'I'm Not Driving To South Bend'

Two and oh.

Two and oh.

Do you know what a hotel room in South Bend costs Friday night?

I do not.

Four hundred and ten dollars. Four hundred and ten. And that's the place out by the mall, that's not downtown, that's the one by the mall with the breakfast. My wife found one in Elkhart for two eighty and Elkhart is twenty-five minutes from the stadium and she says to me, do you want it, and I sat there and I did not answer her for a full minute.

Did you take it?

I did not take it. I'm not driving to South Bend. I've decided. I've been going down there since eighty-eight and in all that time I have had exactly one good afternoon in that place, one, and I'm not doing it again. I'm going to watch it in a chair like a person.

You've got the watch party.

I've got the watch party. I'm going to watch it in a chair at the watch party.

So you're working.

So I'm working. Do the game.

Forty-one thirteen.

Forty-one thirteen.

You want me to keep going, or.

Keep going.

Four ninety-five total, eight point three a play, twenty-seven first downs. Eight of ten on third down. They did not punt and they were not penalized.

Eight of ten on third down.

Eight of ten.

What happened on the other two.

One was a fourth down they went for and didn't get, and the other one, hang on.

I'm messing with you.

I know you are.

I'm going to talk about the first half now and I want to warn everybody, I have not been able to put it down and it is Wednesday.

They won by twenty-eight.

I know they won by twenty-eight! I can read a scoreboard, Marcus, I've been doing this since before you had a driver's license. I'm talking about the first half. That kid Bennett, their running back, he ran us over. He ran us over all afternoon. I went back on the DVR Sunday morning and there's a play in the second quarter where four Michigan State football players get a hand on that young man and he goes another nine yards after the fourth one. Four. And I'm sitting in my own house going, here it is. This is the thing. This is the exact thing I have been watching for six years. Somebody hands the ball to a running back and everybody runs at him and everybody misses and then we do it again on the next snap and then a fella on the television says they've got to tackle better. Tackle better! Do you know how long I have been hearing tackle better? I heard tackle better when Perles was here. And then it's third down and they're four for six on third down in the first half, four for six, and every single one of them there's a man standing out there by himself with nobody near him. Wide open. Against a MAC team. And I know they won. I'm not saying they lost, I know what the score was, I'm saying I sat in my house on a Saturday afternoon feeling exactly the way I have felt for six years and I'm supposed to be past that by now and I'm not past it.

Okay.

That's it. That's the whole thing. I don't have anywhere to take it.

That was a while.

It wasn't a while, it was one thought eleven times.

It was one thought eleven times.

Second half they gave up seventy-eight yards. Whole half. Seventy-eight, and zero for their last five on third down. Rossi got asked about it and said they stopped disguising things and just lined up and played.

Say that in English.

They quit pretending to do stuff before the snap and just did the thing.

Then why weren't we doing that in the first half.

That's a fair question and I don't have an answer for you.

Nobody ever does.

Then Tre Bell picks it off with four minutes left and takes it seventy-one yards.

Okay, now. Now we're somewhere. My nephew was in there again, he's got the seats behind the north end. He said it was louder than the catch thing last week and it wasn't close. Forty-one to thirteen with four minutes left and that place came apart over a play that did not affect one single thing.

He's the one they moved from outside corner to the inside spot in the spring.

The nickel.

The nickel.

I know what a nickel is. I've been doing this a long time.

Kowalski Heating and Cooling, family owned since nineteen seventy-eight, twenty-four hour emergency service, ask about the fall furnace inspection. And they're going to be out at the sweet corn festival this weekend at the fairgrounds, so come by, say hello, tell them Dave sent you.

That was last month.

What was.

The corn festival. That was the middle of August.

Then why is it on the card.

I don't know why it's on the card.

Go anyway. Support your local. Alright. Four sacks.

All four to one guy. Their defensive tackle. Warren-Stevens Tayou.

Warren. Stevens. Tay-oo.

Tie-oo.

Tayou.

Close enough. He took the inside of our offensive line apart for a half. Two on Sharpe, one on Vincic, one on Rustin Young.

One man did that to three of ours.

One man.

And we're going to South Bend on Saturday.

That's the thing I'd be nervous about, honestly. On paper Notre Dame's got a few of him.

Wonderful. Thank you for that.

