B10 vs. ND debate on ESPN.com
http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/14031/blogger-debate-big-ten-vs-notre-dame
Rittenberg and their ND guy talk about the games against Purdue, UM, and MSU. Both give a slight edge to Michigan. The ND guy thinks ND will beat MSU, while Rittenberg thinks MSU will win. Both think Purdue will lose. It's nice to see fairly knowledgeable people actually favoring Michigan going into the ND game.
August 2nd, 2010 at 11:44 AM ^
Rittenberg is actually a really good reporter or "blogger". He is one of the few people I can stand to read on ESPN. He also always seems to give Michigan a pretty fair evaluation and is not influenced by perception or overcealous reporting, i.e. Freep.
August 2nd, 2010 at 12:00 PM ^
employ all do a good job, even the ones who write for their respective cities like ESPNChicago or ESPNDallas. Basbeall Tonight used to be my favorite show but its all Yankees and Red Sox talk 24/7 so I tune out.
Most of the bloggers are pretty good. Rittenberg is usually pretty fair in his assessment and tries to give all teams fair/even amounts of coverage. The NFC North blog is horrendous though. Seifert will never get the Vikings' dick out of his mouth. It's sickening.
August 2nd, 2010 at 12:36 PM ^
I really like the way blogging has evolved. Its nice to see especially since the newspapers have declined.
August 2nd, 2010 at 12:36 PM ^
Incredibly reasonable analysis - both teams have good offenses and meh defenses. I actually think ND will be struggling on offense because Crist is going to be starting his second game and that offensive line will still be gelling, even though they return some talent. I expect UM to pull out the road win, but it will be close. Denard Robinson will be the key - if he is playing like he did in the spring game, few teams will be able to contain this offense.
We better hope Crist struggles because if he's competent Notre Dame's offense is going to be really tough to stop. Very few secondaries in the country (much less ours) are going to be able to match up with Floyd and Kamara (sp?) on the outside and don't forget they still have Rudolph in the middle. Plus they probably won't be shooting themselves in the foot with their playcalling as much anymore.
Of course our offense should match up well with their defense again this year, but with the game in South Bend it's going to be extremely difficult to get out of there with a win I think. All the more reason we really need to beat UCONN in the opener.
I agree that the ND offense looks great on paper, but a first-year signal caller is a first-year signal caller, and coming off an injured knee you never know. Beating UConn will be a huge confidence boost for this team, but I'm still not sold on kelly being able to weave his magic that quickly with this new team. In a year or two I expect ND to be competing nationally, but they are probably going to struggle this year.
August 2nd, 2010 at 12:38 PM ^
It'll definitely be interesting to see how Tate/Denard play in hostile environments such as at ND.
or Purdue in that first game? I don't want to see Danny Dope to get to a bowl, but also don't want ND to have a jolt of confidence before the UM game. I see Kerrigan taking Crist out of the game though.
No self respecting Michigan fan would EVER cheer for Notre Dame.
Except for cases in which it might benefit us. I'm not taking the rivalry to Dantonio levels.
I cheered for the ND defense to take out Crist's knee in the Spring game.
You cheer for Purdue against Notre Dame, no brainer. Purdue (or any Big Ten team) succeeding out of conference and making a bowl is good for the Big Ten (more money split the same number of ways = more money for Michigan). Also, every game ND loses means a lower bowl for them, which means less money for them and less exposure for them and less success which hurts their recruiting which no doubt helps our recruiting.
Reasons to cheer for Purdue far outweight Danny Hope distaste.
first rittenberg predicting a UM win and now Greise too, oh noes =)
Notre Dame is going to be trap-game style scary. Brian Kelly is known for doing way more than he should with relatively little. He knows how to manage a game and his staff doesn't generally botch play calls. Now, the guy has some top-level, if raw, talent around him.
He's especially scary since he's good at cobbling together defenses out of nothing, which is bad, because the Irish really have nothing on defense, and if they can save some points on that side of the ball, this game suddenly gets hard for Michigan, which is light-years away from the world destroyers of '06.
In essence, both these teams have sky-is-the-limit potential - especially Michigan - but can very easy fall very short of that. So let's look in detail.
Notre Dame Offense vs Michigan Defense.
I think it's safe to say that even given a breakout season by our secondary, they are still going to get abused on the outside. If Notre Dame has a lot of time to pass, we are going to have a lot of time to cry. Also, if we can't stop the run, we had might as well not come out on the field as the Play Action is going to ruin our day.
