WTKA Roundtable 10/23/2025: Max for Heisman

Things Discussed:

OFFENSE

• Bryce Underwood had has best game yet. Throws down the middle of the field can beat ANYTHING.
• His RPO reads are on point. Chip is doing a great job with him.
• How do they keep finding these TEs?
• Michigan made a lot of young guy mistakes but also overcame them because they have kids who can step up.
• Max Bredeson for Heisman? PFF numbers on him don't capture what he does.
• The split stretch trap TD was a *READ* by Bredeson!!!
• Offensive philosophies: One school of thought (Lloyd, Harbaugh) is if you option you let the defense call the plays. Other school of thought (Chip, Malzahn) is take what they give you. Post-Gattis, M ran maybe three RPOs/season.
• Blake Frazier: Still not super strong but that agility is visible. Ryan Hayes as a RS Fr would have looked like this.

In the break: Sam Webb's football career, Craig praises Seth/Brian, Seth says there are MSU guys who would do this sort of thing (e.g. Chris Vannini) if they had the fanbase to support it. Michigan fans want to KNOW more than they want to believe.

DEFENSE

• USC gameplan vs the Washington gameplan.
• This was the Ohio State 2024 gameplan: play four against the run, 75% two-deep, lots of QQH, and invite the opponent to screw up.
• Will Howard, Demond Williams: these are college QBs. If you give them enough opportunities to make hard reads they'll screw up and throw it at a defender. This has gotta be hard for Wink because if you play this way against an NFL team you'll get shredded.
• Vanilla defense unlocked fast play from their linebackers.
• Yay Michigan went away from Bear fronts against 2 TEs on the field.
• This is hard for Wink, but he's not good at disguising fire blitzes, and believes he does. Got away with it at the Ravens because he had great man coverage defenders. He needs to use less of them to keep them effective. They still got taken advantage of on passing downs in this game.
• Edge defense: only one Barham went too high incident, which is VERY GOOD! Hutch would have games with 1 or 2 and I'd praise him to the heavens. Need to calibrate.
• M mixing more man into their coverages.
• Jordan Young out there at the end of the half—that kind of stuff has to stop. Young is young Rod Moore, but at this stage it's Rod against Washington in 2021 not Rod against OSU—Rod needed time to become the guy who could start against Ohio State.