The other side of it, though, is the run game. Edwards had twenty-one yards on his first eight carries and a hundred and thirty-seven on his last fourteen.

How does that happen.

They stopped running at the good player. They put two and three tight ends out there and ran it outside instead of up the middle.

That's it?

That's the short version. He said it himself. He spent the first quarter running the ball straight at the one guy on their defense you shouldn't run at, and he called it dumb, out loud, and then they quit doing it.

He called it dumb.

He called it dumb.

Now see, I like that. And I want to be clear about where I am, because people write to me. I have said since December that this whole thing is insane. Twenty-eight years old. Never played a down of football in his life. Made videos on the internet. I said it then and I have not moved off it and I'm not going to move off it because they beat Eastern Michigan. But he called his own plan dumb. I have sat in rooms with coaches in this state for twenty-five years and not one of them ever stood up and told me a plan of his was dumb. Not one. Ever.

That's true.

It's a low bar and he stepped over it. That's all I'm giving him today.

Alright, the phones, and I know. I know what this is. Every one of these is the corner. Let's just do it and get it done. Ronnie in Portland, go.

Ronnie, Portland: Dave, how are ya. Longtime. I'm going to say the thing everybody's saying at work. Charles Brantley cannot cover anybody. He can't. That's two weeks in a row now. Last week both of Grambling's completions were on him, this week he gets beat for a forty-four-yard touchdown where the kid jogged into the end zone with nobody near him, and then he gives up another one in the fourth quarter. Two weeks. Against the two worst teams on our schedule. What do you think happens Saturday against actual receivers?

Marcus.

The forty-four is the one everybody's watched twelve times and it's also the one where he's got the least help on the field. There's nobody in the middle of the field on that play. Mansour said he had his safety in there helping against the run because Bennett was killing them. That's real. It also doesn't explain the other two.

Ronnie: So he's not good and the coach left him out there alone. That's worse. That's two problems.

That's a decent point, Ronnie. Appreciate the call. Dev in Lansing.

Dev, Lansing: Yeah, hi. I don't think it's on him at all, honestly. The coach called one guy on one guy with nobody behind him. If you're going to do that then you can't act surprised. Just put two guys on the guy. Everybody else puts two guys on the good one.

You can't have two on everybody.

Dev: Not everybody. The good one.

Then you're a man short somewhere else on the field.

Dev: So be short somewhere else. They're not all good.

I like this kid. Dev, stay on that. Sharon in Okemos, hi.

Sharon, Okemos: Hi Dave, long time, first time in a while. I've got a question and I already know it's a dumb one. Why is he still out there? My husband keeps saying they've got other ones sitting on the bench. Is there a reason they can't just put a different boy in? I'm not trying to be ugly about him. I don't understand how it works.

It's not a dumb question. Marcus?

Honestly, I think the reason is that the guys behind him haven't played. He's been out there a long time for us. And coaches will nearly always take a guy who's been beaten over a guy who's never been out there at all.

Sharon: That doesn't sound like much of a reason.

It might not be much of one.

That's the most honest two minutes we've had on this station in a month. Sharon, thank you. Gary in Bath, go ahead.

Gary, Bath: Dave, quick. That kid is gutless. That's the word for it and I'm not going to use a nicer one. He didn't even try to tackle the back, he got out of the way, everybody watching saw him get out of the way. And I'll tell you something else. My daughter's over there at State and she says he's walking around campus like nothing happened. Like nothing happened. And I said to her, if I saw him I would say something to him. I would. Somebody ought to.

No.

Gary: Dave, I'm just saying that if it was me.

No, Gary. Stop. I'm not doing that one, we're not doing that on this show. He is a twenty-year-old kid and he goes to school there. He's in class. He's got a mother somewhere watching this. You do not walk up to somebody's kid on a sidewalk and say anything to him about a football game. Not ever, not for any reason. If you see him you say hello or you say nothing at all. That's the whole rule and it isn't complicated.

Gary: I wasn't going to actually.

I know what you said. We're going to move on. Take care, Gary.

Dave.

I'm serious about that one.

I know you are.

I'll say almost anything about anybody on this show and I have and people have my number for it. Not that. He's a kid.

Yeah.

Alright.

One more on it and then we're moving. Mike in Grand Ledge.