So for us, it's all about the front 7. I say 7 because I count half of each box safety. Like pretty much any game, these guys will win or lose games for us, but in this one, it will be like night and day. Notre Dame hasn't impressed on the o-line in a long time and I don't expect them to suddently start overachieving this season. We will have to abuse that weakness, stuff the run, and get pressure on the rookie QB and force him to make some mistakes against a defense that is designed to confuse a QB. With fewer up front and more in a middle-back role, it's easier to disguise complex design blitzes,and that can get into the head of an inexperienced QB's head and force turnovers. If our LBs play well, then they may not have much of an oppertunity to even get to the secondary.
My raw prediction is that we will dominate up front, and will give up maybe as much as 21 points on a couple blown plays but for the most part will be tearing apart the offensive line. Would honestly be shocked if they pick up 100 yards or more on the ground.
That being said, the big key for this one is going to be the UConn game. If we bury the run and get pressure against them, then I see no reason we won't do the same against Notre Dame. It won't be a stellar defensive performance either way, but they'll push our offense ahead enough to maybe win the game.
Michigan Offense vs Notre Dame Defense
You have a lot of talent at Notre Dame, but it hasn't played well defensively at all for a long time. Brian Kelly coming to South Bend will make this defense scary, but not scary enough to stop Michigan on a good day. If Michigan has beaten UConn and performed well on offense, then this is very bad news for what is going to look like a spirited but raw Notre Dame crew. I expect we'll run all over them. I don't see them stopping such a dynamic running attack, and I expect plenty of holes in the secondary. They won't give up too many big plays, save on play action, but won't be able to stop us at all.
That is, unless the field is very unfavorable.
Notre Dame can be a shitty place to play. And that kind of shittiness could turn this game from an offensive shootout to a game of defensive plodding. Their field is notoriously terrible, and if it rains, passing is out. We have a great O-Line, and will still advance, but won't be able to dominate the game on that side of the ball the way we will want to. In other words, if the weather is bad, we may be in for a tougher challenge if our defense isn't performing well.
That's really the only thing I could see slowing our offense down in this game, that and the fact that its an away game.
So, I can see a couple possible outcomes.
A. Defense gets into the head of ND QB, offense struggles, turnovers are made, Michigan unstoppable on offense and walks away with a 2 td+ win.30% probability.
B. Defense can't really stop ND but slows them down enough for us to win a shootout. 35% probability
C. We go through a shootout but an ugly turnover turns it against us, both teams have solid remainders of the season, and loss to ND doesn't look too bad at the end of the year.. 30 % probability
D. Michigan is overhyped and we all had too high hopes, and go in and keep the score close-ish but fall apart and get thrashed. 5% probability
chris stewart is up to 355 lbs (LG), you don't think he will be open up the run game against a 3 man front?
If the tackle and center can keep their blocks he gets to the second level and puts a block on a LB and that RB is gone. Allen had his biggest game of the year against UM last year.
Honestly, no I don't think one guy like that will be enough. I'm not big up on all of the ND players to enough of a degree to know the details of each lineman, but in general the play of Notre Dame's O-line has largely failed to impress. Most of the time, they'd find themselves forced to leave extra guys in to block on offense if they wanted to have a chance at stopping any sort of real pass rush.
Having the big guys is always nice, but size alone doesn't necessarily win up front. It will help you win a pushing match, and I bet he will be useful in the middle against some of the larger D-Tackles he'll run against if he has good technique. However, if he plays the way that Notre Dame's linemen have the past couple years, size alone might not help him. Size is all well and good, but if you can't react to a play because you got beat by technique, then it won't necessarily help you. I think Brian Kelly has a higher standard for his linemen, but I'm not sure one offseason will be enough to make the difference.
Furthermore, a 3-man front is less vulnerable rather than more to a powerful offensive line. If you get a bad read on the play and you get beat, you are going to give up more yards, but having more people a couple steps back lets your defense react more to the direction of the play and get more people onto the point of attack. So, while you might let some blockers downfield away from the play and even lose one matchup at the point of attack, you will be able to more reinforcements down there much more quickly to stop a developing play on the ground. In other words, linemen tend to be relatively static pieces and always have to come off blocks to react to a play. However, your smaller guys can go to where the ball is, and you can design plays on defense to let your players go after the ball while essentially ignoring some parts of a blocking front that you essentially choose not to beat. That's ultimately the core of a 3-4/hybrid type defense - it doesn't matter if they win a blocking war on the side of a play where the football isn't.
This will especially be the case if you can count on one of Will Cambell, Mike Martin, or Ryan Van Bergen to draw a double-team from anyone. The D-Line has been one position that has done pretty well in all years under Rich Rodriguez, so I'd expect that position to still do well enough to draw some double-teams in this game, especially if they play well against UConn.
