- 4 hours ago
Former NFL offensive lineman TJ Lang joins Jim Costa and Jon Jansen in studio on a Lions Victory Monday, but the conversation starts with an absolute firestorm over Michigan’s humiliating rivalry loss to Michigan State.
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00:01we're juggling on a victory monday of course the lions won went down to miami
00:06professional win is what john called it yeah we've got tj lang in studio we want to talk lions we
00:11will make time to work in the michigan michigan state game because tj was oh he was letting it
00:16fly on social media what yeah i guess i was um i was also is there music playing still
00:26normally you hear the voices now it's music who's that um i i text with john sometimes during the
00:33games i try to leave him alone i know how busy it is but it's hard to understand emotion when
00:37you're texting somebody i understood john's emotion oh when he when i was texting back and
00:42forth a little bit on saturday night but yeah that was um i think as doug said felt like rock
00:48bottom
00:48yeah that was brutal credit to michigan state i mean yeah you know i think we talked about a
00:53little bit last week and really all year is man is kyle whittingham like understanding these rivalries
01:00and what they mean and you know the comments about ohio state or michigan state or whoever it is urban
01:06meyer you get in that game and and you got it like i'm not trying to discredit uh what michigan
01:11state
01:11did but you could tell pat fitzgerald had his guys playing way more urgent than michigan was ready
01:18to play and it was it was evident early in the game there was a couple chippy plays you know
01:25rallying to the football and everybody you know maybe you give a little extra shot nothing dirty
01:29but like you could be like oh okay man these guys are ready to play and that's uh 100 coaching
01:34so
01:34credit pat fitzgerald for getting his ragtag group of guys ready and i'm not saying that as a diss but
01:41like with all the injuries that they had to try to galvanize those guys going to the big house
01:46night game and just play more urgent and do what you had to do to to beat probably a more
01:53talented
01:53team but you beat them with you know physicality and and with emotion and that's a that's a credit
01:58to the coaching staff john did you see any of tj's tweets um no tj was sharing his thoughts directly
02:05with me oh well i'm just curious if you got any of this probably much harsher yes yeah so this
02:10is what
02:11tj put out for everybody i think this was during the game are they still up thanks kyle for not
02:16trying to bang every year intern appreciate it now kindly pack your bags and get the hell out of
02:21town we can all with what michigan's been going through the last three hey this guy's going to
02:28bring some stability he's not going to bring any controversy you know what after what i've seen this
02:33year give me the cheaters back give me coaching you know go go do your own thing like i don't
02:37care
02:38just go win football games that's that's unfortunately like that's where i'm at with
02:41today's modern college football is but and johnny i know it's your school and obviously you went there
02:46i didn't but you know there there is some resemblance way at least we got a coach that's going to
02:51be
02:51high character guy and this and that and he's not going to do these things but the most important
02:55thing is that you actually win right but that's the part where i'm torn obviously i want good people
03:02you know coaching teams that that we care about and we cheer for but college football has kind of
03:07forced me to just go get a salesman go get a guy that can recruit and raise money and like
03:13pat
03:14fitzgerald and kyle whittingham are very good football coaches at this point of where college
03:19football is at that's like that seems so minimal right like you still have to coach the games you
03:25still have to get your guys ready to go but the bigger part i think is how can i raise
03:30money to go
03:30get just a loaded roster with just a ton of talent and you know i i think that unfortunately it
03:38it
03:38looks my opinion like the game has kind of passed a guy like kyle whittingham by well then maybe you
03:43see why utah wanted to move on kind of shoved him out the door almost it felt like pretty much
03:48didn't
03:48pay him to go away and like i don't know if i would go back and say man michigan made
03:53the wrong hire
03:53because they were in a lot of turmoil after you know the hardball and hey we just now it's about
04:00optics let's bring somebody in that can stabilize the program and if we went along the way we went
04:06along the way we just we have so much negativity right now around not only football program but
04:11athletics yeah let's just bring somebody in that's not going to have those issues i so that's why i can't
04:18say it was the wrong hire but i think after a very good sample size now and even hearing him
04:24after
04:24the game he's what we got you know a couple games left are there any trophies we're still playing for
04:29like whatever his quote was i'm just like that sounds so tone deaf man like your response was
