M-Dog

September 2nd, 2014 at 9:02 AM ^

Notre Dame wants to reduce their Midwest presence and focus on other areas.  But do they reach a point where they de-emphasize it so much that it hurts their Midwest recruiting?

Teams like Michigan, Ohio State, and Notre Dame still make up the foundation of their recruiting from the Midwest.  Does ND become "out of site out of mind" by having no marquee Midwest matchups?

CLord

September 2nd, 2014 at 11:17 AM ^

Would you at least agree that ND's cheesy maneuver to spring the cancellation on our AD two years ago in a way that benefited ND by giving you the last home game wasn't the type of behavior you'd expect from an institution that considers itself a pillar of morality and values?  Do-unto-others.

oriental andrew

September 2nd, 2014 at 10:41 AM ^

Not to agree with a domer, but i agree with a domer. notre dame is going to be just fine from a recruiting perspective. Aside from being on NBC every home game, they are still the most popular college football team in the Chicago area (sorry NW and Illinois). Local news reports on college football ALWAYS include the Fig Things along with schools actually in Illinois (U of I, NW, NIU).

MGlobules

September 2nd, 2014 at 10:13 AM ^

soiled themselves with Golson and this year's scandal really does tend to confirm that Kelly was brought in to lower the standards, bumpy--internally and externally--though that road may be. Between this and the tower business, a supressed rape scandal, etc. (http://www.thenation.com/blog/172042/notre-dame-and-penn-state-two-rape…), I kind of think that the Michigan strategy for a return to national prominence looks the saner and more ethical of the two. And we're not running halfway across the country in an ill-advised attempt to get away from anyone.

There are a LOT of potential stumbling blocks down the road for ND now. They get the crap beaten out of them one or two times a years as a halfway-in member of the ACC and any case they have for the playoff could grow dimmer and dimmer; their fan base is really going to question this approach. As a thoroughgoing member of the ACC, they don't have too much more chance of an undefeated season than they had in the B1G.

P.S. I'm sorry that Yost was a racist. But if you think that a staid religious institution like ND doesn't have its own miserable past and contradictions to take stock of, well. . . Let's just begin with the "we need to get our own thugs" philosophy of football. Bear Bryant was a saint in comparison. 

flashOverride

September 2nd, 2014 at 9:03 AM ^

I'd really like to think Michigan will meet them again, but I don't see it in the near future. There's always the playoff, but in my perfect (and obviously dream) world, Ohio State, Michigan State and Notre Dame never make it, so yeah, happy trails, fuckers.  

Don

September 2nd, 2014 at 9:05 AM ^

Thanks to Wolverine Historian:

Notre Dame was defending National Champs, and a guy named Montana was leading the Irish against Michigan.

M-Dog

September 2nd, 2014 at 9:09 AM ^

Did ND switch to turf or are they still grass?

I never liked us playing on the grass at Notre Dame.  Seems to slow us down.  We don't look like we are used to it (except Denard who is fast on everything).

 

sadeto

September 2nd, 2014 at 9:17 AM ^

FieldTurf, goofy uniforms and the five-game per season ACC contract begins this year. So much for Notre Dame tradition. But some things never change: Lou Holtz will still stammer, drool, get droopy-lidded and make even less sense every time Notre Dame comes up for discussion on ESPN. 

HartAttack20

September 2nd, 2014 at 12:49 PM ^

Did anybody else see him Saturday evening on ESPN? He basically started talking about how you can't tell anything from week one because all these teams are playing cupcakes, then he goes on to say Notre Dame is awesome because Rice. Rece Davis and Mark May were pretty baffled. I love that they openly made fun of him, though.

Hugh White

September 2nd, 2014 at 9:21 AM ^

Terrific choice -- to present this is a trailer for the final installment of a film-series. Which begets the question: which film series finale will Saturday emulate?



I'm going to run with TDKR. Kelly is Bane ("People of Ann Arbor..."); Nuss = Fox; 2013 was Bruce Wayne's time in the pit. Hopefully no one will have to stage their own death in the climax.

cutter

September 2nd, 2014 at 9:18 AM ^

It's a very nice video, but I don't completely share the sentiment that many have regarding the end of the series.

I grew up in the Chicago area as a Notre Dame fan, but when I attended Michigan, all that went out the window.  My freshman year in Ann Arbor was 1978--the same season that the modern version of the UM-ND series was renewed.

There have been lots of great games over the years and despite their up and down years (especially since 1993), Notre Dame is still a major brand team (insert David Brandon joke/comment here!!!).  Any UM athletic director pretty much loved having them on the schedule because of the publicity and television ratings (although Schembechler apparently thought very hard about cancelling it while he was AD when ND opted to schedule a game before what was supposed to be the mutual season opener for both teams).

But when the BCS era started and in the wake of PSU's entry into the Big Ten, Michigan began lightening up the non-conference schedule.  The 1997 season had ND along with Baylor and Colorado, but in the years following, we began to see more MAC teams and lower level competition being put in place.  What all that meant was Notre Dame was likely going to be the only major non-conference opponent in any one year (there were obvious exceptions, but that was the general trend).  When that started happening, I wanted to start seeing ND rotated with other major non-conference programs.

The thing that really tipped it for me was when I attended the Rose Bowl game in 2004 (?) against Texas.  Michigan had never played UT and that contest showed that there were other high profile opponents out there (many which UM had only played occasionally, or in the case of LSU, never), that could be rotated into the non-conference schedule in lieu of Notre Dame.  It was also one hell of a football game--even if it was a loss.

That's pretty much my opinion on the matter now that we're in the four-team playoff era and the Big Ten is about to embark on a nine-game conference schedule.   Could I see Notre Dame as part of a rotation of programs to play home-and-home non-conference games with?  Absolutely.  But I'd still like to see Michigan play games with other name teams throughout the country (sort of like Ohio State).  The home-and-home with Oklahoma in 2025/6 is a perfect example of that.  Texas would also be on that list along with LSU, Florida State, Georgia, etc.

We'll see what shakes out as David Brandon fills out the future non-conference schedules.  It'll be interesting to see if he opts to have two Power 5 teams on the non-conference schedule like he did with Washington and Virginia Tech in 2020/1.  It'll also be worth seeing if he plans to have those major non-conference games to start the season (such as the neutral site opener with Florida in 2017, the season openers with Arkansas in 2018/9, etc.) much like Schembechler wanted to have happen with Notre Dame over two decades ago.

mgowill

September 2nd, 2014 at 9:24 AM ^

I have a few friends that are Notre Dame fans, and maybe it's just because they know I'm a Michigan fan, or maybe it has nothing to do with me being a Michigan fan, but the general impression they give me is that they are sad to see this series go.

A win would give Michigan a 10-9-1 record at Notre Dame Stadium, leaving them with a little more to chew on for the next few years.

blueblueblue

September 2nd, 2014 at 9:30 AM ^

High production value, good choice of music, and seemingly a good balance of teams. But the editing could use some work - the rapid-fire move from one clip to the next in the first half got a bit maddening, and the repetitiveness of clips from the beginning at the end made it anti-climactic. Stretch out some of those clips at the beginning, and remove the ones from the beginning that you use at the end (e.g., Desmond's catch, other goalline catches), where they seem to belong, and the video would be immensely improved.