UPDATE: Michigan to open 2018 season AT ND, host them on October 26, 2019!

Don't like it in 18. But Harbaugh probably doesn't care and we should still beat them anyway. It's not that intimidating of a venue.

I think everyone is overlooking one key point here. Gas money. South bend is a helluva lot closer to Ann Arbor than is Fayetteville.

I don't mind scheduling Notre Dame again, but 3 big rivalry road games in 2018 along with supposedly paying Arkansas $2 Million to get out of that series seems too steep of a price.  Also Notre Dame got an extra home game on us in the last series.  I feel like we gave too much for the chance to play them again.

What in the fuck? Can you say bent over? All three main rival games away every other year? That is absolute garbage.

Bad deal. I like having ND back on the schedule, but this could have done much more favorably for us (and still be reasonable for them).

Warde is doing a great job of trying to get us to dislike him.

Playing Arkansas at home in 2018, Michigan would have had up to eight home games that year (five BIG home games).  Playing Arkansas away in 2019, Michigan would have had at most six home games that year (four BIG home games).

Playing at South Bend in 2018 (i.e. switching the 2018 Arkansas home game with a Notre Dame away game) could be a means for smoothing out the home/away breakdown for those two years (i.e. seven home games in both 2018 and 2019 vs. the eight and six setup).

Fandom-wise, it’s sub-optimal for Michigan to play at Columbus, East Lansing, and South Bend in the same year.  Nobody is debating this.  Revenue-wise, it could be that playing in South Bend in 2018 is better overall for the AD’s year-to-year cash management.  Regardless of how many home games there are in a given year, the AD will always have fixed working capital requirements and debt-service payments relating to prior financing on capex (i.e. stadium upgrades, Crisler Center, other capital projects, etc.).  Without having the numbers in front of me, it is a possibility that the extra revenue generated from premium games such as OSU and MSU aren’t enough to offset not having a seventh game (which would be the case in 2019).  It could also be that the discounted opportunity cost of not having the seventh home game in 2019 exceeds the lost revenue of removing a premium home game in 2018.

I have a pretty neutral opinion of Manuel (to me, he’s “just a guy”), but a lot of people seem to want to jump the gun on him.  Scheduling Notre Dame away in 2018 doesn’t necessarily make him stupid or a bad AD.  His hands are absolutely tied.  Having both OSU and MSU at home during four BIG home game years is the absolute worst-case scenario for Michigan (I’m actually trying to figure out why Brandon would agree to box himself into a six home game year (even if OSU and MSU are at home)).  Short of convincing the rest of the BIG to revamp the 2018 and 2019 conference schedule by allowing us to split OSU and MSU home games into different years (or moving the OSU/MSU home years to the years where Michigan has five BIG home games), I’m not sure Manuel had a good option either way.

Whatever, hopefully the next time the schedule is made (or there is realignment), Manuel won’t have been such a d*ck that the other ADs allegedly go out of their way to screw Michigan.

I get the arguments people are making, and I too am not pleased with ND getting the first home game of the ''rebirth'' (seeing how they had the last home game), but to the people complaining about ''schedule suicide".... Just take a look at our road games this year @Iowa @MSU @OSU - on paper it looks like ''suicide''. 

I guess what I am trying to say is that 2018 is still 2 seasons away. Michigan could be A BEAST and ND,MSU,OSU could be mediocre. Nobody knows.

Just play the damn games!

 

GO BLUE!

I get the arguments people are making, and I too am not pleased with ND getting the first home game of the ''rebirth'' (seeing how they had the last home game), but to the people complaining about ''schedule suicide".... Just take a look at our road games this year @Iowa @MSU @OSU - on paper it looks like ''suicide''. 

I guess what I am trying to say is that 2018 is still 2 seasons away. Michigan could be A BEAST and ND,MSU,OSU could be mediocre. Nobody knows.

Just play the damn games!

 

GO BLUE!

This is the first time since Harbaugh has come in (not that this is his fault) that I've really looked at the Athletic Department and asked "What the fuck?"

They've made our even-year schedules unnecessarily difficult, and the home slate incredibly dull and uninteresting. I don't get excited that my biggest home game of the year is fucking Wisconsin or Nebraska. I just don't, and most of us out there don't either.

I wanted ND back on the schedule, but not this badly. I did not want to bend over backwards to have them back. We throw off an home game with an SEC team that could be an extremely good opponent by then, and trade it in for a road game with a school that bitched out of this series. And we give them the first damn home game. I would not have even bothered picking up the phone for ND unless they told me they were willing to come to Ann Arbor every even year.

Manuel had better be ready to field a lot of angry complaints (and rightfully so) from the donors today. He really dropped the ball on this one.

The only silver lining I can possibly think to come of this is that if we somehow win all three of those games on the road, there's no way we're left out of the playoff. Even if we lose somewhere else.

Thanks Dave Brandon.

As good as Michigan should be in 2018. ...we are dropping 2M to play our 3 biggest rivals on the road?!?? One of the worst moves I've seen. We would need to have one of our best seasons in history to win out.

Is this seriously a power play by ND? That's the only explanation I can think of.

I am really salty right now but if this fucks up a Big 10 and/or National Title.....I will riot

Jim Harbaugh's first mistake as head coach at Michigan. He wanted this. Leave the 70's-90's for crying out loud Jim.

I'm all for having the ND series back.....I was just hoping it was more on our terms.

to start this series again on the road. I don't really miss the ND games myself and think we would have done OK scheduling other teams for that slot in the foreseeable future.

from Hackett to Manuel has been mind-boggling.   Manuel has only been here a few months and has already made a screw-up that exceeds all of the mistakes Hackett may have made in his entire tenure put together. 

are we always the ones playing a rival two times in a row on the road?  WHY? Bad move by Manuel...Im really starting to wonder about him as AD

we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills ...

This is partly harbuagh and the fanbases fault for yelling so loudly about getting nd back.   We cared way more about getting the game back on the schedule than they did and as a result we got fucked.  

I was afraid this would happen. Manuel has shown his ass. The series ended at ND with the two squads having played one extra game in South Bend. And now we re-open the series with us going on the road again? Please! No rivarly is worth us dropping our pants in this manner. To say nothing of the fact that we play all ourt other rivarly games on the road that same season. In final analsis I would have never accepted these terms and perhaps that's why I'm not teh AD.

Yes, It stinks that we're playing our three rivals on the road the same year, but I'd guess we asked for this, and here's why. 

Given the 9 game conference schedule, we now alternate between 5 home / 4 road and 4 home / road conf games per year. 2018 is a year we have 5 conf home games (PSU, Wisc, IU, Maryland, Nebraska), so it's easier to have a non-conf road game that year. 

If we played home vs. ND in 2018, we'd only have 6 home dates (4 conf, 2 non-conf) in 2019, which I'd guess is out of the question. 

 

That's my best guess as to why it's going down this way. 

The Road Warriors!

All of our toughest opponents at home, and either Peters in his 4th year or McCafffrey in his third year at QB. Probably no Gary tho. :(

If it was Brady Hoke coaching, I would be upset but HARBAUGH