04:34he literally looks like he's being held hostage he does am i am i wrong yeah i mean i remember
04:41we
04:41were making jokes early in the season like week four week five about like he kind of looks like
04:46monty williams a little bit yes guy that doesn't want to be here but they paid me so much money
04:51i
04:51could not possibly say i could not possibly say no my wife would kill me my family would kill me
04:56if i
04:56turn that we'll go there for a year or two whatever it might be that's what it looks like i
05:00mean i i'm
05:02not questioning the man's character i'm just questioning obviously what we see on saturdays yeah and it's just
05:07been it's been tj i would i would guess i'll let you answer but the the losses that hurt the
05:15most
05:16especially when you aren't a part of it when you're just watching it are you're going to lose
05:21games and if you lose game because you just got outplayed or there were mistakes like you can
05:26understand why you lose those games but when you go into a game that you know is going to be
05:32a fist
05:32fight and you don't show up physically those are the ones that bother you the most because if you
05:38watch that offensive line at times like they're just they're standing up off the ball yeah and they're
05:43watching guys run right by him they're in disarray like they don't know who they have
05:47and then even if they did they couldn't block them yeah and i know the defense has been playing well
05:52and they have a lot of talent over there but and john i actually had a question for you because
05:56you've watched every single snap not only this year but you know last couple years like on the
06:01offensive side are you looking at anybody saying like these coaches are developing him man this kid
06:06is getting way better oh the regression that's that's that to me is coaching yeah that to me is
06:11coaching that you're having the same mistakes week after week play after play nobody's taking steps
06:17you can't look at any young players on this roster and be like man i can see the improvement
06:22i can see the growth week to week he's getting better that's a testament not only to the player but
06:27also the coaching staff to develop these guys i i also thought that tommy carr looked like a
06:32three-star freshman quarterback in a big game like he was airmailing throw after throw after throw
06:38and it started out that way right and it but it's it's like okay coaches adjust it make some
06:43adjustments whether it's and it's hard to do maybe mechanically during a game that's things that take
06:48reps in practice no but you would think that if it's if you're always throwing high like and i'm not
06:54a quarterback whisperer but i do know that in terms of mechanics like sometimes it's just as simple as
07:00hey you need to you need to set your feet you need to have more weight on your front foot
07:04that's going to pull the ball down like you're you're throwing everything with your weight on
07:08your back foot or your shoulders are in a certain angle which is causing the ball to to sail every
07:13time you throw it because that's what it was you know you early on he had jj buchanan wide open
07:19he throws it over his head like the one the first completion um to travis johnson like it was a
07:26phenomenal catch because he had to go up and get it and he got hit but again it was high
07:31like everything
07:32he was doing was high yeah that's a mechanical issue you should have somebody on the sideline
07:37that says here's how you fix it yeah and and not saying you know like that's what you expect from
07:43freshmen right uh three star five star i don't really care about that but that's just kind of
07:48how he looked was i think you didn't read one of my tweets but did i say we should should
07:54we be
07:54apologizing to bryce underwood a little bit yeah here i said bryce i'm sorry we all owe him an apology
08:00the coaching staff is pathetically horrendous fire everyone in the tunnel
08:04like i i'm not saying bryce underwood was playing great or he was strapped down by scheme
08:10but after watching now what what's the record not nine games yeah yeah five and four five and four
08:18after watching nine games and both quarterbacks have a decent uh you know put each a couple games
08:25now a couple of samples i don't really know who at quarterback could come in and save this offense
08:30and like you mentioned i mean obviously we put a lot of it on the offensive line and not being
08:35able
08:35to generate a run game i think the other thing that stood out to me too is like michigan doesn't
08:40look
08:40like they have any athletes like everything's just like linear linear go straight right and i'm not
08:47like jj buchanan's obviously a tall lengthy guy he has attributes but i'm just like where are the
08:53missed tackles where are the cutbacks where like setting guys up it always seems like every time
08:58they get the ball the first guy in is making a tackle and i'm just like man like you should
09:03make
09:03somebody miss yeah you should be able to have some better athletes that can make i'm not asking for
09:08a jameer gibbs that's gonna force 15 but sometimes you see but you're one-on-one you gotta you gotta
