A Plot: After Barry breaks Adam's glasses during gym class, Beverly complains to Coach Mellor about pitting big brother against little brother. Rick Mellor reveals a troubled childhood in which his big brother Nick always picked on him. Beverly visits Nick (Bill Goldberg), now the defensive coordinator for the Villanova University football team, and tries to get him to reconcile the issues with Rick for the sake of her own two sons.
B Plot: Erica worries about the huge phone bill she's racked up by calling Geoff Schwartz every night from her dorm room. She's shocked when Murray tells her not to worry about it, but Murray has an ulterior motive—keeping his daughter in her room every night and away from the trappings of college life.
- Appearance Angst: Nick ends up admitting that a good deal of his macho bravado, which includes why he bullied Rick, is due to having always been unusually large, hairy, and bulky, and feeling like he had to be tough to avoid being mocked for his odd stature.
- Big Eater: When Beverly first meets Nick Mellor, she brings orange slices for his football team, but Nick quickly eats them all himself.
- Crazy-Prepared: Erica's dorm advisor has pamphlets that cover a wide variety of topics, such as depression, denial, divorced parents, and a father showing up at the dorm unexpectedly.
- Extreme Doormat: Geoff readily admits to doing whatever other people tell him to in order to make them happy when he tries to justify why he proposed to Erica after thinking Murray advised him to.
- Gilligan Cut: At the start of the episode, when Coach Mellor refuses Adam's request to swap to Barry's team to avoid being targeted by his bullying, Rick asks if he'd rather stand up to his oppressor and live life with self-respect, or cower behind his mother. Cut to Beverly confronting the Coach while Adam peeks out from behind her.
- Gone Horribly Wrong:
- Beverly's attempt to get the Mellor siblings to reconcile and set a good example for her boys leads to a dodgeball "death match" between big and little brothers.
- Murray telling Geoff that he shouldn't let Erica hang out with drunk college frat boys leads to Geoff heading to the college to propose, and Murray having to race him there.
- Out-of-Character Alert: Erica and Pops immediately realize that the penny-pinching Murray has ulterior motives when he easily forgives the phone bill.
- Sibling Rivalry: Adam and Barry form one in the A Plot, though it's resolved when they see how Rick and Nick's own rivalry still affects them in adulthood.
