Why Michigan will win under the lights

i never understand it, it's like all the analysts are secretely rooting for them to be good and they think that if they say it enough times it'll come true

Tulsa was a better loss for ND than UM last year.  UM was the lowest ranked team ND lost to last season, plain and simple.

400 yards total, 200 passing, 200 rushing. ND had a difficult time getting off the field, and any time a team puts 200 yards rushing on you, the Defense had problems. Tulsa also had 12 penalties for 133 yards, many of them drive killers.

ND should have won that game, but Tulsa moved the ball very effectively all day.

Ratings. Its good for those who make a living from covering college football for ND to be good.

Well when you blast Utah and Miami and take out USC on the road to finish your year in the first year with a new system and coach the future looks pretty rosey. When you put that up against a team who got taken out back to the woodshed 3 times in a row to end the year, lost its coach, and has an option QB it's pretty obvious who onlookers would lean towards.

Michigan should be leaps and bounds better simply by the replacement of GERG with an actually competent defensive coordinator. And Woolfolk is back so our secondary is significantly less filled with DOOM.

who played awful. It was in the pouring rain, mitigating SC's athletic advantage. And they had a wide open bomb that was flat dropped, or they would have won that game.

Still, the winning streak at year's end was impressive - I thought they were done after Tulsa.

At least admit that Brian Kelly is the biggest Doucher in the coaching world.  He is the smuggest bastard I have ever had the displeasure to hear speak and watching him smirk and roll his eyes on the sideline is almost entertainment.  Oh, and I forgot that lesbian (NTTAWWT) golf visor he wears all the time.  To go from fat Charlie to him is just making it too easy.

Jacory Harris is absolutely a pocket passer. He had 27 total rushing yards for the entire year last year and averaged .9 yards per carry. The most carries he had in any game was 6. If that isn't a pocket passer I don't know what is, and on top of that he isn't even a good qb.  He wasn't a capable qb last year, on any level, he had a poor completion percentage and had more INT's than TD's. His backup Stephan Morris only had 75 rushing yards and his passing numbers were just as poor as Harris's. ND didn't face two capable qb's in that game, they faced two subpar QB's.Neither one is remotely comparable to Denard in terms of running ability or overall talent.

And I don't know if you have actually listened to anything either Hoke or Borges have said so far, but Michigan is not going to run nothing but pro sets. There is still some spread in the playbook and they still will have plays that take advantage of Denard's feet. If anything Michigan will most likely be running more of hybrid offense, based on the what Hoke and Borges have said mutiple times.

Most of the hype surrounding ND is based on what they did late in the year last year, but what game  was that impressive? Utah was a solid win, but Utah didn't really beat anybody of note during the year and got demolished in the their meeting with TCU. USC wasn't that good last year and was playing with their backup qb for most of the game. Miami was a pretty mediocre team as well.  With that said however, I do think that ND has a lot of talent and being the second year in a system makes a difference. Based on that I would give ND the edge on paper, but I think the atmosphere/home crowd for UM will make it closer to a tossup.

You really would have been doing yourself (and the rest of us) a big favor by staying out of this one.

But since you opened your mouth, I'll field your question. 

"Why is UM better this year?"

Well, there are two interpretations of that question.

Why are we better than we were last season?

Well, for one we returned almost our entire team. All of the players who were young last season, have now played for a whole year. We FINALLY have no freshman set to start on either side of the ball. Factor that in with the addition of Troy Woolfolk, Kenny Demens (who wasn't starting against you last season), BWC (who I think is going to have a bigger impact than people think), etc and I think we will be much improved defensively.

Offensively we lit you guys up last season. Torched. Crispy. But Denard was still a first-year starter at QB. He'll be better this season. Count on it. 

We have a better coaching staff. Especially on the defensive side of the ball. Plus, people assume that these kids had to re-learn an entirely new offense this offseason. Not even close. We will be running a lot of the same plays that embarrassed your defense last season. You can count on that as well.

Oh ya, and we will be able to hit FGs this season, so that's 6 more points we could have had against you last year.

