After Tonight: More Wary of ND or Less Wary of MSU?

Thorin makes a good point about underdogs in this series. Being underdogs does help us, I think. Still, I've had this game almost written off since UTL. At this point I think if we played this game ten times, we'd win three.

Truth is the MSU implosion/ND destruction party makes me much more worried about Purdue. We open the B1G against them on the road, and all of a sudden that's looking like a very hard game for us. Possibly a preview of the B1G championship game, but also possibly the start of a long, frustrating conference campaign for us.

Everybody's saying it, and it's true. If the lines don't improve, we're sunk. I think they will. It's just a question of how much. I personally think they need to improve A LOT if we're going to win the B1G. They've got three weeks. The bye week comes at a great time for us (also, having UMass this week effectively gave us two weeks to prepare for ND).

ND looked like a top 10 team last night.  But, even still, their secondary is their achilles heel.  You'd better believe ND is going to sell out to stop Denard from running, so hopefully we'll be able to exploit their secondary.

Stop being such big bad bullies ND...You could at least let Sparty score 1 TD.

I'm concerned about both. Despite winning this game by 50 points, there are major concerns on both sides of the ball (mainly the OL and DL).

I think I'm both more scared of ND and less scared of MSU now at the same time.  With Alabama, they had tremendous pressure from the front seven, and when Denard tried to  exploit it, he was throwing at a secondary full of fucklions.  With ND, he may face similar pressure from the front seven, but will be throwing at a secondary which has true freshmen in it.  At this point, I sadly thing ND is a loss lean.

WRT Sparty, I think we have something similar.  Dennard has looked someone vulnerable for the Spartans, as against Boise he was beaten deep on several occasions only to have bad passes save him.  Also, Sparty does not seem to have much of an offense outside of Bell.

Ultimately, I think both games fall on Denard's arm.  If he passes well, they are winnable.  If he doesn't, I don't see us getting much push in the run game.  Luckily for the MSU game, we have time to get both of our lines gelling for another month.

Man, I am getting so tired of being negged for no good reason.

Whoever the a##hole(s) is/are who keep negging my posts, please sack up and respond to this post (not with an anonymous neg, but an acutal reply so we can "duke it out" internet style).

I would like to propose a slight change to the moderation system. Whenever someone chooses a negative moderation option, they should have to include a comment along with the neg selection (the selection of a "neg" should result in a popup box where the person's poster ID is shown as a reply to the person they are negging). Whenever someone votes on a post made by the starter of a thread, the id's of the voters shows up. This at least forces people to "own" their opinions somewhat.

This cowardly bullsh*t of negging people you don't like is just getting ridiculous.

Others have referenced it, but each game is completely different in CFB. What was apparent last night despite our troubling wows on D-line and hit or miss feel of the O-Line; no one on that field last night is as dynamic as one Denard Robinson. Not saying we grade out great man-for-man against Lame (no typo; don't care it's a weak jibe), but D-Rob changes the way people do things. And if he is sharp - which he seems to be especially against ND at some point in the game - our chances are better than even. Last night's game was a bruiser too; ND is going to have to re-up that enthusiasm at home. 

Plus I just really hate Notre Dame and can rationalize beating them even in a coma. 

All I know is that Michigan will score a lot more than three points against ND.

Also, Purdue was a trap game for ND, and they also flew back from Ireland the week before.

Sparty is overrated, and proved it last night.  They've still got some very good athletes on defense, but their offense is not very good yet, and they aren't as good on either side of the ball as they were last year.  As for ND, they are in their third year of a total overhaul and change to the spread.  ND has plenty of athletes, and they can obviously play some very good defense there.  

I'm more "scared" of ND at this point.  Then again, they didn't exactly look like a quality team against Purdue.  I know "comparables" don't ever work, but one could make a good case that MSU is no better than Purdue and ND is slightly better than Purdue.  

At any rate, we don't have long before we find out everything we need to know about this year's model of ND.

