'Wring me out,' players-only meeting, 'someone’s gotta pay for our pain': Best quotes from 'Hutch' episode three

Michigan Wolverines football defensive end Aidan Hutchinson teamed up with Pro Football Focus to produce the ‘Hutch’ podcast series that goes behind the scenes on the projected No. 1 overall NFL Draft pick’s life, family and football career.

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PFF host Austin Gayle interviews a number of people close to Hutchinson, Michigan and the NFL. In episode three of four, which focuses on the beginning of the 2021 season and pivotal loss at Michigan State, Gayle sits down with Hutchinson, Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh, quarterback Cade McNamara, strength coach Ben Herbert, radio voice Jim Brandstatter and others.

Here are the highlights from episode three:

HOW TO LISTEN TO ‘HUTCH’: Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4

Low expectations, chip on shoulder ahead of Michigan’s 2021 season

Aidan Hutchinson: “That was the first time in my Michigan career that we were not ranked in the top 15 preseason. Being at Michigan, we have so much talent there, and naturally all the preseason polls just put us top 15 — whether we deserve it or not. It depends on the year. My senior year, we weren’t ranked at all.

“It was literally the perfect storm going into that year, because there were no expectations. I ate that shit up, too. I was loving every part of being that underdog and having that underdog mentality, because that’s what I feel I have already. And now that we have it from a team perspective, collectively we can all come together and say, screw you, screw you all, all the people that said we were going to win six games, seven games, we’re going to prove all of you wrong.”

Cade McNamara: “Every guy on the team went through a 2-4 season. And as a Michigan Wolverine, it’s quite embarrassing to lose that many games and have that record in the winged helmet. The guys took it really personally, and we just really set our mindset that it wasn’t going to happen again.

“The cohesiveness of the team and the energy of the team … we knew from our first spring practice last year that this team had some energy, and that this team was close. The amount of fun that we had together and the amount of love that we shared for one another truly helped build the team that we had.”

Aidan Hutchinson’s offseason mentality

Ben Herbert: It was late spring, we got done with a workout and Hutch said down on the plyo box and looked at me and said, ‘Coach Herb,’ he kind of shook his head and said, ‘as we go into the summer and we transition into this thing, wring me out every day. Every day! Do not leave anything on the table.’ And I looked at him, had a big smile and just said, ‘Yeah, Hutch, that’s easy. Would love to.’ And the best part is that’s all I had to say, because I knew anything we asked him to do — and this is now the projected No. 1 overall picked — he’s going to do it, he’s going to do it technically very well and he’s going to give tremendous effort. That kind of set the tone for everyone else.

Michigan State loss

Chris Hutchinson: Aidan will tell you, he’s not sure they win the Big Ten championship if they don’t lose to Michigan State. You don’t really want to hear that, but a loss can oftentimes be more important than a win, especially if you do it early on and you do it in a fashion where it’s to your rival and it allows you to focus. Because if they win that game, they’re going to be two or three in the country, and it’s a very different season, as opposed to you just gave away a big lead at Michigan State and now you’re going to get your butts kicked against Ohio State and it’s going to be the same thing all over again.

“It was very difficult in the stands, because Michigan State fans aren’t the most pleasant people in the world. “

Jim Brandstatter: “I agree completely with Chris. It was the catalyst for Michigan getting as good as they were from that game forward. My impression from that game was that defensively Michigan State did a great job, their coaches did a great job. There were times that the Michigan defense wasn’t set. They took advantage of Michigan and Mike Macdonald’s late substitutions to get personnel groupings on the field to match the other guys. Michigan State out-coached us on that, got players in there and made some plays.

“We got a bad call when Aidan stripped the ball from the quarterback and it was in the end zone. It should’ve been a touchdown, it should’ve been our ball. The referee — a stupid guy up in the booth — decided, no, we’re not going to overturn that. It was clearly a fumble, but he overturned it, and that saved some points for Michigan State. Now, that being said, you gotta overcome those things. We didn’t.”

Jim Harbaugh’s postgame speech

Jim Brandstatter: “Afterwards, you didn’t hear anyone, and Jim Harbaugh — this is one of the great things Jim Harbaugh did last season — he told everyone in that room, ‘Men, this means nothing. Every goal we have is in front of us. We can still do what we came here to do. We just now have no room for error. We have to win every game, so the pressure’s on.’ And every kid took that to heart.”

Aidan Hutchinson and other team leaders holding a players-only meeting after the loss

Aidan Hutchinson: “It was a tough meeting, because we were coming off a game we really believed we should’ve won, but there’s nothing you can do about it. We really just wanted to recenter ourselves and focus on what’s important, and that was beating Ohio State and winning a Big Ten championship.

“I remember being in that meeting, and I’m getting a little emotional talking about it, because I cared so much about the guys and everybody in that room. I could see it on their faces, how bad they all wanted it and how pissed off we were.

“I think we really just carried that over to the following weeks. ‘Someone’s gotta pay for our pain’ — that’s what I said a lot. We hit this adversity, we hit this big roadblock, so now it’s like, what are we going to do? Are we going to lay down and surrender, or are we going to keep fighting? There was no Big Ten championship guarantee, there was no beating Ohio State guarantee, but everyone on that team kept fighting and kept pushing. We all knew that wasn’t the end of the road.”

Jim Harbaugh: “Every week became a playoff mentality. The way our team handled that was like a bump in the road, it was like you’re driving on the road, hit a bump and kept right on going and accomplished the great things that the team accomplished.”