Thursday Morning Brews: Writer’s block

Happy Thursday, folks. Welcome to Morning Brews. If you’re looking for tickets to Saturday’s game, there appear to be plenty available on the secondary markets. Apparently the young folks at MSU aren’t keen to stand by their team for this one.

As usual, there is a song referenced in this morning’s article. There are at least two clues. Clues may be words, phrases, or photos, and may reference lyrics, the artist, or the album. If you think you know this morning’s song, fire away down in the comments.

Let’s get to it:

Jim Harbaugh, Ed Warinner bromance continues. It appears that Jim Harbaugh and Ed Warinner are still getting along swimmingly. You may recall that before the season started both Harbaugh and Warinner had positive things to say about each other’s coaching style. Well, that’s still going on. Appearing on the Jamie & Stoney show yesterday, Harbaugh said of Warinner, “I like the way he teaches. Like a great teacher, makes the complicated simple rather than taking the simple and making it sound complicated.”

Over six million watched Michigan drop the hammer on Wisconsin. Last week’s game wasn’t just big for Michigan fans, it was big for the networks too. According to ESPN, 6.1 million people watched the Wolverines take it to the Badgers last Saturday—which puts it among the top-5 most-watched games this season. Looking at individual media markets, Detroit (obviously) led the way followed by . . . Columbus. In fact, four of the top six markets for the game were Columbus, Dayton, Cleveland, and Cincinnati. Apparently the Buckeyes couldn’t look away last Saturday.

Brandon Peters still third on the depth chart. Joe Milton saw his first playing time of the year against Wisconsin, but Jim Harbaugh says that doesn’t mean things have changed in terms of the QB pecking order. On the coaches call yesterday, Harbaugh said, “Joe had some opportunities to play in the game. Everybody that we have, really, on the roster has a possibility to play. That doesn’t mean there was a depth chart change, though.” So for the time being, Peters is still in the third spot on the depth chart. However, from everything we’ve seen out of of Dylan McCaffrey this season, while limited, it appears to be difficult for Peters to move up.

You know who is among the most-overrated teams according to S&P+. SB Nation dropped a fresh helping of #disrepekt for the Michigan State Spartans yesterday morning by including them in a list of seven overrated teams. MSU checks in at No. 24 in the AP Poll, but the S&P+ says they’re only 33rd. If it’s possible to have a bad win as an unranked team against a Top-10 opponent, Bill Connelly says they achieved that against Penn State—pointing to several fortunate bounces in terms of turnovers against the Nittany Lions. Losses to Arizona State and Northwestern have also caused the Spartans’ drop from a preseason No. 11 ranking.

Grant Newsome isn’t playing football anymore, but I suspect I’m not alone in saying he’s still one of my favorite Wolverines. In addition to success on the field, the guy just works hard—whether it’s in the classroom (All-Big Ten academic honoree in 2016 and 2017) and now as a student coach. On all of those topics, MGoBlue sat down with Newsom for a wide-ranging interview about his time at Michigan. Check it out in the tweet above.

Most Michigan fans are well-acquainted with Ed Warinner’s connection to Ohio State, but he’s also well-acquainted with the folks over in East Lansing. Dating back to his early days as a football coach at Akron, Warinner actually roomed with a young Mark Dantonio who was also on the Zips’ staff. Warinner went on to several other stops in his career, including at Michigan State under Nick Saban in the 1980s. For the full extent of Warinner’s ties to Michigan’s upcoming opponent, check out the article above from Nick Baumgardner.