I could go on, but I think that should be enough to shut you up for an hour or so.

The second interpretation of your question is "Why are we better than ND this season?"

The answer to that question is simple: We beat you last season (and the one before that). And I don't think you have improved enough to overcome our imrpovements and the fact that the game is in our house. 

You can whine (and whine and whine and whine) about Crist getting hurt, but can you tell me how many points Crist being in the game would have been worth? How many?

Because we won by 4, but if we had any semblance of a defense we wouldn't have given up the Rudolph 95 yarder. So thats 11. Plus tow FGs we should have hit. That's 17. Was Crist worth that many points?

Sure you marched back down the field in the last 30 secs, and maybe would have scored with more time. But if there was even more time, we would have marched down your throats again too. 

If you can make excuses, then so can we. We SHOULD have blown you out last season, if only we had THIS, THAT, AND THE OTHER. But football doesn't work that way. Sorry.

Anyways, I hope I answered your question.

Let me get that right the team ND fans are excited for was the one that beat USC and Miami...wasn't Rees the starter for those games? Yea he was! Who is the starter again this year? Oh ya Crist! So the excitement is still off the recruiting hype of Crist! Gotcha that makes sense!

Yeah, they did. It was a really sloppy game that we should have won, but ND won 17-10. It was my second game in the Big House.

I heard that they were going to try to communicate with alien life forms using Denards smile and the new screens at the big house.  Because theory has it that the Big House is actually a giant antenna built to bring an alien aramada in from the 5th dimension..

Unless Kelly opens up the playbook I wouldn't expect anything more than a game managed offense.  There has been almost nothing wrong with the offense in the last 4 years or so.  It was always the defense that killed the team.  The defense is loaded and is much improved, Diaco is killing it.  Denard will not have nearly the field day he had last year.  I expect NDs defense to win this game.

You got a hell of a deal

Is now offically "Chaz" Bono. But....I could be wrong.

on a few occasions, and we won't forget those.  Gardner is a much better prospect overall, and if (God forbid) he had to stand in for Denard, he will do fine. 

So to answer your question, Robinson/Gardner is an upgrade in every category except experience.

Irish is okay.  I don't see him attacking anyone, just offering the ND side of the argument.

I'm glad someone else is finally seeing Irish for what he is.

He used to be a good contributor to the board. 

But the past two years losses combined with the ND hype machine have turned him into a troll. 

one of the better posters.  Including good recruiting insights.  The ND defense did look much better at the end of the year, I just don't fully trust it.  I think there's reason to question the quality of those 4 wins (and the play of the D), but he's not doing anything we wouldn't do - arguing for his team.

We have, but not for about a century.  We opened the series with something like eight straight wins.

And since that beginning of the century run, there has only been one other instance of someone winning three games in a row in the series (and yes, ND did it)

Cover 3 obviously doesn't work.  

We'll likely be playing some sort of 2 deep, with either man or zone underneath.  My guess is ND puts a ton of pressure on him.

Kovacs is a solid contributor on this D, much to the chagrin of those who value recruiting stars over heart and effort.  Kovacs will start on the D until he graduates.  He made a lot of clutch plays for us last year, and will have an even better year in the new system. 

UM's season will not be over if ND wins, UM can win or lose any their games this year

Purdue went 9-3 in Tiller's first year (6-2 in the Big Ten) and he never had a better record there.  Before that they had gone 13 seasons without making a bowl game.  That Oregon team that smoked us in 2007 was playing its second game with Chip Kelly as OC (a year after going 7-6).  Notre Dame was great on offense right away under Charlie Weis and didn't get any better in year two (and was shitty in year three).

There is no special progression for playing in a spread or any other type of offense.  It is always about the players.  ND might improve as Crist gains experience, but so will Michigan (and our guy's ceiling is much, much higher).

Offense alone, I don't know if I would go that far myself

Like the last 2 years where a win over ND led to such great things? Would love to see a W but would in no way equate that to a likelihood of winning 10-11 games.