Salinger

April 13th, 2011 at 9:03 AM ^

I am excited to see how we do against Hoke's old crew.  Just crossing my fingers for a W.

 

On a side note, did anyone see that LSU has WV and Oregon next year? Now that is a tough non-conference schedule!!

Will Vereene

April 13th, 2011 at 9:23 AM ^

 

I think the ND v. Michigan is also a key NCG. It's a rivalry game of the overall #1 v. #2, it's the first night game for both programs, and MI has won the last meetings and Kelly has not faired well against MI. That's the trifecta.

Salinger

April 13th, 2011 at 10:14 AM ^

I agree that ND is a bigger game for Michigan.  I think the person who wrote the article probably does too.  However, I think his point was that these are non-regular non-conference games.  Michigan plays ND every year (or almost every year) so wouldn't be expected to be on that list.

Don't get me wrong though, I think the ND game will be a much bigger indicator of what we should expect from Michigan football this year.

Tater

April 13th, 2011 at 10:42 AM ^

I fully expect Michigan to lose to ND this year.  I'll still be jumping up and down and screaming at the TV, but Kelly is in his second year there and his team has had time to adjust.  Michigan will still be learning on both sides of the ball and will still have a lag between thinking and doing.  

If Michigan played ND in October or November, when they should be playing their best football of the season, they would have a lot better chance to win.  I think Michigan will win eight games this year, but ND won't be one of them.

andrewG

April 13th, 2011 at 10:14 AM ^

"Kelly has not faired well against MI"

ummm... the dude has coached exactly two games against michigan, one at central michigan which coincided with our 2006 crush-everyone-until-the-last-2-games-which-totally-never-happened season and the other was his first year at the helm of notre dame where we only won by 4 points despite an inhuman day by denard and nd rotating between a concussed qb and a walk-on.

don't get me wrong, i hope in 5 years we can throw that statement out there, but it's a little premature to be dropping that right now.

BigBlue02

April 13th, 2011 at 10:44 AM ^

Being 0-2 against a team would be "not fairing well" against said team. I don't see the problem in that statement. He didn't say "brian kelley is a yearly whipping boy" or "we dominate kelley whenever and wherever we play."

befuggled

April 13th, 2011 at 11:59 AM ^

Kelly lost one game he was supposed to lose and another game he might have won if his starting QB hadn't had a concussion. So yes, technically "has not fared well" is true. But there isn't enough of a sample size to really tell us anything useful.

WolverineHistorian

April 13th, 2011 at 10:50 AM ^

3 night games played between us and ND in South Bend:

1982:  ND's first ever night game.  We play flat and lose 23-17.  The only time Bo lost to Jerry Faust. 

1988:  Reggie Ho.  The D keeps ND out of the end zone all night, though.  Mike Gillette's game winner is just wide right with 1 second left on the clock and we lose 19-17.  ND lucks out and avoids disaster for what seems like the millionth time in school history.  They go on to win the national championship.

1990:  We're up by 10 in the 3rd quarter, we have a chance to go up 31-14 on the #1 team in the land in their own stadium but Grbac throws a pick in the end zone.  We then proceed to blow the lead. ND's Rick Mirer throws the game winning TD in the final minute to beat us 28-24.  (Oh, yes.  This was the infamous game where the ref measured for a first down with an index card.  Only in South Bend.) 

Revenge, Blue.  I want you to make ND feel that same horrible pain under the lights at the Big House in September. 

Firstbase

April 13th, 2011 at 9:41 AM ^

...how much fun it would have been to see Tate manage a few snaps. He was looking forward to it. 

Now that I think about it, was Brady the guy who snubbed him at SDSU?

Naked Bootlegger

April 13th, 2011 at 9:43 AM ^

I know there will be a ton of hoopla about this game because of the Hoke transition to Michigan, facing his former team, blah, blah, blah.   But what really intrigues me about this matchup is the conundrum facing Spencer Brinton - UM's high-profile QB transfer from the early 2000's.   Who will he cheer for?   Will he bust out his blue #7 from his Michigan days, or a black #16 from his SDSU glory years?   Perhaps the Michigan white road jersey paired with black SDSU pants? 

