Site note: I’ve gone back to the defensive UFR and done the cool popup video thing to it, if you’re interested.

You want hurdling? House Rock Built has the super-secret reason ESPN ignored Knowshown Moreno’s hurdle on Saturday:

Succor. I’d normally hold this until Monday for the weekly recruiting dump, but this news expires tonight so here you go from the front page of the Wolverine:

Lalota will announce decision tomorrow

by Rivals.com
Michigan has been recruiting the defensive end ranks hard throughout the class of 2009 and tomorrow they will find out their fate with one of the top targets. Princeton (N.J.) The Hun School's Anthony Lalota will announce tomorrow night and Michigan's chances look good. 

Lalota is a top 250 strongside defensive end to Rivals and a five star OT to Scout and would be a major relief at a position of significant need. Which one? I dunno, pick one. Michigan’s recruiting him at DE.

Now, there are various degrees of “look good”; this one is not a foregone conclusion like the two Pahokee guys were, but it is, as they say, looking good. Lalota announces at 8 PM on CSTV.

I’m sure there’s a flipside post somewhere, but I do like Rakes’ “Five Reasons Notre Dame Loses to Michigan.” Of note: their kicker’s been terrible and their punter isn’t Orin Incandenza. Meanwhile, BGS wonders why Notre Dame didn’t pound it over the right side of their line more. This seems like wishful thinking:

So perhaps all the running left was by design: if we can beat SDSU with the left hand, why show the big right hook to Michigan at all? Until we fell behind in the third quarter, we really didn't need to exploit the right side. Did Weis want to give Michigan, which has been absolutely dominant against the run, lots of looks at the left side of the run game, knowing full well that the right side is the true strength?

That's what I'm wondering. I don't know why else we would consciously run 10 times in a row to the left when you know the right side is more productive. It's crazy, isn't it?

Later, the author urges us to see the ploy as “deviously Weisian,” because against Michigan they’ll come out and run it right and Michigan will go “WTF I thought this was a NASCAR offense” and die. Because the only explanation for Charlie Weis doing something dumb has to be that he is secretly a genius.

We are talking about Charlie Weis here, right?

Weis loves doing things that are unexpected even more than he loves doing things that are correct according to game theory: fake punts, that idiotic QB draw against Georgia Tech two years ago, sending your national-worst offense onto the field to try and convert a fourth and eight when a reasonable field goal attempt is in the offing. Weis does dumb things to emphasize how smart he is.

Breakin’ it down. There’s a lot of fantastic Notre Dame preview content out there in the Michigan blogosphere. A sampling:

I meant to mention Genuinely Sarcastic’s Run Chart as part of the UFR but neglected it. Said chart (chart) is right in line with my expectations: +4 for Molk, an active but uneven day from McAvoy, concern about Nowicki, and appreciation for Moundros’s small but important role at fullback.

The Ace of Sports breaks down Clausen’s day against San Diego State complete with video clips; the general upshot is that Clausen’s arm and general competence have taken great steps forward but on the rare occasions the Aztec defensive line got anywhere near him he went “eeee I’m a little girl for something other than Mike Barwis” and chose… poorly.

The question with Clausen has always been his ability to make decisions under pressure; the SDSU game was probably a flashback to high school for him. This week will be the test.

Varsity Blue has a new feature they’re calling Inside The Play which is like a super UFR directed at a single play; this time they tackle Michael Shaw’s 30-yard zone stretch.

Speaking of that defensive line: there have been reports that as many as seven Aztec defensive linemen were out or wounded for the Notre Dame game, forcing SDSU to start a linebacker at defensive tackle and a stack of post-it notes at end. Surely that a vast exagerration spawned in the wild outcroppings of the internet, where the truth bends like kelp at high tide?

Ah, well, not really:

The Aztecs, who concluded fall camp already thin across the defensive front, had no fewer than four more defensive linemen sustain at least some sort of injury in Saturday's season-opening 29-27 loss to Cal Poly.

Jebus! A dossier:

• DE Tony DeMartinis and DT Neil Spencer, both starters, are out for the year.
• Siaosi Fifita missed the opener with a knee injury
• DE Eric Ikonne and DT Jerome Long had ankle sprains.
• DeMartinis’ replacement suffered a concussion.
• DT Ernie Lawson aggravated a foot injury.

I’m not exactly sure how many of these guys played, but only Lawson was credited with a tackle.

Also, it’s kind of sad when even your official site disses you:

Brandon Sullivan was inches away from a 4-yard touchdown run and a two-score lead for the Aztecs. But safety David Bruton jarred the ball loose and recovered it in the end zone to help the Irish (1-0) avoid an embarrassing loss.

Et tu, goaztecs.cstv.com?

Even more fun is to be had. The forecast calls for whipping winds and rain and all that:

As of Wednesday night, the forecast for South Bend on Saturday called for high winds and scattered thunderstorms. That would be quite a departure from the clear skies the Wolverines.

Is this good? Or bad? Or what?

On the one hand, Notre Dame’s biggest advantage in this game is the ability to throw passes past the line of scrimmage. On the other hand, they’ve got a couple of big bruising backs who might be better suited to pounding ahead in Hurricane Katrina (MAKE PLAYS). On what appears to be a third hand—I’m just zis guy, you know—, sometimes those little nimble guys can make cuts no one else can because of physics. Remember the one awesome game Justin Fargas had? No? Well, it came against Northwestern in a driving rain and ugly conditions.

I tentatively suggest rain and winds are advantage Michigan because then it’s super hard to make the DL irrelevant, and from what I’ve seen of the Notre Dame blogs they seem to agree.

Etc.: The situation in Morgantown is creepily reminiscent of another Big East team’s rapid fall from grace. IBFC says this game is more important to Notre Dame.