09:13make
09:13a miss sometimes sometimes you see athletes overcome coaching right right and it's right it's what you
09:19think you know michigan would have had an advantage over michigan state who was so banged up on saturday
09:25night yeah well yeah the talent isn't a question michigan state's down to their fifth string tailback
09:28you can't tell me that it's a talent thing i mean michigan recruited this this elite player and hider
09:33out of high school but they also had jordan marshall and he had what two carries yeah two carries he
09:40had
09:4010 offensive snaps and and but at least now hopefully the oc can get with the line and the
09:47line coach and see if there's something that would work better thank you well we'll see we'll see is
09:56there any chance now that the season is the same guy oh it is oh it is i didn't say
10:02they promoted
10:06yeah that could have been john it could have been john calling plays yeah on the sideline incredible
10:11um can i just ask a quick question tell me if it's stupid or not any chance you can go
10:15back to
10:16bryce underwood or is that ship sailed no i think you go back to him and and i mean i'm
10:21so one of the
10:23things that i've loved about bryce is the way that he has handled being benched like he is the first
10:31one there to celebrate with tommy like he's not pouting on the sidelines right he has done
10:36everything you would want and expect a captain to do except for perform good right but if you're
10:42looking at it going well who gives us the best chance to win against oregon and i say that with
10:48a
10:49smile on my face because i'm not sure either guy gives you a chance to win sure but but if
10:55you
10:55could answer that question and if you answer it and say well bryce then you start bryce yeah well
11:00if you have bryce with a new voice in his head and a new play caller somebody that can maybe
11:06lead uh
11:06put him in better positions to have success that we we didn't see jason back do with either
11:12quarterback really a lot of it's still performance don't get me wrong but that's why i'm just
11:16questioning hey with a new voice with somebody else with a little urgency now that changes are
11:21starting to happen we know that you know that that requires everybody to take it to a new level so
11:26and i was just curious if you want to you know if that was something that michigan would would
11:29think about doing and i know you hit me with the the smarm alarm there but i i say that
11:34somewhat
11:34jokingly somewhat not in regards to maybe if it was play selection does the offensive line coach know
11:42exactly how this offensive line can perform at their best and he's the one calling plays so i mean
11:48you would think so but on the flip side like what kind of plays did you expect jason beck and
11:55i'm not
11:56defending him but did you expect him to call when there were no holes to run and the protection your
12:01quarterback was under duress every time yeah that's fair it'll be an interesting week tex says thank you
12:08tj the station has dragged bryce and never dragged tommy says um it it's just gone straight to the coaching
12:15staff if coaching's ineffective it could have impacted bryce's development well i think it's
12:20easier to blame coaching once you see it fail with multiple guys as opposed to one yeah but it's also
12:25different expectations where bryce is the top quarterback to ever go to michigan the guy's a
12:31five-star he signed the biggest deal of nil at the time right that that comes with different
12:35expectations than a freshman three-star quarterback does bryce played all the last year and and even this
12:43year with in theory a refined approach from a coaching staff right it was not any better it
12:49was not any good in terms of can you go back to him is it past the point of no
12:53return in that you're
12:53going to have a third play caller next year is it just time to move on part ways go your
13:00separate
13:00ways is tommy the guy that actually could be here next year therefore is more worth investing in
13:05you know what i'm saying by that like this year this year's lost i think bryce is gone no matter
13:09what
13:09okay so who's more likely to be wearing the winged helmet next september that's the guy i'm going
13:13to invest in i don't think there's a guarantee that either of them well that's fair point too i
13:18mean if tommy cart sits after his freshman year and says man like and well obviously barring any
13:23changes that they might make in the coaching staff or with the portal hey do i want to go through
13:28this
13:28again i'm not developing right like that you gotta you gotta you have to live in the reality that
13:34there's a chance you could lose both those guys well in the world where you keep winning ham it'll turn
13:38people off and in a world where you make a change people also might want to say well this is
13:42my
13:42chance to leave and get a fresh start too so it's it's going to get messier as messy as it's
13:46been
13:46all right we'll talk lions coming up next want to get tj's thoughts on the wind down in miami
13:50take some phone calls on all of it this morning it's 97 one