To be honest, GB, I did not see this one coming either. I am going to try and keep a lid on my euphoria for our next five games are against Wisconsin, Minnesota, MSU, Iowa, and then Penn State. Any of those teams are capable of knocking us off, especially Penn State since we will play them on the road at night after five rugged games in a row. Clearly our new DC has put the spark back in our defense but it is going to be impossible to sustain the level of emotion the team brought to South Bend. And, emotion had a lot to do with the outcome of this game. ND seemed flat and drained , probably a carry over effect from the physical games with GT and Penn State. In contrast, after all the abuse the WW program endured this off season combined with two easy tune up games, M had a lot of pent up fury which they unloaded on the Irish. Hoped they saved some for their trips to Happy Valley and Columbus. Thanks for the gracious comments from the ND Skyboxers. Given Weiss' obvious coaching and recruiting skills, I forego gloating knowing that retribution may be a short year away....
Congratulations, Bobda! That was total domination in every phase of the game. Good luck the rest of the way.
Bobda, I always root for Big Ten teams and I was even bold enough to pick the Wolverines in the Skybox Contest! Congratualtions on a great win. Now I just hope you have this one big game out of your system? :lol: Don
Bob, After 8 ? consecutive losses to the Wolverines, I have made plans to make sure Lou Ann is out shopping and nowhere to be found when your Wolverines come into Happy Valley.
Congrats Bobda....very, very impressive effort on both sides of the ball. Glad your boys got that one out of their system! Terry
I certainly don't see Wisky, MSU, Minn, or Iowa giving you guys much of scare. I would be shocked if you and Ohio State don't go to the big game both undefeated. So far beyond you and OSU nobody in the B10 has looked to be more than average. Iowa who I thought might be a great team this year, barely escaped with a win over a bad Syracuse team and didn't really look impressive vs an medicore Iowa State team.
:cry: Congrats to Bobda and all Wolverines everywhere. It doesn't get any better than that for them and nobody saw it coming... The biggest factors in my opinion were the new Michigan coaches. Charlie ran rings around that UM staff last year, but the new guys were impressive. The zone blocking on offense neutraized the speed of our fast, but small tackles. The only way to stop zone blocking is with good, fast LBs, and we only have one of those, which is two too few... This created a situation where Tommy Z and Chinedum were asked to help out on runs and that left one of our corners on an island with Manningham. This is exactly what Ohio State and USC did last year and the victim was the same: Ambrose Wooden. Charlie changed him out in favor of Terrail Lambert, but that was worse. In the end, the Irish finished with freshman Darin Walls out there and he looked lost at times too. We're still one shut-down corner short of what we need and the UM coaches found that in the filmroom... They also found a way to neutralize every major weapon we had on both sides of the ball: Quinn, Rhema, Darius Walker. They contained Samardzija and held him to one score. They completely avoided Tommy Z like he had a communicable desease. I don't think he had to break up one pass all day and they made sure that all punts went out of bounds or were unreturnable. That was the first time in a long time that I can remember Tommy actually calling for a fair catch. The Michigan plan simply took him out of the game and dared the other DBs to make the game-changing plays and they couldn't do it... I didn't review the rest of the game, because I've decided to become an environmentalist. We're big on that stuff out here. I've been concerned that our videotape forests have been disappearing at an alarming rate, so I decided to recycle my tape of this game and it now contains my grand-daughter's favorite film, High School Musical.. As for who is to blame for this horrible loss, the finger-of-fate points directly at me. This is all my fault. As some of you know, my home is ground zero for all Irish lucky charms and mojo makers of every description. On game days, the Irish flag flies over the house, while inside there is a lighted neon IRISH sign over the fireplace. Various totems, pictures, beads and candles are scattered about the house, as real shamrocks grow in the flowerbed... Around noon today, my wife discovered a package laying in the flowerbed. I have no idea how long it has been there. The delivery punk was probably too lazy to ring the doorbell and just set it down behind the juniper plant, where it remained unseen and unknown. When I opened it about two hours ago, I discovered an evil winged helmet night light. It had been sitting out there all this time, poisoning the atmosphere, destroying all Celtic magic emanating from this place and probably getting cooties on my dog who tried to warn me that something was not right in the flower bed... This requires a nuclear retaliation next year. I live five blocks south of the Wiccan capital of the Free World at the Claremont Colleges and I will make all proper and necessary consultations before next year's game... ...............Charmed...JO'Co
