WTKA Roundtable 9/17/2025: Coaches Confirming Message Board Takes

23 snips

Sep 18, 2025

Biff Poggi's candidness about team struggles brings a refreshing honesty. The discussion centers on aggressive use of quarterback Bryce Underwood and his quick decision-making under pressure. Insights into Michigan's defense highlight Jayshon Barham's disruptive edge play and adjustments to combat opponent strategies. The panel also delves into the challenges posed by Nebraska's small but feisty defense and the implications of their new receiver additions. Overall, strategies and personnel shifts dominate this engaging conversation.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Coaches Acknowledge Change In QB Usage

Biff Pojie's frank admission that they “took the air out of the ball” vs Oklahoma signaled a deliberate shift to use Bryce more.
The hosts see the Central Michigan game as evidence Michigan will lean into designed QB runs and RPOs going forward.

INSIGHT

Underwood Makes RPOs Legitimate Threat

Michigan's offense unlocked RPOs and zone reads when Underwood is included in the run game.
That creates matchup problems and increases playcalling flexibility.

ADVICE

When In Doubt, Run Decisively

If Bryce Underwood hesitates under pressure, coaches instructed him to run decisively instead of pausing.
That reduces negative plays and leverages his rushing upside while his read progressions develop.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Things Discussed:

Biff Poggi love: We don't often get honesty about what they did wrong.
Let Underwood cook? Not sure if it's going to hold up because people revert to learned behaviors when stress gets high. It's easy against Central.
We saw enough that Oklahoma should be a blip: the RPOs are real, the zone reads are real.
QB run game: Forces defenses to make themselves easier to read, because they have to play 11-on-11 unless they can two-gap at the DT spots.
Oklahoma and Nebraska are good at messing with a quarterback's reads, and Bryce wants to make them quickly. Take away their options and you give Bryce a true read. Nebraska's defense is all about generating confusion.
Bryce running early on pass reads: good thing, do it. When he's hitting a DB he's the one causing punishment. Also nerfs pass rush: remember how Michigan played Sean Clifford in 2021 and teed off when Allar came on.
Haynes: been good but frustrating—sometimes he's great in pass pro but he had another handful of purse-swinging. Guy got sick of blocking for his QB at Alabama? I'm sure part of the reason he came here in the first place is he was sick of being a lead blocker for Jalen Milroe.
Defensively: Barham at the Jake Ryan job was eye-opening. If you can't roll out against a defense they can front the edge on stretch and the running game is dead too. Replacing Nichols snaps with Barham at edge also gets Rolder/Sullivan on the field. Favorite Barham play: he grabs the RB as he's forcing a give on zone read so he can go back to tackling that guy. Caveat: that's the worst running back we're going to play this season.
QB run game vs Michigan: isn't any one thing, but biggest issue was Rolder not fitting it. He had an up and down game where he (3/6 first downs, maybe 4 were on him), while Sullivan found the guy to hit, but had a few looks at it first. If you're a senior you can't be ahead of that guy and be making mistakes.
Nebraska preview: They played Cincy (no pass game) and two teams CMU would trounce. Their run D is permeable: defense plays very small, wants to confuse you, make your RB slow down to find his gaps and blocks, and rally from the secondary. You can really gash them. It's a bad matchup for Nebraska: Michigan's OL is good at ID'ing their blocks and wants to play heavy and hit you quickly in the run game and confuse coverage reads. The 2023 game was a blowout because if you have linemen who can ID their blocks you destroy the basis of their system. Would be a good game to have El-Hadi back; Efobi is probably going to have a rough outing.