Naturally I'm sick and depressed. But kudo's to your team. They played extremely well today and made big plays when they needed them. That QB of yours is excellent and I see quite a few wins for you guys this year.
Yeah staying close in the first half when you should have been blown out of the stadium was really impressive.Congrats to you and the Big Ten.
Wow!! Great game with memory's of old with every play. Congrats to the Wolverines on their win and the great play of the Irish. RC
Thanks Terry and Bob, ND is loaded with talent on both sides of the ball. I would not be surprised if you run the table the rest of the year given that that SC has to come to SB.
Congratulations Bobda! That was a great game to watch. As I stated in an earlier post, when you are not directly involved, objectivity becomes a bit easier. I had picked Notre Dame in the Pick Em contest. Don
Michigan discovered their QB and a sure fired antidote to Tenuta's blitz happy defense. Congratulations Bobda.
GB, If we can keep our QB healthy, I think we will end up either 9-3 or 10-2. We play MSU, Ill, Iowa and Wisconsin on the road. I suspect we will lose one of those games, at worst two. We have Penn State and OSU at home. I see us splitting those games. Re the road games, I think Wisconsin and MSU will be the toughest tests. Wisconsin historically played M tough at Camp Randall and has a big offensive line and power back in Clay that could dominate time of possession and keep our offense off the field. Re the home games, I think we get beat Penn State. OSU still looks to me like the best team in the B10. The team that could pull a surprise in AA might be Purdue. They played a great game at Oregon, a place where B10 teams have been thrashed.
Bobda, that would be a good season and quite a jump from last season, a good bowl could be in the future. I personally always thought that Rich Rod was a very good coach with a good system. Nothing has changed my mind, but I'm not a Michigan fan , and I think that if you all stick with him you won't regret.
GB, When Tod was still posting here before he passed away, he mentioned that he had started to attend WV games rather than PSU games and raved about the creativity of Rodriguez's offense. His spread differs from most spreads since it emphasizes the run over the pass and is designed to hit the home run via the run. I like his offense. The no huddle keeps constant pressure on the defense yet the run oriented nature of it allows for ball control and prevents exposing the defense by it being on the field all day. The Achilles heel for Michigan may be an undersized defense and it secondary. ND's offensive line kicked the living crap out of our defensive line and linebackers. Based on the zones and lack of blitzing, you could tell that our DC did not feel we could cover ND's wide-outs for any sustained period of time and they didn't. I do not think we will play any team other than Ohio State and Wisconsin who can match the physicality of ND's offensive line and fortunately neither of those teams has a passing game that compares with the Irish.
Bobda, I agree with your assessment. Contrary to some of my fellow NDers, I am well aware that MI has always recruited top HS athletes. and that despite last year's losses (We know something about a 3-9 record), your athletes did not mysteriously become bad. I don't like RR because of some things he said about ND several years ago, but he has a solid record of turning programs around from the second year on. With the athletes he inherited and the surprisingly poised performance of his freshman QB, I'm not surprised that he's making significant progress. It's a young season, but being a glass-half-full kind of guy, I have a gut feeling that this loss for ND will turn out to be not so bad by the time Thanksgiving rolls around. I don't think 9-3 or even 10-2 is out of the question for Michigan. I happen to believe that Michigan beat a pretty good team on Saturday.
Agreed Sid...as an outsider, I've always liked the kid. Came to ND with ridiculous expectations and all the pressure that goes with being the starting QB at ND. I knew he had an arm, that tells me alot more about the young man....good stuff.