WTKA Roundtable 8/14/2025: We’ve Horseshoe Theoried Brian

Things Discussed:

• What kind of offense should Michigan be? They’re really built to be a 1990s team: strong TEs and FBs, run-blocking OL, big-armed quarterback who doesn’t have to make super-hard reads.
• Chip Lindsey is a balance guy, not a screen guy. He comes in, looks at what you’re doing, and builds a functional passing game around it.
• What does that look like this year? Their base two plays can be the stuff that worked for 1997 Michigan/Kirk Ferentz: Run off-tackle to one side and rollout flood passes with a side of Bryce running out the other way, and some screens and play-action deep shots to keep them honest.
• The Left Tackle conundrum. Seth says it’s Evan Link until Andrew Babalola is ready, Sam says don’t count on that, but it sounds like that would be a mistake—shades of the 2017 tackle problem when their best player at RT was Juwan Bushell-Beatty but he couldn’t pass-protect, and instead of changing what they do around that they went with Nolan Ulizio to start the season.
• They don’t look like a run-first team in practice, says Sam. Well, they’re probably having to practice passing a lot. Remember you can have a 400% increase in passing from last year and still barely hit their 2021 level. Sometimes you gotta be you and let the cards fall where they may.
• News hits mid-show that Michigan will receive their NOI tomorrow. Expectations? Brian: removing wins etc. is off the table. There will be a show-cause for Harbaugh and Stalions because they refused to participate—Harbaugh probably has a lot of unread text messages. Guessing a two-game suspension (which games?) for Sherrone because all they really have on Michigan is the “deleted texts” that he apparently retrieved immediately from an image.
• The math here is Michigan didn’t really do anything. They had a signs guy; everyone had signs guys. They scouted Georgia; Georgia wasn’t on the schedule. The NCAA needs to make it look as big as possible but they really aren’t working with much because Michigan didn’t cheat, Michigan didn’t harm anybody, and Michigan didn’t cover it up. So the NCAA will absolutely maximize the infinitesimal infractions: completely ignore any time served from the Big Ten’s overreaction in 2023, punish Harbaugh for not being present, yeet Stalions, fine Michigan because money isn’t real, and penalize Sherrone for the appearance of hiding evidence. Ohio State will be mad because this was their show from the start and they didn’t get the lynching they wanted, but even when the NCAA is doing their best to be as unjust towards Michigan as possible, but Michigan really didn’t give them anything to work with.