Bottom line for this is that this ND team is a flawed team. We can over come a lot of those flaws by utiltizing our talents, but those flaws are still there for good teams to exploit. Michigan did just that. I think our team will improve as the year goes on, and unlike the bursting of the bubble with the Wilingham team in 2003. This year we have real pro's runnig the squad who actually know how to coach and will get the team ready for next week at Michigan State. Terry
Time will tell, but y'all may not be giving Iowa and Sparty their due respect in your "Big Two, Little Eight (9)" comments. I'm not 'zactly a believer yet but they looked to me like teams that need to be taken seriously. And I think mebbe Penn State is a bit better team than they showed in that woodshed whippin' y'all laid on them.
Stu, I'm with you....don't listen to that big two nonsense. I can't remember traveling to Iowa City and not have to fight to get out with a W and Joe will have his kids ready to go... Terry
Not so, Terry...I just think you take MSU lightly at your own peril. I think that you will probably own my Boilers this year. stu
Believe me I'm not taking Mich State lightly, not with our 5 year record vs them. But they haven't had that same magic vs UM, they seem to pull defeat from the jaws of victory more often vs the weasels.
Jo Co, My goal was to take out the command-and-control structure of the Irish SBers but the intelligence services were unable to track down your son Udi a/k/a/Chico a/k/a Corey. In fact, given the grim events of the past 3 out of the last 4 years, I was planning a complete carpet bombing of most of the SB ND nation but deferred against striking other targets for the following reasons: Sid, too good of gentleman; Gipper, professional courtesy; Krebs and his protege, Fredo, fear of a retaliatory strike that could result in my bodily envelope becoming part of a Newark construction project. Given your threat, I'll start training Lloyd to guard against suspicious packages and people.
8) It was a master stroke, that's for sure. In all these years, I've sent out everything from voodoo dolls (with pins and instructions) to mechanical devices and videotapes, but no one...repeat NOBODY has ever sent anything here. This was a first. My wife came to me this morning and said that she had found something in the flower bed and she thought that it might be from Malloy. I thought, "Malloy? That doesn't make sense." Then I saw that the return address was Grand Rapids and a chill went through me as I suddenly began to suspect evil curses from new directions and everything that had been happening suddenly made sense... If I had only found it on game day...
Dear mr Bobda; Thanks to you I now have to reposition all charms lights shamrocks etc.......I will need another bottle of Jamison for the Michigan State game. I need to explain to our granddaughters why some "friend of Papa's" would do such a mean thing (you see they think Joco is a Saint) ... All I can say is beware .... you know the cartoon with the mad scientist playing with a chemistry set times that times 10 and that was Joco on Sunday when I found the package Thanks again my friend .D
Dear Mrs. O'Connor. My apologies. I meant no harm to you or your grandchildren. My evil totem was addressed to Jo Co and solely designed to render grievous and irreparable injury to the Notre Dame football program. My hope was to minimize collateral damage. My intention was not for your home and loved ones to become what Lebanon became after Israel's limited incursion against Hezbollah. If I could indulge your time for a moment, I please ask that you request your husband to delay his retaliation for some period of time. I am flying this Saturday with my wife to Croatia for a week's vacation. While I suspect that my fate is meaningless to you, there could be Notre Dame fans traveling on my flight and I am certain neither you nor your husband would want any harm to come to your comrades. And my wife is a nice person and had no involvement in my plots .....