Gary Danielson on ND/Mich

to completely drop them, but i'd like to see us play them every other year, and schedule another traditional power in their place the year we don't play them.

We're scheduled through 2031. So how do we get out of that? Instead why don't we drop a cupcake and schedule a real team? (I know, we don't want to lose a home game. Money, grumble, grumble.)

We're under contract with them through 2021 or something like that

If any coach can leave any program at any time for any reason...UM can drop ND

that Sailboat Bill has done as AD. However, I've heard and/or read that it's not literally a legal contract but rather an agreement. If that's the case, I'd totally support the new AD if he/she were to say to ND, "playing every year through 2031 is nuts, and we won't do it. We'll play 4 years on, and then two years off instead."

heartbeat. Playing another team from the MidWest, and a team not associated with any conference to boot, provides no value to UM. Let them go play the National Guard.

had the same type of personality. ha ha. Also, he has the potential to get even a bit more pudgy like Charlie.

TO HELL WITH NOTRE DAME

Michigan needs to play real teams out of conference, the Big Ten schedule isn't enough, we need to go out west or south and play more real teams per year. Nothing would help a rebuilding process more than to play real opponents.

On one hand, if we dropped the ND series for a couple of years, we could play games against powerful programs like Alabama, USC, Texas, etc. Even if we lose to those teams, we could gain exposure and potentially valuable recruits by expanding into SEC & Pac-10 country. Plus, it never hurts to test your football team against the nation's elite. In fact, I think it would be good for us. And in terms of history, I think there's a better case for playing Minnesota every year than ND. They were one of our earliest rivals and I personally love the battle for the Little Brown Jug. To be honest, I wish the Gophers were actually a better team so that there could be more of a contest in the rivalry. On the other hand, there's also a great deal of history in the Michigan-Notre Dame rivalry and it gets me fired up (along with a lot of other Michigan fans) every time the two teams play each other. ND has a national fanbase and a traditionally good program that's been on the decline as of late. Nothing's guaranteed, but I think we have a good chance to push our series lead higher in the next few years. Plus, if ND fields a good team, beating them really helps out our strength of schedule. Plus, there's no guarantee the new AD wouldn't just remove ND and schedule a cupcake in their place, which would negate the point of clearing them off our schedule. So at this point, I'm more inclined to favor keeping ND on our schedule as opposed to dropping them, but I realize the rivalry has had large gaps between meetings before. I could probably accept a few years off between meetings, but it would be weird at first.

Goes without saying that the money is pretty good for both these teams. What's wrong with keeping ND along with picking up another big name and easing up on the MAC teams.

this is dumb. ND will be good again. And having them on our schedule hasn't hurt us before.

the idea of playing a powerful southern program bothers me-the last time we did that we were exposed-i believe it was against app state

I think an on/off rotation of some kind is the best option here. It would help prevent the rivalry from becoming stale, allow both teams to fill that slot with another opponent of their choice, and allow Michigan to get some exposure in places other than the midwest. Notre Dame is my second most hated team and the rivalry formed between the two most historically significant teams in college football history is excellent. But it doesn't hurt anything for these teams to take a few years off every now and then. If anything it will make the rivalry more intense. Just imagine if ND had to wait 2 or 3 years to get back at us after their heartbreaking loss. It would be important as ever to make this game count because you would have to live with the results for a long time. Or imagine if we had lost to Minnesota last year. We would still be waiting for our chance to get the LBJ back. I would be pissed!

don't seem realistic to me. The way to succeed "given the current BCS make-up," per Florida, Alabama, and to a lesser extent, us, is to schedule as few real teams as possible and as many cupcakes (all home games $$$), and to try to go undefeated, run up the scores, win the conference, and get an automatic bid to the BCS game. I'm not a fan of this approach. I'd actually like to see real teams on the schedule and I'm not ready to count out ND being one of them by the time we're ready for one. BCS beauty pageantry is debasing the sport, and I hope we can resist its influence (cupcakes) in the short term and see the last of the BCS in the long term.

I can understand the AD not wanting to lose the money a home game generates, but I think that people have to consider the other side of the coin. If Michigan gives up a cupcake to play an elite program, there's potentially a great deal of prestige for the school involved. If we knock off a really good SEC team at home, we win in terms of apparel sales, national TV exposure, prestige, and critically, recruiting. And even if we lose, we still gain valuable experience and a chance for revenge in a one-and-one. Sure, that's not immediate revenue for the university. But it potentially could be huge in the long term - I'm not so sure a victory over, say a hypothetical #1 USC or a #4 Texas wouldn't be worth MORE than a win over a Nowhere State/Never-heard-of U when all is said and done.

OSU didn't schedule ND in the 60's because he didn't want to risk losing Catholic OSU fans (per paragraph 8, here). There's no reason we can't schedule Oregon and ND in the same year -- see '07. And that still leaves room for Div. 2 (Appy State?). We can schedule other real teams w/o dumping ND to do it. Danielson: bad idea.

I don't have a problem playing them, but every single year makes it too tough to get games against other big-name schools. I'd much rather play them for two years, drop them for two years, and in the years without them play a USC or a Texas, etc.

I am failing to see how the "We can't add a strong opponent with ND already on our schedule" argument makes any sense. Going by Sagarin's rankings, USC comes in at 6th, Pitt comes in at 43rd, Stanford comes in at 19, MSU 52nd, Purdue 46th and UM ranks 87th. Just for one more comparison, that awful PSU schedule that we were all ripping them on (myself included) comes in at 83rd. ND is not an excuse you can use on this topic