Vicious Electronic Questioning: Notre Dame

Hello once again. When Michigan plays the sort of opponent that actually has opposition bloggers this here blog tends to flag one of them down and relentlessly grill them until they are convinced their team will meet ignominious defeat. The best and creepiest of these are always with Brian Stouffer of the House Rock Built, who was also this week's featured podcast guest and has contributed the Notre Dame season preview to Hail To The Victors since it was conceived.

So… here we go. If you treasure your sanity you will stop here. I'm in bold. Update: Second half posted.

Shall we do this?

Yesum. IIRC we trade off asking each other questions about the other guy's team and then post 80 pics of Tom Hammond.

It's not football without nightmare fuel.

he's just so… eager

In this, Notre Dame and Michigan fans are united. In fact, I have specific requests for Tom Hammond this year.

For a second, I thought you wrote "from Tom Hammond" I don't want to know what disgusting things Tom Hammond has specifically requested of you.

If he promised me last year would never happen again I would do anything. ...but I won't do that [/meatloaf]

All right. To the questionings. Jimmy Clausen has thrown for ten zillion yards on 85% completions against WAC snacks the last two games. Before that he was good but interception-happy. What happens when, or if, Michigan covers people and stuff. Still a force-it gunslinger or more polished?

It's probably fair to say that the third year in a program is when the lights usually come on for a quarterback and he reaches his potential. Most quarterbacks are spared the indignity of having to take snaps as a starter those first two years and swiftly proceed to get crunched into lunchmeat and heave up wobbling ducks into hungry secondaries.

obligatory 

As such, I think Jimmy has finally developed a level of confidence and understanding of the college game so that he can actually perform like the spiky-haired wünderkid second-coming of Sir Jesus Christ that he is instead of the last few years of frightened-gazelle ineptitude. He's got a good, accurate arm, a gaggle of talented receivers, and a line in front of him that gives me great hopes of him surviving well past puberty.

Aw, man, but I read that Weis is actually rotating his LT and LG. That seems suicidal. If 2 QB = 0 QB how many LTs does 2 LTs equal?

Well, the fact of the matter is that this line doesn't have a prototypical genetic freak to lock down the LT position. Sometimes there's no shame in two guys banding together to do the work of one man. It's kind of like how me and my buddy teamed up to date this supermodel. I had the hot body and the dashing good looks, and he could write like totally beautiful sonnets and shit. It worked out pretty well, I think.

So Duncan is the Brian Stouffer of the offensive line and Romine is the Cyrano de Bergerac.

This reminds me of a story about Padma Lakshimi and Salman Rushdie.

lolwut

Exactly. There's always something going on behind the scenes.

All right, so while we're on the subject of quarterbacks. Your more or less starting quarterback is named Tate. Now, I know it's only one game into his career, but do you think there's any chance that, over the course of his lifetime, he will equal or surpass the achievements of child-star-turned-minor-TV-personality and world's-most-famous-Tate Tate Donovan? Keep in mind that Tate Donovan bagged Sandra Bullock and Jennifer Aniston. In their primes!

Never underestimate the potential of Michigan quarterbacks to bag Victoria's Secret models or be erroneously named one of People's 50 Most Beautiful People. Hell, even NFL non-entity and non-quarterback Chris Howard bagged Gabrielle Union. It is his destiny to sleep with many beautiful women.

obvs, lolwut

You could say it's part of the... Forcier.

I will go shoot myself now. Oh, right, all out of bullets after last year.

Football-wise and keeping with the Tate theme: I compared him to Drew Tate before I ever saw him and I still think that's the right comparison. His first touchdown was pure Tate, scrambling out of the pocket and moxie-ing up a touchdown. It's always very confusing to talk about this. Certain "Who's on First" qualities.

What if he married Notre Dame's #2 receiver? Then his name would be Tate Tate.

That would be the bloodiest wedding ever. After the vows everyone's head would explode and there would just be pools of blood around spurting corpses and, in the back, Quentin Tarantino furiously… well… you know. Enjoying it.

first hit on google images for "Quentin Tarantino [enjoying it]". srsly.

Wow. I think I just topped the Tom Hammond picture.

I'm impressed on our ability to up the creepy ante every year.

We have been following our teams' leads.

Heh. I think your somewhat starting quarterback has a bad football name. I always think "Tate Forcier: Licensed Aquatherapist" when I hear his name. Now Denard Robinson, that's a name you can set your watch to.

Yes, but it's too bad Robinson has the accuracy of a tommy-gunner on speed. On the other hand: he's also got the generalized mayhem of one.

I've heard him compared to Usain Bolt without the passing ability.

I'm trying to pick out which electron orbital he goes in, actually. Usain Bolt is old news. Wake me up when that guy starts moving fast enough to slow his own time.

Best not to even try to observe him... you'll alter the result by doing so.

I would recommend that course of action for your linebackers. Not that they'll need that advice since they'll just be running upfield as fast as they can on every snap.

Tenuta thirsts for blood.

But seriously, going back to the 2QB=0QB theorem, wouldn't that make 4 QB's the equivalent of, like, Euler's Constant QB's?

I don't think the QB constant exists in the realm of accepted mathematics.

Is this QB carousel distressing for Michigan fans?

no reason except perpetual awesome

When it stops on #8--Sheridan--yes. But I think most people are envisioning a version of Tebow-Leak, albeit a way suckier one, and are fine with the rotation. If they bring Robinson in and just run unsuccessfully people will be irritated, I think.

Are you concerned about all the interior running Nevada did? I think I saw Ethan Johnson get dumped ten yards downfield once. He seems pretty light and thin for a DT.

I think a bit of that was schematic... playing a team that runs a gimmicky über-spread offense makes it important to really spread out sideline to sideline at the expense of lightening up the pressure in the middle and relying on your second level to keep anything big from happening.

Johnson is a curiosity... he's shown himself to be a very gifted pass rusher and interior presence despite his size, and with the defensive scheme modified around to make him kind of a hybrid OLB thing, hopefully he won't be put into any huge physical mismatches.

Michigan would qualify as gimmick über-spread.

Well... über is a term I would apply to a team who finished #2 last year in rushing yards
Not for a spread team that finished number...
counting...
counting...

59! Above average!

There you go. Let's not hand out umlauts like they're candy.

So... Johnson is a DE/OLB? Are you running a 3-4 still?

Not really but kind of but not really. With Tenuta's blitz patterns, the hard and fast rules of personnel groupings get a bit nebulous

It seems like Michigan's general source of horror in these matchups is giving up the long pass. I'm not sure if you noticed, but the Irish had a receiver that averaged 50 yards a catch last week. Has anything been done about this, or should I expect to sing the Benny Hill theme song a few times on Saturday?

Well... I don't think Michigan is going to give up a 70-yard bubble screen or be quite as comically inept as the Nevada DB was on that underthrown ball. If either of these things happen, it's losin' time. And actually the top two corners are both hyped recruits who looked pretty good against Western. Donovan Warren was running ahead of WMU's big play guy on three separate deep balls. That guy isn't terrifying like Floyd, but I do think Warren has a shot at shutting him down and ramping up his own hype train. FS Troy Woolfolk is fast but got caught flat-footed on that long touchdown; hopefully Michigan spends the week telling him to ignore the run and get back. I think you'll see at least one bomb connect, and I think Michigan can win despite that. If a second lands, which is totally possible... well... nuts.

The remainder! At House Rock Built! Woo!

but first!

NO MEANS NO MR HAMMOND.