Hello there. We are back live with Wolverine Live, and we are coming to you from our

InterSanctum Studios. I'm John Borton. We got Tom Crawford here from his various pursuits,

including Press Pass on Fox, and of course, the Crawford

Podcasting Network.

We also have one Nick Baumgartner, senior writer for The Athletic.

And great to have you here with us tonight, Nick.

We're going to be talking about this book

Mountain Top, and it's The Inside Story of Michigan's 1997 National Title Climb. He has worked

with Mark Snyder, a couple of former Detroit Free Press guys, and done a great job with

this book. We're going to be talking extensively about that. So Nick, really glad to have you

tonight. Thanks, Javier. I really appreciate it, Tom, to you as well. Thanks for letting me come on here.

I wish Mark could come on. Mark's doing school pickup, I think, tonight, though. He's busy,

so it'll just be me. But hey, I mean, I think, tonight, though. He's busy. It'll just be me.

But, hey, I mean, I know plenty about what's going on with the current team. Obviously, yeah, excited to talk about the book, too. You can more than hold your own on that topic. And a couple of other ones before we talk heavily into the book, which we will. I just want to talk a little bit about this start that Michigan is having to the season.

We know that you've written about the 1997 Wolverines.

All of a sudden, it's dovetailing in here with a Michigan team in 2023 that aspires to do what the 97 team does, which is very convenient and very nice for selling books and that thing. I would just say, you know, if the 2023 team gets it done

this year, boy, that is almost a tougher road.

Nothing taking nothing away from 97 because John Jansen's a very large man and would

fold it.

But, you know, with the playoffs added in now, I mean, it's a tall order to win that

national championship. Oh, yeah, huge. I mean, it's a huge task, and it's so much different. It's almost like, and one of the reasons why this book was so exciting we'll talk about it later was 97 was like a formative time, such a like flashpoint for college football was the last year before the playoff. And as we know, guys, like, it's changed so much over the years.

And now you're at a point where every second of every game is so critical.

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