game last night.

Speaker 4:
[02:10] There's the trophy.

Speaker 2:
[02:11] There's Tom Izzo.

Speaker 5:
[02:13] This really didn't happen. This isn't true, is it?

Speaker 2:
[02:16] This is true.

Speaker 4:
[02:17] Yeah. Yes.

Speaker 2:
[02:20] It was epic last night.

Speaker 1:
[02:21] And there was a game there too, by the way.

Speaker 5:
[02:23] Yeah, I know the Fistins had an incredible third quarter, but I didn't realize this. I'll tell you, maybe one of my favorite things from the National Championship happened this week. And it was a Michigan baseball pitcher, David Lolley, threw a one hitter on, I think it was Saturday or Sunday, I don't know, but threw a really nice game. And it was on BTN. And so they interviewed him after the game and the whole Michigan baseball team stands behind Lolley doing an imitation of Rez's penitentiary face. So you got the entire team behind Lolley doing a penitentiary face. And the reporter can't figure out what in the world is going on until someone mentions that they're doing an homage to Marez Johnson. And then it sort of lights up, light bulb goes on on her as to what's happening. So to me, that was very appealing and very fun.

Speaker 2:
[03:22] So, fellas, we will get into talking Michigan basketball and portal, Michigan hockey, because we got to bring a take that Brian just had to the airwaves. We just have to, but let's, we got to start out talking about the spring game and get your spring game takeaways. Some are reading more into that than others. What side of the ledger do you fall, Brian, when you talk about the spring game, what did you, what's your biggest takeaways from it?

Speaker 3:
[03:54] I mean, welcome to the Lloyd Carr era again, like very vanilla all over the place, not really showing their hand very much except for the obligatory trick player to spice it up for the fans. But cagey. And I think in those situations, the biggest takeaways are about individual players who just pop, and number one on my list is obviously Savion Hiter, who just as soon as he gets the ball, you're like, yep, that guy. Just a combination of size, speed, change of direction, and power that doesn't happen very often. I thought Jonathan Brown actually had a couple of nice moments too, feeling out his blocks, making decisive cuts. So those two guys stood out to me, just the size and fluidity of JJ Buchanan. He's more of a receiver, but I do feel like Colson Loveland is in the ballpark there. And then, defensively, I thought it was good that we saw a lot of pressure. I'm not too concerned about negatives from the offensive line, because we know what the starters are going to look like there. So, in terms of who I'm rooting for in that matchup, it's the defensive line. And I know that there's a lot of mix and match there. There were some guys who aren't going to be playing on Saturdays, as fall in there. But I like the consistent disruptiveness you saw from that unit.

Speaker 2:
[05:13] Seth Fisher.

Speaker 4:
[05:14] Yeah. You know, the offensive line, we're worried about, like, oh, God, they're giving up everything up the middle, right? And then you go back and watch the film, and you're like, okay, who's 64? You know, James Gouflockets is not going to be playing this year. So, like, that kind of thing doesn't really, you know, bother us that much. Lugard Adepayi was another guy who stood out. You know, you saw, you could see the length. You could see it's just impossible to hold on to that guy, right? And one thing I was really surprised to see was Taylor Tatum looked like a safety. Like, I was ready for them to be like, okay, go back to running back. He made some plays out there. When I was going back through the film again, I'm like, okay, I don't really have to watch the fourth quarter, do I? I'm like, wait a minute. This guy here, maybe this guy, maybe we got something here. So there are a couple little bright spots even down in the depths, right? Where you like saw Bobby Kanka made a play, some of the guys that you're not going to see this year. But that's where I found some things because those guys actually got reps. I'm not taking anything away from other than saving a hider, you see it immediately, right? But one or two throws to one or two receivers, I can't tell anything about that. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[06:26] Taylor Tatum was definitely a dude who I didn't mention, but I noticed too, yeah, he did make a few plays out there. I looked at home and safety. Gotta ask you, Craig Ross, your biggest takeaway.

Speaker 5:
[06:39] Yeah, my big take is you're always used to coaches jaking you around. I mean, not necessarily being dishonest, but not necessarily telling you the truth either. And I believe that Whittingham had said, you know, the strength of this team might be the defensive line, which seems, you know, I don't know, I came away from the game thinking, oh, maybe he's right. I thought Kanka looked good. I thought Palepale looked good. You know, and we know that they have plenty of bodies and they don't even have what, what's his name, John Henry Daly yet, who could be, you know, the star, I don't know. But yeah, I was very impressed with that. You know, linebackers remain a bit of a question, but the secondary looks pretty deep. They look good at safety. They look good at corner. I mean, this looks like it could be a very, very good defense. I mean, the question that most fans are talking about coming away from the game is, well, are we concerned about quarterback? Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[07:45] Yeah. So if you don't, you said the words you use is jaking. If you don't believe that Kyle Winningham will jake you, then his commentary after the game was, listen, this was not consistent with what we've seen in terms of his progress over the course of the spring. But obviously, he has to play better than that. He missed open guys, tried to force a ball in there. Got to be more consistent than he was in that thud period of action. So there was that. But then you also heard him echo the very encouraging sentiments that everyone has been offering about how Tommy Carr performed out there.

