Notre Dame Resumption Official
[Eric Upchurch]
The Michigan-Notre Dame football series will resume on Sept. 1, 2018, when the Irish host the Wolverines in the season opener before a Oct. 26, 2019, date at Michigan Stadium.
As the previous post notes I'm surprised that it's at ND in 2018, from the perspective of both teams. I'd rather have ND on the schedule than Arkansas no matter which team gets a home date. Meanwhile having the ND game 2019 in the meat of the conference schedule is odd. Michigan has Penn State before that game and Maryland after.
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why inject actual thinking into the arkansas part of the conversation? it's $2M, and god knows the department is short on cash.
what's worth more, $2M, and the possibility of maybe national exposure, if we're both good, or a game with notre dame that is absolutely guaranteed to garner national exposure and interest?
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in all seriousness, it's not really an exaggeration to say that michigan vs notre dame is what college football is all about. michigan vs arkansas is not. if you told me i could get michigan vs arkansas tickets, or pay and extra $20 (after all, 100,000 fans X $20 = $2M) and get michigan vs notre dame? where do i pay?
I don't see how this argument can be made when all EVERYONE in college football wants to do is play Notre Dame or have them in their conference.
Stop thinking like a fan (especially a Michigan fan) for just a minute and all this will make sense to you.
Notre Dame is college football. End of story, end of debate.
Michigan fans want to jump up and down screaming every time Notre Dame farts, while college football understands the importance of Notre Dame.
And, for all the whining and crying, I thought Jim Harbaugh was supposed to be this brilliant college football coach and Michigan would be crushing all skulls by then, winning all the games and being, generally, the best football team ever assembled, so playing anybody, anywhere ain't no thang.
bielema taking his shots...
http://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/arkansas-football/bret-bielema-talks-a…
i wanted arkansas... even if they arent elite SEC they are a direct baraometer to common opponents for Michigan and an opportunity for Harbaugh to troll SEC on the field while also showing southern recruits that they'd get to play against teams close to home.
I care about ND but only to an extent (not messing with our recruiting, perception or scheduling), I would love to take on the SEC every single year and wish football had a Big Ten - SEC challenge ala basketball with the ACC.
As long as we have to play Ohio Fucking State - you know the guys with the #1 recruiting class that will be Sophomores and Juniors when we play ND - our strength of schedule will be just fine.
I actually was really looking forward to playing Arkansas. Not a team we usually get to play.
Arky happen. Other than that, your post is top notch.
'arky' is worse than 'wiscy' or minney'. way worse.
Amatuer hour from Warde Manuel. No way ND should be getting back to back home games. On top of that, it's the same year Michigan plays AT OSU and AT MSU.
What a complete joke.
This is garbage. I was so happy to hear rumors of ND/UM getting back on track but this is straight garbage. Who negotiatied this mess? ND, MSU, and OSU as away games is the worst possible schedule. Honestly, they'd have been better off starting in 2019 or 2020 with a matching open date.
bad Warde Manuel move...strike 2...WHY are we playing at ND 2 times in a row? This Stinks if you ask me..Id rather play Arkansas...I enjoyed having them Off the schedule and after the way they ended the series why on earth would we give them the first game at home? Geesh
when Wisconsin was the perfect candidate.
No night home game.
Is an open date. Maybe Warde can find an exciting team to play on that date for the season ticket holders?
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Shades of the 2014 home schedule...
Sept. 1 | at Notre Dame | |
Sept. 8 | Open | |
Sept. 15 | SMU | |
Sept. 22 | NEBRASKA* | |
Sept. 29 | at Northwestern* | |
Oct. 6 | MARYLAND* | |
Oct. 13 | WISCONSIN* | |
Oct. 20 | at Michigan State* | |
Oct. 27 | Open | |
Nov. 3 | PENN STATE* | |
Nov. 10 | at Rutgers* | |
Nov. 17 | INDIANA* | |
Nov. 24 | at Ohio State* |
Given that schedule, I suspect I will let my season tickets lapse, and go every other year. If I had to guess, Manuel would only have done this if he knew he was going to be able to flip the MSU series somehow, but just isn't able to announce it yet. Notre Dame only has 10 games on the schedule yet for 2018. MSU only has 2 non-conference opponents, and both teams have an opening on Sept 15th, 2018.
Maybe we get lucky, and somehow convinced MSU to flip home games with us, and in exchange they get ND at home in 2018 rather than Michigan. I would be Ok with that since it restores order in the long run.
I think there are more announcements coming. I simply can't believe that Warde and his staff doesn't see the same schedules that we do. This makes little sense without flipping the MSU series back to being opposite of OSU. Perhaps this was the impetus to make that happen.
I hope that is the case. If not, we really got screwed. Hard to see the upside here.
in any of this? My initial thought was Harbaugh approved this and this is him giving Bert the middle finger for his almost mocking reaction to the satellite camps earlier this year. Let's face it, Arkansas benefits more than us in playing each other since we are the higher profile program. UM-ND moves the needle way more than UM-AR. I also agree with you that there are still may be more changes TBA.
