Michigan-Notre Dame Tentatively Back On
[Eric Upchurch]
It's not quite official, but the head coaches of both ends of the rivalry more or less announced today that Michigan-Notre Dame will resume in the near future. Brian Kelly was more specific than Harbaugh:
“We’re going to make that happen,” the seventh-year Notre Dame head football coach said Thursday, relaxing in his office. “We’ve got some work to do, but we’re going to make it happen.
“It’s something (ND athletic director) Jack Swarbrick and I want to do, and we’re going to get that game back together. We’ve got some challenges, but I think we can pull it off.”
How soon?
“We want to do it as soon as we can,” Kelly said. “We’ve got Michigan State home-and-home the next two years (2016-17), and then we’re hoping to. We want to get in on the schedule as quickly as possible after that.”
For his part, Harbaugh said they'd been working on resuming the series for "7, 8, 9 months" and that there were Ts to cross and Is to dot. Hoping those details include a rivalry trophy portraying Dave Brandon hunched over a computer, typing furiously.
Michigan currently has home games against Arkansas and SMU lined up for 2018 and an open date September 8th. It's an MSU/OSU away year and they should get the next home game in the series. ND currently has two openings in 2018, with Ball State scheduled for September 8th. They already have a couple of highly attractive home games in Stanford and FSU; their 2019 home schedule is currently pretty weak, with USC and not much else of interest. Resuming the series with a Michigan home game in 2018 appears to make sense for everybody.
The main problem: adding a game at ND in 2019 would lock Michigan into just five home games, which I assume is unacceptable. If the Arkansas return game gets moved—or that series gets flat-out canceled—they can get up to six. That would still be the fewest home games Michigan Stadium has seen since the move to 12 games. The ever-increasing blizzard of TV money makes it more likely Michigan can weather that financially, but it's a problem. One that the two sides appear to be working through.
For me they have always been one of our big three rivals; prior to our losing streak against MSU I would have put them as an unquestioned second. Not playing them feels like not playing OSU or MSU to me.*
*This may be a product of growing up in the 90s/00s and going to M in the late 00s.
I assume the loser has to take home the trophy?
Well done.
But it will be called the "DB Trophy."
The DBCHSTG
(DaveBrandonComputerHeadSmashingTrophyGif)
The Dave Brandon Ever After Trophy: A giant macaroni noodle.
I really hope it has a clock in the corner showing 1 a.m.
the Tom Goss Golden "HALO" Trophy
I'm all in for an activity-based trophy. Winner gets to tar and feather DB and carry him out of the stadium on a pole.
Michigan also had six home games in 2012, though I guess they did get some money from the Alabama game at JerryWorld.
We only played six home games in 2012 (plus one neutral site with Bama). I think and hope five would be unacceptable, but six has been done in the past.
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No. It's just not necessary.
Maybe conference realignment would allow the MSU game to be moved so Michigan doesn't play MSU/OSU at home in the same year.
No more realignment.
Unfortunately it seems like it's going to happen. My hope is the B1G goes to 20 and then you just put all the old B1G teams in 1 division and it's like realignment never happened. You just play a couple teams from the other division more often than you would before. I'm sure Rutgers would be heartbroken they didn't get to play their rival Michigan every year though.
Michigan State continues to play at a very high level, I think they will have to look at the BIG divisions again. I don't see much to indicate that Nebraska/Iowa/Wisconsin is going to prove to be a sufficient trio to anchor that division and I could see them having to do something about that competitive imbalance.
Whyis it so offensive that Rutgers has "picked" Michigan as a rival? Shouldn't that be considered something of an honor that a program has deemed you as the best and biggest and they'd like to be on your level?
Rivalries develop organically, usually over time. This is just Rutgers being "Jersey", all talk and no walk.
Because you don't "pick" rivals.
but don't tell that to Illinois
Maybe ND joins a conference one of these days. It is grossly unfair, IMO, for any team to be considered for NC games unless they have played a conference championship game.
I always saw the Conference Championship games as more of a money grab more than a necessary gate to playoff contention...if you go undefeated playing a tough schedule (and aside from the service academies and Purdue, ND usually plays only legit teams) you deserve that bid.
I disagree. At the very least, you are playing a team that is very solid if not highly ranked at the end of a long season. On top of that, every one playing in conference championship games have players that are undergoing wear and tear and running the risk of injury. Keep things even for everyone in terms of the number of games.
But that's a disadvantage that conferences willingly gave themselves in sacrifice for more money... If a conference has decided that the trade-off is worth it, let them deal with it, no need to put additonal conditions on anyone else because of it.
There are two ways around my perceived issue. Either do conference expansion/realignment with, say, four conferences having two divisions of ten teams each and a conference playoff. You have created an eight team playoff for the NC.
Alternatively, have the comittee picking teams for the NC games make a rule where you have to have played in a conference championship game to be eligible. Of course, you have the problem of two superteams being in the same division, but that would be a rare exception and someone is always crying the blues regardless.
There's a third way around it: Not caring. Notre Dame's insistence on staying independent is grating, but they shouldn't be punished just because the conferences they're not members of decided to have a money grab contest.
This is a good thing..........!
they're going to play a game in rome
Need Arkansas to flip the home and home. Or we could play at ND in 18 and home in 19 but I would hate to give them 2 in row at home. A vestige of the problem with the last contract where we let them cancel after their home game without playing the return game in Ann Arbor - they took advantage of us and we should have known better.
Agreed on Arkansas. A flip would fix things. Games @Arkansas, @Notre Dame, @Wisconsin, and @Penn State all in the same year would be tough. Throw in home dates with Iowa, Michigan State, and Ohio State... That schedule would be an absolute bear to navigate even with a senior Brandon Peters doing his best Andrew Luck impersonation.
Should be a no brainer and child's play. The SEC hasn't yet scheduled 2018 and 2019, so there is that. Additionally, it would mean Arkansas would host the first of the home and home games. That by itself should be incentive enough.
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Very happy to hear this is a close reality. This will help get the stink from that last game (thanks Brandon & Hoke) off faster. It also brings back a huge rivalry that Michigan and ND fans enjoy and other fans are jealous of.
Maybe he just sees it as more useful now that U-M is getting its act together on the field.
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he just says whatever his boss (the AD) tells him to say.
Not interested.
They ended the rivalry in a classless way (slipping the note to DB before kickoff). All the excuses that they used for ending the rivalry are still in place (Wanting to keep USC/Stanford, Navy, MSU and Purdue all while playing a p part-time ACC schedule.)
They bad mouthed us and belittled the rivalry.
Now all of a sudden were supposed to welcome them back with open arms? F*ck that.
They need us more than we need them. Find a new team. Enjoy your rivalry with Duke.
I'm with you!
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It's been proven that DB is a DB. It would take a real DB to defend DB at this point.
I agree wholeheartedly with you, I sure in the hell don't want to mess with switching the Arkansas home and home.
Who's to say Arkansas won't be a higher ranked team by that time? ND gave us the shaft and now we're supposed to say it's all good?
I say if we do resume playing them to make sure the contract doesn't allow them to back out so easily and for us to get an extra home game some how.
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