Speaker 5:
[08:34] Well, I had said last year, or as soon as he was a Michigan recruit, that people felt he was just a throw in. I said, no, people I've talked to in Salin said he's as good as his brother. And his brother is pretty damn good. And so I was heartened to see how he played in particular in this game. I mean, he may not have the world's strongest arm, but he sure seems to know what he's doing. And he sure seems to move really well. He's very twitchy. He asked me who he reminds me of. JJ. And his ability to move and twitch and see.

Speaker 2:
[09:16] But minus that. JJ has an arm.

Speaker 5:
[09:22] But his arm is good enough, it looked like to me, and he got the ball there. So it's great news for Michigan because the last couple of years, I don't know if we've had a backup quarterback. And worst case scenario, you know, we have a second, I believe we'll have a second quarterback this year.

Speaker 2:
[09:41] Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. I just, to me, it just showed Tommy is he can do every aspect of the offense. I thought that was the part of the eval that the Scouts caught on too late, that he is an athletic guy, he's an athletic quarterback, that he can extend plays and make things happen. And that was really impressive. As much as we talk about his accuracy, it was his decision-making and not just on where to go with the football, his decision-making on when to get out of the pocket, on when to run up field, on where to run up field. I thought he was really, really good in that regard. Look back at Bryce. It was a, you see where you're still working on mechanics and being consistent with that piece of it. You also see a guy that you want him to demonstrate that feel for, okay, I got to get out of here. It did seem like at times he was trying to hang in there and trying to do some more things in a game where you aren't going to get touched, let alone tackled, right? And so, want to see him be more decisive in that way. But I keep coming away from it with this, fellas. The biggest part of this offense, and it wasn't really evident in the game, is the QB run game. Everyone who goes to practice talks about maybe on Hiter number one, and man, they're going to run the quarterback number two. Now how much more they run Bryce, Brian, to me, is a function of how much improvement will he show in games as a passer. This was the only game-like scenario that they had. If he were not to show the progress in games as a thrower, I don't think that that means the offense isn't going to be better, because they would just simply pivot to running him more, and a lot more if that wound up being the case.

Speaker 3:
[11:42] Well, yeah, and we've seen this with young quarterbacks across the country who have raw physical talent that Bryce Underwood does, is that often early in their careers, they use the fact that they can run as a crutch, and not just in scrambles or whatever, but just the offense is designed around an 11 versus 11 run game, that's difficult to defend, and then when you do drop back to pass, guys are so across the line of scrimmage on your play action, and you have a lot easier time finding open guys down field. For young quarterbacks, it's often about windows, the size of those windows, and one thing that you can do to make those windows bigger was one, run it a lot, and two, run it with your quarterback a lot. So back in the Denard era, we talked about these worst Waldo plays where they'd fake quarterback draw, and then Roy Roundtree wouldn't have anyone on the screen with them when he caught the ball. So I was frustrated that Michigan didn't even look at this approach last year because, for one, it helps your passing game. It doesn't detract because for young quarterbacks, about being able to read it out and being comfortable in what you're doing, and you just have a different scenario and coverage if that's the way your offense is structured. So I think that will be helpful for him overall. I think it will be helpful for him getting his legs under him and having his confidence. I do think you're going to see him run quite a bit earlier in the season, and then hopefully as he gets a little bit more comfortable in what Whittingham wants him to do, they will maybe lessen that. But it's still going to be a major part of what Michigan does. We're talking 5, 8, 10, maybe 12 carries in a game that Michigan really thinks they have an advantage there or really needs that aspect of his game. So I do think that the only thing that's negative there is that there is some potential he'll get hit more and hurt. But the stats don't really seem to think that a running quarterback is at much more danger than the guy who sits in the pocket gets blown up from behind. So this is something I was advocating last year. I'm happy to hear that it's occurring this year and I'm sure that they're focused on getting him up on both things. But the easier thing for young quarterback is running the ball.

Speaker 2:
[13:55] Yeah, it reminds me of a conversation we had. I remember after the Oklahoma game, having this conversation. It wasn't the first time we'd had it, but it was the most pointed. I'm always careful to not act like I know more ball than the coaches. There does come a point where it's not necessarily about the X's and O's, and just about the strategic choices. That was about a strategic choice. I remember saying, listen, you've got to run the quarterback. No disrespect intended, but if they don't run him more than they ran him against Oklahoma, I know that Sharona Time was saying, if you're going to run one, you better have two. Well, if you don't run one, it doesn't matter if you have two. You're going to lose games. You've got to run him more and they actually started to run him more. Maybe not as much as we like to see, but certainly more than they ran before that point.

