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.
Your post is very immature.
And I agree with every word of it.
I don't really miss Notre Dame as much as I thought I would. If we play, we play. If we don't, we don't. I can go either way on it.
2018 will be at ND-7home games
2019 will be at Michigan-6 home games
Problem solved. Raback It.
No.
Since MSU and OSU are now home in the same year and away in the same year, we should schedule ND to offset them. It's dumb to play all three of them home/away in the same year. In addition, like Brian said, we're owed the next home game in the ND series.
If the number of home games in 2019 is such a problem, we should flip the Arkansas games (currently scheduled home in 2018, away in 2019). I'm sure Arkansas wouldn't object to getting their home game in the series sooner.
My thoughts:
I despise Notre Dame.
I hate their stupid undeserved contract with NBC because about 24 other teams has had a better record than them since they got it over two decades ago.
I hate their stupid ass homer announcers. (One year, they were playing horribly against Stanford and the NBC announcers blamed it on ND's players being too tired from studying for mid-terms that week. Apparently ND is the only school that's ever had mid-terms.)
I hate that the ACC got rid of their balls and allowed ND to be a "part time" member of their conference which is stupid as hell. ONLY Notre Dame. You're either a full conference member or you're not a conference member.
I hate Brian Kelly and his stupid purple face.
I hate Lou Holtz and his 20 straight years of national championship predictions after a 1-0 start.
I hated Carlyle Holiday leaving the ball behind on the 2 yard line and getting rewarded a TD. I hated the phantom pass interference on Ty Law. I hated the ref using an index card to see if Michigan had picked up a first down, among many stupid things that happened in South Bend.
And I really hated how they ended the series. Dave Brandon was an a*shole. I get that. But to sneak one more home game in for an uneven number of meetings and leave us no time to give them the finger and drop the 2013 game was a dick move. F*ck those guys.
With all that said......Michigan needs to play Notre Dame. There's too much history, tradition and close geography for them NOT to play. Even if it's every several years. That might be even better because we could still have future games with them and not have to sacrifice future games against new blood.
These are excellent reasons to resume the rivalry.
I agree with you 100% except that I LOVE the Brian Kelley purple face. F*ck it. You're right. Schedule these f*ckers every God damn week and beat them till they want to quit again. I want to see Purple face's head explode when Harbaugh does the post game hand-shake/back slap.
Schedule the first game for September in 2019. The Harbaugh Death Star will be fully operational.
play two years on, two to three years off. Keep things fresh. Play other teams.
I suspect the reason why Arkansas is opening the 2018 season in Ann Arbor is because their home conference games include Alabama, LSU and Ole Miss (along with Vanderbilt). Their road SEC games are Texas A&M, Auburn, Mississippi State and MIssouri. The Razorbacks probably will want to keep their schedule "balanced", so the prospect of them changing the home/away dates aren't likely.
As Brian points out, with the nine-game B1G schedule starting this season, Michigan is going to have alternating years of five and four home conference games. In 2018, U-M has Nebraska, Maryland, Wisconsin, Penn State and Indiana at home. The road games are at at Northwestern, at Michigan State, at Rutgers and at Ohio State. If ND plays in Ann Arbor that year (and Arkansas doesn't flip), then that means eight home games in 2018 and six in 2019.
If U-M plays ND in South Bend that year, it means seven home games in 2018 and 2019, but it puts Notre Dame, Michigan State and Ohio State all one the same home/road schedule rotation and we'd be back to what happened in 2011/2 when it was ND, OSU and Nebraska all on the same home/road schedule rotation.
I think the better way to make this work is to try and fit in Notre Dame during the 2020/1 seasons. It'd mean dropping Virginia Tech and/or Washington and perhaps getting some cooperation from the Big Ten on the conference schedule in order to better balance it out (since the B1G hasn't published schedules beyond 2019, I assume this is workable).
Then I'd like to see Michigan keep the home-and-home series with UCLA, Oklahoma and Texas with Notre Dame perhaps popping up on the schedule again for the 2028/9 seasons.
All that said, I'm not a big fan of playing ND every year now that there are only three non-conference games. There are other teams out there with major name reconition that Michigan has never played (LSU) or rarely played (such as Florida State or Georgia) during the regular season. I'd love to see U-M play a variety of major non-conference opponents in home-and-home series (keep the neutral sites to an absolute minimum) with Notre Dame being part of that mix.
Why would they get the first home game? We should have it because 2014 was in South Bend.
And count me in the camp that doesn't understand not caring about ND. Maybe it is a product of my age, but I always considered ND to be our second biggest rivalry. This matchup has produced some of the most exciting games in UM football history - both on the winning and losing side.
About to Hell with Notre Dame, but that series has provided some of the best games in recent years.
The way to remedy the scheduling issue here is to uncouple the MSU and OSU games from both being home/away. That is not something Swarbick and Kelly can help us with, unfortunately.
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My brother, a ND grad, and I had an annual bet on the game. Winner got a bottle of Woodford Reserve (also, an empty bottle with the scores written on as a trophy). I, for one, look forward to enjoying some good bourbon courtesy of those annoying Frenchies with an identity problem.
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Notre Dame puts themselves defacto into the ACC. Right now things look peachy for the Irish because the rules for power five don’t apply to them. At some point they are going to have the face the reality that the BIG 12 have picked up on and have a conference championship game. A one loss Notre Dame team does not have the extra data point that a one loss conference champion from any other power five does. They can try and pretend they are special but at some point not being in a conference will bite them in their privileged asses. What chaps my hide about this is when its not a clear cut one loss scenario; if Notre Dame has one loss and a conference champion has two there are cases to be made for Notre Dame over the two-loss conference champion. All of this speculation is what makes college football so much more fun to follow then professional. As far as playing Notre Dame on a regular basis (yearly, two on two off, or every so many years) I think its good for all involved parties, were both national brands squaring off in a historic rivalry and were both going to be relatively good for the foreseeable future.
