Michigan needed a gift from the officials to survive Western Michigan this weekend, and Bryce Underwood needed just one shot to cash it in. Underwood, the No. 1 overall recruit in his class who flipped from LSU to Michigan, connected with JJ Buchanan on a 47-yard Hail Mary after the crew put a controversial second back on the clock, and the Wolverines escaped 13-12. It was the kind of finish that turns a rivalry into a headline, and by the time it was over, the actual news wasn't the football.
It was what happened between Dave Portnoy and Brandon Walker while the ball was in the air. Portnoy, the loudest Michigan superfan on the internet and Walker's own co-host on Wake Up Barstool, is famous for going full meltdown during Wolverines games. So when Walker says he tried reaching Portnoy during the madness and got nothing back, that's not a small snub between strangers -- that's two guys who share a show and, according to Walker, a phone call Portnoy didn't pick up.
“What a coward. What an absolute piece of shit” -Brandon Walker talking about Dave Portnoy
Walker and Portnoy have been needling each other all year, mostly over conference loyalty -- Portnoy fronting the Big Ten as Michigan's biggest fan, Walker holding the SEC line and saying he has no problem checking Portnoy's homerism to his face. This is the same relationship, just with the volume turned way up and a personal grievance attached instead of a football argument.
Portnoy's answer to getting called a coward on camera was to actually check in -- on video, after the fact, so there'd be no arguing about it.
Dave had to check in on his friend Brandon Walker after Michigan’s Hail Mary
Whether that clears him of the coward charge or just proves he was busy losing his mind over the finish before circling back is the actual debate here, and it's the kind of pettiness Barstool's morning show runs on. Nobody's walking away from this with real beef -- Walker and Portnoy have survived worse blowups on air than one ignored FaceTime -- but for a weekend where the Wolverines needed a gift from the refs just to survive Week 1, the funniest part of it wound up being two coworkers screaming about who ghosted who.