Speaker 3:
[14:45] Well, but you go to the Ohio State game and they're running these things and he's screwing up the reads, and he's screwing up the cuts because he hasn't been doing it all year. You just put it on him in live game action for the first time against Ohio State as a true freshman. Yeah, he's going to screw it up. It's hard to do these things and it's hard to do them correctly when you haven't actually done them in live fire situations. So it was really frustrating watching that because tactically it was there. Like tactically, Michigan had big gains on a lot of Bryce Underwood runs and he screwed him up. But the reason he screwed him up is because you didn't let him do it all year.

Speaker 4:
[15:21] I mean, you saw Alejandro asked, I think back in the press or hey, what do you think of this concept of you only have one? And he made this face like what? Where did that come from? So that was one clue. The other clue was in the spring game, you saw they're pulling the tackle. And you see like USC do this a lot. You see this with a lot of teams that have a pro style passing game but want to use their quarterback as a runner. Because when you pull that tackle, you're creating a lot of space on the backside. You're pulling a linebacker out of there and creating a lot of space for that quarterback versus the safety. That's a threat. You saw that a bunch of times that they pulled the tackle on their counters. Now, Michigan wasn't practicing running quarterbacks. I think that's the context of just the style of offense, the style of defense they were running in the spring game, I think is a very important piece of what was going on there. Not only would we have the offensive line just losing to the defensive tackles all day, you had cover two, no linebackers blitzing. If they run that in the game, it's going to be that Washington game in 2021. Remember Michigan is going to be like, okay, we'll run it 80 times, we're fine with that. That would be the natural response. The response this time was, okay, we're going to try to throw this anyway. It just put Bryce in a position where, yeah, you'd like to see his feet not be so happy. But it put Bryce in a position that was specifically generated to take away the things that Michigan is going to have in their offense to prevent teams from acting that way. So I take very little from that context. I think it didn't matter very much. I think it showed off what Tommy Carr can do because Tommy Carr is going to bail out of there, use his legs, get out to the edge and force you to make a play around there. That's what Tommy Carr can do. It didn't show you what Tommy Carr can't do, which is throwing the tight coverage downfield. And that's, you know, I think that's why we're seeing this difference between the quarterbacks right now.

Speaker 5:
[17:21] You know, Sam mentioned the difference between the tactical and the strategic, which I always think is an important thing for fans to keep in mind. I wonder if the spring game shows we're not going to punt this year, which is a strategic thing that I think would be a very good idea. No punting.

Speaker 2:
[17:42] It's always a Craigism. Always a Craigism.

Speaker 4:
[17:45] I mean, Saviour Hiter is going to get that extra two yards, right?

Speaker 2:
[17:50] Look, I know it can be frustrating at times when you see a big ranking. Will the guy actually live up to that right away? Will he go out there and look like Trey McKinney looked as a freshman? A lot of times, we're a five-star. Doesn't look like a five-star, especially a running back, Derek Green, Green Walker. I mean, we can mention these guys. But this dude, you see him, I know it was just a spring game. But tell me, when did he go down on first contact? Whether it was one or two guys. I think that translates to the fall. Then he makes a little move in the backfield when there's penetration and gets upfield. Then you see his burst. You see all the elements that makes you believe that their offensive line is better this year, which it should be, and your passing game is more competent. Even if it's not great and just more competent, which it should be, and you're running the quarterback more, which makes that more of a threat, then boy, it really feels like this run game with Savion Hiter and Jordan Marshall is not going to take a step back at all.

Speaker 5:
[18:58] I think you're right, but the thing you didn't mention is, I think we have better, deeper, wide receivers this year, too. I mean, at least that's my initial impression. So yeah, there's no reason why this should not be a better, a better, much improved offense. By the way, who are the guards? We know the tackles in the center, I assume. You know, the guards seem, I mean, I know you're going to have Gornara Sprague and Frazier playing the center in the tackle spots, but guards seem a little less...

Speaker 3:
[19:34] That's not certain. Seth keeps telling me that it's going to be Andrew Babalola.

Speaker 4:
[19:38] No, no, no. Sam keeps telling us. I'm just repeating Sam.

Speaker 5:
[19:42] I am skeptical of that right now. I think he'll play this year and we all think, we all have thought it's going to be him.

Speaker 2:
[19:50] I'll be surprised if Andrew Babalola is not the starter at some point next season.

Speaker 3:
[19:57] That would be wild, Sam.

Speaker 2:
[19:59] Yeah. Well, hey listen, hey, you guys didn't trust me on Blake Frazier. I'll just tell you this.

Speaker 3:
[20:05] I'm not saying I don't trust you. I'm just saying that will be wild.

Speaker 2:
[20:09] Well, the dude is, he is as freakish as we talk about Savion Hiter being, Andrew Babalola is that freakish at tackle. He is their best athlete at the position. Blake Frazier is clearly no slouch in that regard. The question is, and it's a very good one from Craig, how do you maneuver the line at that point? If Andrew Babalola winds up ascending like they're talking about, so he would have started last year. Let's be clear, Andrew Babalola would have been a starting tackle.