For those who don't remember Spencer Brinton:

http://www.michigandaily.com/content/selfless-spencer?page=0,1

justingoblue

April 13th, 2011 at 11:57 AM ^

So you're using OSU computing power to talk on MGoBlog? Nice...

There's a libertarian anarcho-capitalist who believes in taking every possible government benefit as a way of speeding up the fall of the state, and that's the closest analogy I can think of to you doing that.

justingoblue

April 13th, 2011 at 12:06 PM ^

Haha, I haven't seen much of the OSU campus except High Street up by their bookstore and the dorms over by the law school, so I can't comment on that. MGoBlog is definitely a fun way to avoid going outside and doing something, though.

BlueDragon

April 13th, 2011 at 12:09 PM ^

All my friends are super-busy during the day anyways so I mostly kill time on the blog or do homework between classes.  Or you can take a jaunt down to the fast-food district and take your pick of the finest cuisine Columbus has to offer at rock-bottom prices.  If you're in town, Five Guys on High Street has great burgers, and you can get a burger with toppings plus a HUGE container of fries for about 8 bucks.  To top that off, you get free bottomless peanuts for just showing up to the restaurant!

justingoblue

April 13th, 2011 at 12:12 PM ^

Five Guys is awesome. I haven't made it down to Columbus since my first and only trip there, but I actually might stop for a few minutes this weekend. My "bff" might get permission from his coach to go home to Akron for his 21st...you know...to renew his drivers license... In that case I'll pass through Columbus and might give a hug to a girl I know there.

Captain Obvious

April 13th, 2011 at 10:00 AM ^

M v SDSU is considered a top non-conference game?  Is the non-conference schedule for the rest of cfb THAT bad?  I mean, Michigan is basically playing a MAC game - I get that it's somewhat interesting due to storylines but I would hope this wouldn't make a top 100 list of cfb games to look out for on a national level.  M v ND will be much much more important and interesting.

Salinger

April 13th, 2011 at 10:20 AM ^

"Today, we're going to look at the 12 best non-conference games of the season. It's important to note that this does not include non-conference games that are played annually; some of those games would've made the list, sure, but the idea here is to show that the occasional two-game series can lead to some mighty fine football."

 

The author of the article specified that this was a non-annual list of non-conference games.  Also, SDSU had a great offense last year and returns their starting H back and QB.  They could pose some real problems for our secondary.

bluesouth

April 13th, 2011 at 10:16 AM ^

Michigan fan this will be one that I'm really kind of worried about.   Given SDSU has not beaten any of it's Big Six BCS foes in recent history. high risk low reward ala App. State type of deal.

But as a college football fan in general the top three match ups listed are just as if not more intriguing.

 

3. Boise State vs. Georgia in Atlanta

  

2. Oklahoma at Florida State

 

1. LSU vs. Oregon in Arlington, Texas

WolvinLA2

April 13th, 2011 at 10:43 AM ^

I think we have the advantage here.  We took coaches from SDSU on offense and defense, plus the HC, obviously.  So we'll be able to scout their offense and defense about as well as any team in the country.

However, they will not be able to scout us nearly as well.  Sure, their DC who was there last year knows the Borges offense, but it will be very different with Denard and our personnel.  Game planning for UM-2011 will be worlds apart from SDSU-2010.  Also, our DC is the one main outsider thrown into all of this, so the SDSU offensive coahces won't know Mattison any better than any other college DC.  The fact that he's been coaching in the NFL for a while only makes his defenses that much harder to scout. 

BigBlue02

April 13th, 2011 at 11:17 AM ^

Doesn't count. They were down 3 scores in the 3rd and if we have learned anything, we learned making a game out of it after being down a lot only counts if you win. If you lose, stats don't count and the team played horribly and the only reason they came back is because the other team gave up

WolverineHistorian

April 13th, 2011 at 11:04 AM ^

Wow, I could really care less about half of those games.  Pitt vs. Iowa?  Arizona State vs. Illinois?  Arizona vs. Oklahoma State?  Missouri vs. Arizona State?  Come on.

And is Penn State really going to compete with Alabama?  Rivals says SDSU will torch our secondary but they make no mention of Bama possibly torching JoePa?   With Nick Saban's oversigning, they'll have plenty of weapons.  

Miami vs. Ohio State will be interesting just because of the suspended players.  But Miami has been a joke the last several years.  So OSU still has a chance.