Notre Dame puts themselves defacto into the ACC. Right now things look peachy for the Irish because the rules for power five don’t apply to them. At some point they are going to have the face the reality that the BIG 12 have picked up on and have a conference championship game. A one loss Notre Dame team does not have the extra data point that a one loss conference champion from any other power five does. They can try and pretend they are special but at some point not being in a conference will bite them in their privileged asses. What chaps my hide about this is when its not a clear cut one loss scenario; if Notre Dame has one loss and a conference champion has two there are cases to be made for Notre Dame over the two-loss conference champion. All of this speculation is what makes college football so much more fun to follow then professional. As far as playing Notre Dame on a regular basis (yearly, two on two off, or every so many years) I think its good for all involved parties, were both national brands squaring off in a historic rivalry and were both going to be relatively good for the foreseeable future.
gutsy move by both programs - seeing as hanging an "L" on your resume that early in the season can be a major disruption to your CFP application
If Arkansas agrees to a schedule flip, our home slate in 2018 is these seven games:
Notre Dame
SMU
B1G west team
B1G west team
Penn State
Indiana
Maryland
Our home slate in 2019 would then be these six games:
Arkansas
Army
B1G west team
Rutgers
Michigan State
Ohio State
This will be awesome! GO BLUE!!!!!!!!!!
Because he has half a brain.
Meanwhile Delany would never overrule him...because he's a fucking idiot.
It's the single worse thing Dave Brandon ever did, period. Just about everything else can be fixed...this issue is going to take same time. If Warde can pull it off...he should be in line for a lifetime contract right behind Harbaugh.
Can we petition the NCAA to get Denard a couple more games of eligibility?
...just make it a night game and I think we'll be okay.
Michigan v. Notre Dame should be the first game of the CFB season each and every year. It should be the kickoff.
Why?
Because I said so, that's why.
"EXTRA Home game for ND..They burned/screwed us once already .. next game MUST be in Ann Arbor
I thought I would miss Notre Dame more than I actually do. I'd be more excited to play new opponents for a while and bring back Notre Dame occasionally.
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The articles in the Detroit newspapers seem to indicate that the two schools are looking at reviving the series as early as the 2018/9 seasons and the idea would be for the two teams to play one another twice home-and-home over a four year period or perhaps at a neutral site, i.e., make it a Shamrock Series game.
Assuming all this is true with the caveats that Arkansas doesn't flip and the ND game would fill in U-M's current open dates, here are the 2018 and 2019 schedules:
2018 (7 Home/5 Road, 5 Home/4 Road Conference Games)
9/1 - Arkansas
9/8 - at Notre Dame
9/15 - Southern Methodist
9/22 - Nebraska
9/29 - at Northwestern
10/6 - Maryland
10/13 - Wisconsin
10/20 - at Michigan State
10/27 - Open
11/3 - Penn State
11/10 - at Rutgers
11/17 - Indiana
11/23 - at Ohio State
2019 (6 Home/6 Road, 4 Home/5 Road Conference Games)
8/31 - at Arkansas
9/7 - Army
9/14 - Notre Dame
9/21 - at Wisconsin
9/28 - Open
10/5 - Iowa
10/12 - at Illinois
10/19 - at Penn State
10/26 - Rutgers
11/2 - at Maryland
11/9 - Open
11/16 - Michigan State
11/23 - at Indiana
11/30 - Ohio State
A couple of things stand out. The first is that the 2019 season would only include six home games, which probably hasn't happened at Michigan in a long time. The strength of schedule in each year should be pretty high and shouldn't pose a problem when it comes to a four-game playoff. I just have to wonder if it's a "smart schedule" in terms of getting to that objective, i.e. playing for a national championship.
As I wrote before, I think it's unlikely that Arkansas will "flip" because it would upset their home/away game schedule balance. Unless ND would be willing to play back-to-back games in Ann Arbor those two seasons, we're stuck with playing them in South Bend in 2018 because not doing so means a five home game season in 2019. Maybe U-M can negotiate a 2 for 1 deal with ND to make up for the uneven number of games played since 1978, but I doubt that would happen (just like I doubt the Irish would be willing to play at Michigan Stadium two years in a row).
If we were to see a two year hiatus after 2019, that means the Virginia Tech and Washington games would remain in place for 2020/1. Then we could see Michigan playing both UCLA and Notre Dame in the 2022/3 seasons. If the Big Ten keeps the same schedule rotation, then it means seven home games in 2022 and six in 2023.
The same would go for 2026 when Michigan plays Oklahoma in Ann Arbor and then goes to Austin in 2027 to play Texas on the road. Would playing OU and UT plus ND those two years be too ambitious? I think it's too difficult to even project these games happening because more conference realignment would almost certainly have taken place by then. Who knows? Two or even three of those teams--Notre Dame, Texas and Oklahoma--could have moved to the Big Ten by then and we'd be looking at a 16- or 18-team conference and a whole new scheduling dynamic. There might even be an eight-team playoff or some other post-season configuration taking shape as well.
There's lots of moving parts here and the two schools have to think hard about what sort of scheduling agreement or contract to put in place that will serve their interests in the present and the future. Brandon gets criticized for having a three-year rolling contract with Notre Dame, but would anyone do things differently given the dynamic environment that college football will be facing over the next decade?
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Agreed.
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