Speaker 4:
[20:44] Over Evan Link.

Speaker 2:
[20:46] Yes, he would have been a starting tackle. That was absolutely in the works. Now, this staff is extremely excited about it. Like you've been talking to guys who've been to practice, sat in on online meetings and the whole nine. Like it's palpable, the excitement over him. But will he be ready day one? I can't predict that guy coming off an injury. But at some point with how smart he is and the kind of coaching he's going to be getting, yeah, the expectation is that he will be able to get out there next season. Now, I think Evan Link is a guy who moves inside.

Speaker 5:
[21:25] What about Frazier? Wasn't the thought that he was originally a guard anyway?

Speaker 3:
[21:31] No, Frazier was one of those guys who is a great tackle.

Speaker 2:
[21:37] But Sharone was so bullish on, he thought that the best lineman on a college roster anyway was the center. It had him thinking I could move Blake Frazier to center, which is not outlandish. I think he would have been athletic enough and smart enough to do it. And it would have definitely relieved a glut at the position. But I just, I don't know what the, I think the likelier scenario would be someone goes to the bench. If Babylon winds up ascending like I think he will.

Speaker 4:
[22:12] Well, I'll tell you last year, and Michigan is not going to do this again. But last year, Utah had a six offensive lineman on the field about 49% of the time.

Speaker 2:
[22:22] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[22:23] So there's a lot of pictures.

Speaker 2:
[22:25] Right now, it's a great point. That guy right now is Markie Walbridge. But who is it once?

Speaker 4:
[22:30] Yeah, I'm hearing that Walbridge is playing up, but that's because they had some injuries. Phobia was injured for a little bit, so Gatch was just having to play left guard. I think once you get into the season, your sixth lineman is going to be your sixth guy. I don't think Markie Walbridge is going to be your sixth guy during the season. I think he's going to redshirt. I think that if you have Babylon and Fraser, one of those guys will be the sixth offensive lineman.

Speaker 5:
[22:54] I think either you or Brian wrote that Utah average 5.49 offensive lineman on the field last year. So yeah, that's a really good point.

Speaker 4:
[23:08] Yeah, they're not going to do that again. They did that because their tight ends were not great blockers. And what I've heard until Marshall, I think, got dinged up was that they really like Marshall's blocking. And they think that they've got enough between him and some of the other guys that they'll be okay is having the actual tight ends on the field.

Speaker 5:
[23:28] Yeah. So I assume you guys think that Hoffman will be an H-back this year. Is that basically what his role will be? Yeah. He's shaking heads.

Speaker 3:
[23:37] I mean, I think that I love Owens. Like, I love the fact that he's wearing 44 now. But it does feel like fullback, unless you're Max Bredesen is like a year three kind of position. So I feel like he's going to be pretty important. We didn't really see a lot from him as a receiver in the spring game. But we saw last spring and they've tried to involve him a little bit in that. And I think that's going to be super effective, especially if you're going to be running the quarterback a lot. And I think that might be a reason why we didn't see him targeted very much. Because if he's leading out for Bryce Underwood, and then Bryce Underwood wants to pull up and just kind of dink it to him, I think that's going to be pretty effective, especially given what we've seen from him. So I don't think he's going to be as good of a run blocker as Max Bredesen, because I've literally never seen someone who's as good as a run blocker as Max Bredesen. But I do think he'll give Michigan a little bit more in the passing game. And I think you might get, not that level of production, but something a step or two down that's still one of the best fullbacks in the country.

Speaker 4:
[24:36] And in fairness, there is Max Bredesen's level of blocking, and then a huge gap between very, very, very good blocking, and then everybody else. You can have a very, very good blocker who's not on Bredesen's level. And Hoffman has been that every time we've seen him out there, unfortunately a lot of it's spring game. But when we get into the nitty gritty, he's making impact blocks more often than he's not.

Speaker 3:
[25:01] Well, yeah, and I think Sam's point about Marshall is also a good one because I saw him last year, I charted him in a number of games and I thought he was very promising, and that was just year two for him. So I feel like with another year of off-season development, another 10, 15 pounds, like I think he's going to be a legit inline option. And he doesn't look like he's going to be like a tank, like AJ Barner, but I think someone think like Eric All is in the ballpark, like he's a little skinnier, but he really gives a ton of effort blocking. And for Hanson to kind of emerge and everybody talk him up, I think is a very encouraging sign too. Because we saw a couple of tight ends really perform promisingly last year. So for a guy like Hanson to pop is good, especially after a couple of years of injury.