Michigan could have had told ND to reschedule their game with Ball St so that they could play on 9/8. That way Michigan keeps Arkansas, gets ND, and saves $2M along the way. That's the very least ND could have done if they wanted the series to resume where it left off, in South Bend.
A better middle finger to Bert would have been beating him twice on the field, not sending him a two million dollar check.
I would be shocked if you can get season tickets on a year-to-year basis at this point. The waiting list went away because Brandon, but I'm sure it's back to multiple years before you can get season tickets. From a revenue maximization standpoint, I understand how the current year-on/year-off scheduling makes it impossible for most people to get rid of their tickets as long as Harbaugh is coach.
How do you go about flipping the MSU game? Is the only way to play there in 2017 which would make it two in a row on the road again? To flip this it would have to be a pretty sweet deal for MSU to agree to it.
Or like with Michigan, they could be told that's their new schedule. But why wouldn't they want to flip, that would put Michigan and OSU in alternating years.
That's shitty AND tough.
We get 3 of the 4 best West teams (at least we get Wisconsin and PSU on the home schedule, I guess?) and then away at our 3 toughest opponents. Sweet.
(caveats about it being 3 years away apply)
What has changed between now and when ND cancelled? Nothing on ND side that I'm aware of. Same coach, same ad, same acc affiliation. All the changes are on UM side. New coach and ad. That leads me to one incontrovertible conclusion; that Harbaaugh wholeheartedly endorses this and Manuel has no reservations about extending the matchup beyond 2019. And it leads to one HUGE speculation; was Brandon somehow involved in ND pulling out in the first place? The decision, then seemed to come out of nowhere. And, for ND to come back to the table unprompted, and, for UM to agree to an away game, makes me think UM was in a weak position. I'm not aware of anything that would have put them in such a position, and I'm not inclined Manuel was so incompetent that he agreed to the deal without being hamstrung. Brandon was so incompetent at nearly everything else, it's not out of the realm that he screwed this up, too. And even if he didn't, how does it hurt, adding it to the list?
to resume this series with ND. They "owed" Michigan a home game since the series resumed in 1978 at ND and was last played in 2014 at ND. I do not like playing such a huge game for an opener on the road. Then there is the issue of playing them in October in 2019.
ND has effectively used the B10 to schedule many of its teams for decades and now has a one-sided relationship with the ACC. The Irish need to boil their corn beef or take it off the stove; it's time for them to actually join a conference rather than using two conferences to meet their objectives.
I would have rather spanked Razorback bad boy Bret's rear end home and away and kept 2 million dollars.
Can we sign up for Season tickets in only the odd years? I was completely fine playing good teams not named Notre Dame. I am indifferent to playing ND again, but I am not okay with paying $2M to lose a home game and getting screwed over with scheduling.
I'm glad they will be back on the schedule, but this doesn't make a lot of sense for us.
Is it going to be like this going forward - playing openers at ND and midseason games in Ann Arbor, or is that just for 2018/2019?
Still, the biggest issue remains MSU/OSU being on the same rotation. We absolutely have to complain to the league office about that. They're punishing our fanbase in even-numbered years.
Calmer than you are.
I think he's channeling his inner Walter.
The reason why Brian is so "calm" is that any criticism of this schedule also reflects on Harbaugh and that's something he doesn't want to do. Let's face it--Harbaugh has indicated for months now that he wanted this game and we all know that his contract stipulates that he will be fully consulted on the non-conference schudule.
We also know that it's going to be really hard for Brian to blame his whipping boy Brandon for this one. He might make some hay about how Michigan State and Ohio State are both on the same home/road schedule rotation without point fingers at the Big Ten Conference (vice Brandon). But we all know that a large part of the decision to change the previous schedule and play Notre Dame lies with Jim Harbaugh.
So come on, Brian, and instead blaming the CEO of Toys R Us headquarters in New York, make sure you criticize the occupant of the head football coach's office at Schembechler Hall in Ann Arbor. It might take a bit off Harbaugh's sheen, but it'd also be honest on your part to do so.
Warde you are a big dog now! Act like it!
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was just too much of a reach. Getting back ND was particularly appealing as a rivalry game to balance out the MSU/OSU years where both of those games are on the road. Additionally, Michigan is operating differently at that point in a conference season with the division on the line. Notre Dame plays one offs all year basically and it will be just another Saturday but for Michigan that is a big distraction from the conference season. We had an SEC team lined up that worked out for scheduling. Now we lose that home and home, pay $2 million dollars, and have to resume the series on the road and host them in the middle of a conference schedule. That is not a good deal, man. Not at all.
This is the exact mindset that got us in this mess. We cared way more about getting the game on the schedule than they did and as a resutl we got fucked.
This is like saying 'owning a home is a great thing' as a justification to pay 30% over market price for the home. Yes it is good to play ND, like it is to own a home, but only at the right price. And the deal Manuel struck was not the right price to most people here.
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ND has an open date there too. Honestly, I don't think you can the logic here no matter how hard you try.
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