Mike, Grand Ledge: Dave, the part that bothers me isn't even the kid. It's that the coach won't say anything about it. Three times now somebody's asked him and every single time he starts talking about himself and what he called. We all watched it. Just say the guy got beat. That's all anybody wants.

See, this one I go back and forth on and I have not landed.

He said Tuesday that it's a policy. He doesn't grade players out loud, and then he told the writers to go do the tape read themselves and do it properly.

Which is either a very good man or a very smart young man and I could not tell you which one it is.

Mike: Can't be both.

It can absolutely be both. Thanks, Mike.

The thing I'd actually say is he's the only person in this state who has made that kid's week better instead of worse.

That's fine. That's a fine thing to say. Doesn't tell me one thing about whether he can coach.

Alright. Now. Marcus. Read me the score.

Oklahoma forty-nine, Michigan seventeen.

Say it again.

Oklahoma forty-nine, Michigan seventeen. In Ann Arbor.

In Ann Arbor. In the big one. A hundred and ten thousand of them in there and they got beat by thirty-two points on their own grass, with the five-star quarterback that I have had to hear about for two solid years. Two years, Marcus. Every time I've turned this microphone on somebody's called me to tell me about that young man.

He's nineteen.

He's nineteen and it's not his fault and I don't care. Where'd they land in the poll?

Twenty-second. They were twelfth.

Twelve to twenty-two. Ten spots in one afternoon. I want everybody to know I had a beautiful Sunday. I made a breakfast.

He made a breakfast.

I made a whole breakfast. What else is on there.

Kentucky beat Alabama in overtime. Forty-six to forty-three.

Kentucky?

Kentucky. Alabama went from eleventh to twenty-third.

In football or in basketball.

In football, Dave.

I know it's football. That's a joke. I've been doing that joke since ninety-six.

It's holding up.

It is holding up. Keep going.

Ohio State beat Texas twenty-four to twenty-one, Texas drops from six to thirteen. Arizona's three and oh, they beat BYU by twenty-seven. Duke beat Illinois by thirty-one and Illinois is oh and two at home. And Iowa beat Iowa State twenty-five twenty-four on a blocked punt returned for a touchdown at the end of it.

A blocked punt.

Blocked punt, returned, at the death.

See now that's a football game. There's a young man in Ames who is not going to be right until Thanksgiving.

The odd one is the poll itself. Nobody came in and nobody dropped out. All twenty-five teams are the exact same twenty-five teams, they just moved around.

That's happened before.

I'm sure it has. I don't remember seeing it.

Miami still one?

Miami's still one.

Fine.

Saturday. South Bend. Notre Dame is one and two.

One and two.

Say it to yourself in the car. Notre Dame is one and two and Michigan State is two and oh, and I have been alive for a while and I do not remember that sentence.

Do you want to do the trap thing or not.

Here's my read and everybody's going to write in. They're done. That football team is done. You do not lose forty-two to six and then thirty-eight to ten at home to Wisconsin and then go get right in the middle of September. That's not how it goes. I've watched this sport fifty years and when it goes, it goes, and everybody stands around for two months explaining it. And beating Rice by forty-two tells me nothing. My nephew's high school could put forty on Rice.

They could not.

They could get twenty. So no, I don't think it's a trap. I think we're walking into a place where nobody wants to be there, and I think we win the football game, and I've said it, and if I'm wrong everybody can call me Monday.

I'd push on that a little.

Push.

The argument the other way is that whatever's wrong down there, it isn't the talent. Those are the same names everybody had third in the country in August, and on paper they're better than us at just about every spot on the field. I'm not saying we lose. I'm saying I don't know what I'm looking at and I don't think anybody watching does either.

So you don't know.

I don't know.

Terrific. Very helpful.

Tina in DeWitt, quick, we're almost out.

Tina, DeWitt: Hi Dave. We're going. We bought the tickets back in January when they were number three and my husband nearly fell over when he saw what we paid for them, and now they're one and two and everybody at my work is telling me we're going to win. And I've got to be honest with you, I liked it better in January.

Why's that?

Tina: Because in January we were just going to go see Notre Dame.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Tina, have a good time down there. Bring a coat, it's supposed to be nice but it doesn't stay nice.

That's the show. Saturday we're on at eleven with the pregame, kick's at three thirty, and I'll be at the place on Saginaw from noon whether I want to be or not. Marcus, thank you.

Yep.

Go Green, everybody.