Speaker 2:
[25:53] Yeah, one more point before we get to the break. When Kyle was talking after the game about how he thinks defense, you brought this up Craig, the defensive line was going to be the strength of the team. Maybe, obviously, that would mean they're the strength of the defense. I initially balked at the idea of that being the case when you got in the secondary Shug back, Zeke Berry back, Smith Snowden in, Chris Bracey had a really, really good spring, the transfer from Memphis. Maybe Rod Moore is back, healthy, maybe. But man, I mean, and then we haven't even talked about Shamari Earls who they have challenged. It's about preparation, man. It's about what you put in, the focus, the consistent focus you have, practice to practice, snap to snap in the film room. If he can bring those things to the table, man, they're going to be talented. They're going to be experienced. They're going to be deep. I just thought for sure that the secondary would lead the defense. But I tell you, he might be on to something with the defensive line because Benny Patterson made the first play of the tackle period. They've been talking about Benny Patterson all spring. Benny Patterson, Lugar, Edokpayi, David Palepale, those guys have from start to finish been dudes in practice. Then you add in guys like Bobby Kanka who came on. You feel like, okay, well, if John Henry Daly comes back and he really is back to form, and Cam Brant, Dom Nichols, and Trey Pierce, I might be right because this defensive line just might be able to lead this group.

Speaker 4:
[27:43] Yeah, they were talking. They said they got five tackles that they believe in. You go through, okay, Trey Pierce, I know Edda, and then we were-

Speaker 2:
[27:51] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[27:53] Yeah. And so we got that far, right? And then Palepale is like one guy, you're like, yes, I want to see it, I want to hear it, right? That was the one guy other than Bryce Underwood. You're like, I need this guy to be performing in spring, because that's the guy who's going to be on the field, maybe 50 percent of snaps, right? They lost so many tackles and he's got all that talent. So seeing him really perform well in the spring game, hearing a lot of nice things about him, that was the one I was just like, yes. And I think Travis Moten might be the fifth guy that they were talking about, because he was on the field a lot in the spring game and he was playing pretty well. So now they've got four guys that I'm not that worried about, if I see on the field where I think we went to the spring game with two. Anyway, you need to get to that.

Speaker 2:
[28:36] That's revelatory that they're talking about Travis Moten, because he's not a guy that I had heard much about. But they are talking about, but David Polly Polly, I like that it carries over from bowl prep where even guys who have been, what is he? Is he ever going to develop? He had obviously shed 40 or so pounds, but even that staff is like, man, I know what you're saying, David Polly Polly is looking like he's going to be a real contributor. Then for this new staff to come in and see and say the same thing, I think is really, really encouraging about it actually translating to performance on the field in season, which you always got to be cautious about when you're talking about guys who've never played. You always wonder, is it really, really going to translate? Well, two different staffs, bowl prep and now spring ball. We'll see if it translates over in the fall camp. But anyway, we do need to get to a break. We come back on the other side. We'll talk a little basketball portal. We'll talk a little hockey and how what their roster is going to look like next year. Lots to get into here on The Michigan Insider, on the Big 1050 WTK, online at big1050.com.

Speaker 3:
[29:44] Clear on the radio.

Speaker 5:
[29:46] Quinn Hughes, but he can skate better.

Speaker 3:
[29:49] No, he's not as good of a skater as Quinn, but he's much more responsible defensively at an early age. Sorry, I got to plug my computer in one sec.

Speaker 2:
[29:59] You got to tell the folks what you're talking about, Craig. We'll get to it if they weren't all in.

Speaker 5:
[30:03] We'll get to that later. We'll get to it. Seth, what did you think about the linebacking play? That seems to be the one thing that no one's talking about much. They don't seem to have a lot of depth.

Speaker 4:
[30:16] The way they're playing, you couldn't tell anything about the linebackers. They've definitely, the three young guys, out of the three of them, I think Chase Taylor's probably the closest to being like what Michigan wants out of them. I saw some things from bowls that are really good. I also think bowls is like, he made so many mistakes last year. He's almost like two years younger. I don't know what happened at Georgia. Why the son of a NFL head coach looks so uncoached. But yeah, Georgia's got a little bit of a, you're a five star, go play kind of thing with their linebackers. I think there were some fundamentals that got missed there. And OB looks good, but he's small. Those guys are all small.

Speaker 2:
[30:55] Hey, Ira, hey, Anna May just came through from, not Anna May Bullock, but Anna May just came through from the Softball Academy, man, with a donation. That's big time. Dusty, I wonder if Dusty did that and told Evan to do it. That's big time.

Speaker 4:
[31:14] I saw Dooley at the top of your list there. I just did a basketball score. I did the the at Michigan State score.

Speaker 2:
[31:29] Dusty came through big time. You talk about a dude who just, I mean, man, I know I'm biased, but so nonplussed about portal closes. It was like any other day. All the other coaches breathing side relief just.

Speaker 5:
[31:47] Dusty was like, they need a big guy though. They do.