It seems to me that neither MSU nor ND are unbeatable. The question will be whether or not Michigan can straighten out the issues that are lingering on both lines.

ND beats us, and perhaps it is not too close.

We beat MSU, and perhaps it is not too close.

Both our lines are pretty suspect so I am worried about both games. ND's D-line looked very strong as did Sparty's. Both are tough outs and could swing on momentum. We have a decent start in both, I think we are ok. We have a few 3 & outs to start the game, we are in BIG trouble.

I don't think ND will be able to be that dominate defensively against us. They were very aggressive getting after Maxwell because they didn't fear his running ability. That would be a recipe for disaster with Denard. Sparty's recievers were absolutely blanketed all night. Not sure if that's a function of ND's secondary or MSU's lack of dynamic talent at reciever. I have a feeling it's the latter, which bodes well for us in both games. Both games will be slug fests though, I think we'd be lucky to split them.

As I've said previously (and I'm sure others as well), the game plan vs. ND is similar to Alabama - Denard throwing the ball.  He'll run more vs. the opener, but we win with his arm.  And yesterday was very encouraging re. this.  Also, ND youth in the secondary.

The Funchess TD was a simple QB Oh Noes, but to a TE on the line.  If ND sends their LBs agrresively to stop Denard/Fitz, that play will be open all day.  Sims was open on it yesterday.  Also, the Jerald Robinson pass in the end zone was dead on by Denard - he just turned his head the wrong way, inexplicably (he needs to decide if he ever wants to make a play here).

If MSU can't play better than that, they're going to lose several more farily soon this year. If Maxwell starts making some bad decisions on the road, they could be in trouble.  But Bell probably gets it going again, and it should be a dogfight at home.  Their D is still outstanding, but can't say how excited I am with Gardner, Funcess, and Gallon (bubble!) as weapons - we should be able to score enough and play keep away.

...Michigan played the Domers this late in the season?  Having three games under their belt already against a superior opponent in Alabama, two ground-based offenses in the AFA and UMass (who apparently runs ND's variation of the spread offense) SHOULD give Michigan the experience needed to avoid the usual early-season mistakes that have been ever-so-prone to historically cost them wins against the Irish when they were the first or second game scheduled in previous years.

Having said that, the Irish looked awfully good last night.  This will be the third time they're playing Denard and they've got A LOT of seniors on defense.  Golson is a first-year QB, but he's also a dual threat and Michigan's defense still doesn't do well against a QB that can tuck the ball and run.  Plus they're in the third year playing the same schemes, yadda, yadda, yadda,,,

Not as optimistic as I was before the kick-off last night.  Notre Dame isn't in Alabama's league (neither, apparently, is USC), but the margin of error is narrow enough that Michigan will need to play a mistake-free game to get the win...no pick-6's or turnovers on the M side of the field, please.

Notre Dame can be had through the air. Michigan can beat both teams if it can put together a productive passing game.  

The two losses last year, Michigan was one dimensional which allowed Iowa and State to simply overload the box. 

Virginia Tech was an outlier that was the same as those games save a couple big plays.

Everyone needs to be patient with the play selection against both teams because running Denard a lot right from the jump won't get it done offensively.  Neither team will let Denard beat them with his feet.

I never thought MSU should be the number 10 team in the country. ND just exposed them as being number 25 or something.

The key to next week game will be our offense and if Robinson can throw the ball. If he can we have a chance of winning, if not it could be a long night.

I had this game at ND as one of our 3 to 4 losses. I hope it is close and we win at the end.

I think we can take MSU at home! I have this as a win!

Purdue will be tough, this could be one of our 2 conferences losses.

I still think we will win the legends division.

There is only one truly great team in college football this year......

and we scored 14 points on them, the only touchdowns they have given up this year.

These two teams look beatable, but college football is all on a week to week basis, anything can happen.  i have a feeling we will be able to score points without a problem, It will come down to defense and turnovers, just like pretty much every game ever.