Speaker 2:
[31:52] They do. I mean, you're right. I think that's there. I know that's there too, is that, not to say that they don't like Juke Harris, they obviously would absolutely take Juke Harris, but I think the way that's dragged out has made them kind of think more about, okay, well, he actually, you know what? He actually really, really like where we are on the wing, even if we don't get him. Because there was a point where it seemed, and it was about when, not if they got him, and now you wonder what he's waiting on, and what he's looking at when you compare the teams that he's looking at, and it has made them take a look at, man, not just Brandon McCoy, but they are really bullish on Ricky Liburd. Thinking that he's going to be a significant contributor for them this year.

Speaker 4:
[32:49] I like to hear that.

Speaker 5:
[32:51] I've watched some of McCoy. I mean, he's an A-plus athlete. You're not going to find a better athlete out there, and he can D-up. The problem with, only issue with McCoy is his shooting. And what they, you know, guys- Pardon me?

Speaker 2:
[33:11] And Liburd can shoot.

Speaker 5:
[33:12] Yeah, Liburd, that's what I've heard. You know, McCoy, they may need to work a bit on his shooting, but man, that guy can run and jump and play defense and rebound. You know, the only issue I've got with him is he's going to need to improve that as he goes along. I think I read somewhere that he shot like 56% from the line this year and some over some extended periods. So we'll see. But, you know, other people who weren't shooters came into the program and became pretty good, like Cadeau, for example. So we'll see on that one. But they got to get a big guy.

Speaker 1:
[33:55] Stand by, guys, we're coming back on radio in 10 seconds.

Speaker 4:
[33:58] Problem is after Michigan won that national championship, everyone's like, oh, rim protection.

Speaker 5:
[34:03] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[34:04] And we are back. We are back. An insider on the Big 1050 WTKA online, the big1050.com Sam Webb, Mr. Ira Wine Tribe on the other side. Real quick, Mrs. May, and May just donated to the Softball Academy. So they got me and they drafted me for the home run derby. So I got to try to get out and get a few hacks in. And in Softball Academy history, I mean, we've seen some matchups, Rick Leach versus Jim Harbaugh and Denard Robinson. I don't know who. So they draft me for the Softball Academy. You know who they got went to get. They went to get Brandon Edge. What am I supposed to do against Brandon Edge?

Speaker 5:
[34:41] No problem. No problem.

Speaker 2:
[34:43] Come on, man.

Speaker 4:
[34:44] Let me tell you something, Sam. Sam, when I was umpiring Softball, Brandon Edge was hitting under 200 and had zero home runs about halfway through the summer. Meanwhile, his wife was playing IM Softball and hit for the cycle. So you might have gotten the easier Edge.

Speaker 2:
[35:06] Yeah, we'll see. But just say, just give me one. Just give me one. That's all I'm asking for. But while we are in the break and before we went to the break, we were transitioning to talking Michigan Basketball portal closed. Two clear targets. There is one under the radar, by the way, which you can't get into names at the moment. But I see that as more of a contingency than anything. The guys are Juke Harris, Mustafa Chow, right? And so the Juke Harris, first of all, I'm curious what you guys think of Juke Harris as a player first. What did you think when you watched him or read up on him?

Speaker 3:
[35:41] I mean, guy can really fill it up from the wing. Defense needs a little bit of work, but obviously a guy who's of interest in the NBA draft for a reason, slash or three level score for the most part, guy who has requisite size. I mean, there's a reason that he might be a first round pick. There's a reason that if he's not a first round pick, he's going to be making a lot of money in college next year.

Speaker 2:
[36:04] Who do you like better? So here's a question. Who do you like better, Juke Harris or John Blackwell?

Speaker 5:
[36:10] John Blackwell.

Speaker 3:
[36:12] I think Harris just in terms of positional size. I think Blackwell is also closer to his ceiling. I think Harris has some more upside.

Speaker 4:
[36:21] I think for this team, I would take Harris. I think Blackwell overall is a better player. I think that for this team, Blackwell is not going to be a three. He's more of a two.

Speaker 3:
[36:31] Well, I mean, but also you have to consider the environment that Blackwell is playing in versus the environment Juke Harris was playing in. You're a guard in a five out system where everybody can shoot. Yeah, you can get to the lane, you can fill it up from there. Juke Harris was playing on a Wake Forest team that had some mismatched parts, and he was still able to be relatively efficient in that context. I feel like, I don't think it's close, honestly. I would take Harris.

Speaker 2:
[36:58] Yeah, obviously, they couldn't. I just raised it from a skill set standpoint, like who do you guys think was better? Clearly, Blackwell wasn't an option for Michigan because of his credit situation. But Brian, you raised it. It makes me think about a conversation I had with some site. Man, did you all know Nick Boyd was going to be like that? Because if you knew Nick Boyd was going to be like that, then Wyatt from San Diego State or even after San Diego State, why wasn't that guy at Michigan? So the point that was made was that it's about fit. He's listed as a point guard, but he's really a scoring guard. If that was the route that we were going to go, then we would have stayed with Trey. It's not like they want to trade off, but they want to trade off the ball. They want to Elliott Cadeau to have the ball because he fit more what they wanted from the point guard position. That was the thought process with Nick Boyd. It was like, hey, you know what? He just doesn't really great talent, but doesn't really fit what they're looking for at that position, which might be consistent with what you guys were just saying about Blackwell versus.

Speaker 5:
[38:14] Well, yeah, my favorite quote in basketball comes from Bill Simmons. And he says, the secret about basketball is that it isn't about basketball. And the point being, it is how do the pieces you have fit together? How do they work together?

Speaker 4:
[38:32] Yeah. I mean, the thing about Juke Harris last year, I'm sorry, you cut out there, so I cut in.

Speaker 5:
[38:40] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[38:41] But like with Juke Harris specifically, he was playing under 200 pounds at 6'6 last year, and they were having him play the four. They were having him guard power forwards. And so you look at his defensive numbers, yeah, there were some defensive lapses there, but if you put him in a different context where he's playing threes and twos, then he's gonna be probably a plus defender, just because that length is gonna bother guards. And he's got the athleticism out there. I think he was just cast on a bad role in there. Like, when on-off splits are a little bit weird, you kind of have to look at who's coming on. And in his case, it was a defensive big. Okay, yeah, that guy's gonna have a little bit more defensive numbers. But I think that Juke Harris, in different context, would blow up. And I think that the interest in him from major, major programs tells you that we're not the only ones who think so.

Speaker 5:
[39:32] Yeah. I mean, he's not a guard, in my opinion. He's not a four, in my opinion. He's a straight up three. And he's a good basketball player and would love to have him. But I don't view him as either a two or a four.

Speaker 2:
[39:49] Hey, so here's the thing with Juke. I think they love to have him. But I do sense, so Bryce, my Bryce Merridge talked to him like right after the parade thing and the visit. And he got the distinct impression that that dude was coming. And I can tell you that I had heard enough outside of that, I was ready to lodge a gut feeling, if you can read into that what you want. And that things have dragged out has kind of been like, well, why? You know, it can't be style of play and player development. And I've heard the NIL numbers that were tossed out about Tennessee were very embellished. That's what one of the Knoxville Insiders is telling Steve Larens. So I think that they, you know, there's almost like this feeling like, well, not that he wouldn't fit, but like, what is this about? Why is it lingering kind of thing? And they can, if they get them, great, but they are really, really fine if they don't. I really, I think that's where the mindset is right now. And I don't think it's just them kind of making the best of a bad situation. I think it is kind of made them look at their own pipeline and be like, man, we will be justified. We'll be more than fine if they don't get them. Of course they'll certainly willing to take them, but I don't feel as nearly as confident as I did a few weeks ago.

Speaker 5:
[41:24] Well, I think if you listen to Dusty's interviews with John, he had two, one before season, one after the season with John Rothstein. He seems to be saying, we're happy to pay players, we're all in for that. We're happy to pay them well. But it felt like he was also saying, we're not into bidding wars.

Speaker 3:
[41:46] Correct.

Speaker 5:
[41:47] In other words, we'll tell a kid, this is about what we can do, but we're not going to have them come back to us and rope adobes in some bidding war. And so if that's what's going on, I don't think that Dusty's going to be enthusiastic about that.

Speaker 2:
[42:06] Even the five-star center that went to BYU, what was his name? Gosh, they have to slip it in.

Speaker 3:
[42:11] Xavier Unstandard.

Speaker 2:
[42:12] Yeah. So listen, that dude was coming to Michigan. I'm just telling you.

Speaker 5:
[42:18] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[42:19] And it wound up being like this bidding war scenario and Dusty self-selected out. Like, I'm not going to get into that. Like, it's like, just not going to.

Speaker 5:
[42:30] Well, and-

Speaker 2:
[42:31] Now, I don't know if that's what's going on with Juke Harris. I'm just saying, it's like, don't know what it is at this point.

Speaker 5:
[42:37] The other thing is, it sounds like with Juke that one of, it's just Tennessee and Michigan, right? Because-

Speaker 2:
[42:47] Let's talk to Kansas now.

Speaker 5:
[42:49] All right.

Speaker 2:
[42:51] But yeah, it's Michigan and Tennessee.

Speaker 5:
[42:52] But it doesn't sound like that Michigan or May is going to be enthusiastic about getting into some deal where the kids going back and forth between Kansas and Carolina and saying, they're offering me. No, it sounds like Michigan is going to say, here is what we can do and here's what we offer. My question I really wanted to ask you guys, goes to Mustafa Cham, who I've looked at and looks like would be a really, really nice player, a good fit for Michigan. But he has a handler. The handler was on the bench, I believe, at his prior schools. How does that play for Michigan? Do they have an empty coaching spot, I think?

Speaker 4:
[43:37] There's a difference between a UCF coaching spot and a coaching spot in Michigan, right? The equivalent for UCF coaching spot would be like, you could be an assistant editor on Michigan's favorite blogs book and I could use somebody like that. So if they want to give him that position.

Speaker 2:
[43:54] So my sense is that they feel good about where things are with CHOM and they feel really good about the fit. Again, I want to be clear. I don't know that Juke Harris is doing a bidding war thing. I don't know that. The idea really is, there was a sense that I got the sense from poking around that recruitment that he was coming and then it hasn't happened. And so I think there might be a little bit of like, you know what is, so we'll see. But I don't sense that same thing. And plus, to your point, Craig, it's a bigger, Vic Fella is a bigger need because they've all but said, they think that both, Dai definitely going to the pros and Marez leaning that way.

Speaker 5:
[44:44] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[44:45] Makes it more important to get the big in this mix. So you're going to get Rick Pitino though, and that's no slouch.

Speaker 5:
[44:54] Because I don't see Estrella or Estrella, I'm not sure how he pronounces it. Estrella, okay, I don't see him as a true center.

Speaker 2:
[45:06] Michigan views him as a four.

Speaker 5:
[45:08] Yeah, okay. Well, that's good because that's what I see with him too. In terms of bigs, all they've got is Quinn Costello, who's more of a three-four guy from my view, and even though he's tall, and Oscar, who's definitely not a five, right? Yeah. I mean, and that's it, right? Is there any? Cordell even is gone. I believe he's, so I don't know what their situation is, but they got to get a big.

Speaker 4:
[45:43] Where are they with Rez? Because you say he's leaning that way, what's the cut-off? Because I think he was protected 24th, 25th, at least.

Speaker 2:
[45:51] They've been saying they're here and he'll be picked in the teams.

Speaker 4:
[45:55] Really?

Speaker 3:
[45:56] Well, there's a lot of guys opting out now, like the Florida bigs are coming back and-

Speaker 5:
[46:00] Oh, is that right?

Speaker 3:
[46:02] Then they have a mission yet to complete in college basketball that Mares Johnson doesn't. For Mares, he might be looking at a draft spot that Alex Condon or Thomas Haas is like, nah, I could make money and play in a tournament and maybe win the thing, and Mares Johnson already won the thing. It's always a natural thought in these situations that you beat the game, I'm going to go do something else. So I wouldn't be surprised if Johnson ends up going.

Speaker 2:
[46:34] Brian, before we're out of here, Brian, so tell us about this guy who is a better Quinn Hughes.

Speaker 3:
[46:42] Landon DuPont is the first exceptional status defenseman in the history of the WHL. It means they let you play a year early. As a 15-year-old, he's scored like 60 points in that league as a defenseman. Probably the first pick in the 2027 draft, although there's a couple of other guys competing for that spot. He's not as good of a skater as Quinn Hughes, but he has a more complete game at this juncture in his career than Hughes did. Incredibly talented offensive defenseman, extremely responsible defensively, and a guy who is apparently looking at college. Reportedly, it's a Denver-Michigan battle. Michigan looks like they have a blue line that's pretty set next year. But Landon DuPont is like throw someone into the ocean. Good. They won't have to do that, but they'll have to have some talks, I suppose. I don't know if he's coming. There's just been rumors about that. But Jeff Merrick, who's a hockey reporter, said that along with Michael Hage, Michigan was going to get Jack Nesbitt and Cameron Reed, two guys who are currently playing in the CHL who are first-round picks, who played their D plus one year in the CHL, so they will be essentially the equivalent of sophomores next year for Michigan. Not only does Michigan look like they have a very stacked roster for next year, it's not as young as it usually is. It feels like I would be surprised if anyone else is going to be pre-season number one. Now, what does that matter in the tournament? We all know what that matters in the tournament, but you can only do what you can do.

Speaker 5:
[48:23] So, yeah, it looks good in hockey right now, but historically, hockey doesn't seem settled until August.

Speaker 3:
[48:31] Yeah, I think that is going to be a little bit less of the case this year because we've had Hage declare that he's coming back kind of definitively. In previous situations where Michigan has lost guys, sometimes it's because they weren't happy with their draft team or whatever. And Hage is not unhappy that the Canadians drafted him. That was his dad's favorite team. And I don't think it's a similar situation to McGroarty who just didn't want to be with that organization.

Speaker 2:
[49:02] Hey, we got to get out of here.

Speaker 4:
[49:06] Brian Fred Drax and Cook is the comment that just got posted on here for the listeners.

Speaker 3:
[49:11] Hey, listen to me now and believe me later about Landon DuPont, okay?

Speaker 5:
[49:18] Hey, we'll remember, we'll remember. Yeah, we got to get out of here, folks.

Speaker 2:
[49:22] We'll see you tomorrow here on the Michigan Insider on the Big 250 WTK, online at thebig250.com.