Now, I ackgnowledge that Armando Allen had a hell of a game against Michigan last year. I'll be the first to tell you that guy scares me, because he's an underrated back that looks like he can be a game-changer in the right circumstances. However, what I also noticed for all of Michigan's 2009 season was that our Linebackers were slow to react to developing plays. Personally, I'm banking on our LB play to be vastly better and for Greg Robinson to work his magic on the position. If this is the case, then I suspect the run game will be largely stopped cold.
And yes, I do expect Notre Dame to try to get the ground game going. I know Brian Kelly runs a passing spread, but he'll have to run the ball to keep the Michigan defense honest. You'll see a lot of added pressure on passing plays to take pressure off of the weak secondary and to get into the head of the new QB, so he's going to try to run the ball to open up passing lanes and take the edge off the blitz.
This is where I put the big balance of the game, because I think Notre Dame's best chances to win this game lie on keeping Michigan from getting to an inexperienced QB, force Michigan to react to the ground game, and give themselves a chance to hit Michigan's weak point. Long story short, I don't think that Notre Dame will get too much consistent progress through the air alone out of a newbie quarterback. If he's throwing pressured passes all game, that's going to create turnovers that will make this game look a lot close than it could actually be.
Yes, this does count a bit on Notre Dame's offensive line having some struggles, but I don't think this is an unreasonable assumption given the quality of play from the unit over the past couple years.
August 3rd, 2010 at 11:54 PM ^
I agree size isn't everything and probably nothing without the correct technique. I can't comment on his technique because I am no Oline coach and I don't really zero in on them during games most of the time. I know Stewart has started for 4 years and has almost always drawn praise from the Oline coaches, which this should be his 3rd one now.
As for development under Kelly, Stewart could do 2 full pull-ups before spring practice and off-season workouts, now he can do 20. I honestly don't know if thats a good number, but for a 350 lb guy to show that much improvement in 4 months, sounds pretty impressive to me.
UM's 3-3 stack will almost always into a 4-2 or 5-1 front moments after the snap depending on what blitz is being called. I expect ND to run off center the entire year whether its to the right or to the left that is where they will attack the Dline because thats where their best linemen are. UM can't fill both gaps with a blitzing LB who is executing a play and not necessarily flowing to the ball. Doesn't that lead to a G blocking no one the RB behind him and 2 LBs flowing to the ball? Guard vs LB is at least a 50lb difference, and if that 2nd LB has to cover a TE on a route you're looking at a S or CB having to come up to make a play on the RB. It just seems like a good OG will be able to really springboard a RB against the 3-3-5.
That's fair - still I am inclined to remain highly skeptical of Notre Dame's O-Line simply because it has been where it has been the past few years. Looks like they will be without a doubt better - but as of yet I'm simply not convinced that they are going to be the strength of this team.
Furthermore, if you are looking at a more run-oriented formation, you are going to see one or both of the 'box safeties' come down to be in position to make plays on the run or attack the QB. So, against a more power set you'll be looking at something that is more of a 4-4 or 5-3 type stack.
Finally, when it comes to taking care of the TE - remember that you have one or both of the two box safeties that can be put anywhere to help deny either the run or passing lanes for the TE.
Think of it like this - you have basically a 3-4 defense that's dumbed down. You have in theory all the flexibility of one but your front six are a little more run committed, and you sacrifice one guy to spread more of the pass responsibility for your LB corps to the two safeties. Purely schematicaly, you lose a bit of the size the 3-4 has, but honestly the speed gains and the mental simplicity gains I think make it a better and viable solution.
Ultimately it comes down to the ability of the 3 linemen to play well. If they get beat every play then of course it's going to be ugly, but those are 3 big and talented guys. As soon as one of them draws a double team or breaks a block, you have a huge advantage. If two of them do it, the added flexibility of having more guys further back will give you an all around more robust defense. Looking at the personell - I like Will Campbell to do that just because of his size, and I like mike martin to do that because of his strength. If Ryan Van Bergen turns into a bigger, slightly less world-destroying Brandon Graham, then you are talking about a pretty distruptive unit up front that can allow this type of thing to work.
One final thing is, if the Left Tackle can't keep up with blitzing outside linebackers, then you are in a lot of trouble, especially with a less experienced QB, even if you win some of the matchups on the inside. I'd watch carefully in the Purdue game how the LT performs, becuase I think Craig Roh is talented enough of an edge rusher to make teams pay for a weakness there.
I understand your skepticism but I think you're disregarding the whole line too quickly. ND's Oline vs UM's 3-3 front will definitely be a key battle throughout the game.
I don't disagree, that battle will likely be the deciding factor on who wins this one.
Brian Kelly's spread offense is more about route combos that open early so the QB can get the ball out of his hands fast. There really isn't alot of play action.
This doesn't apply to this year obviously, but if the Big Ten goes to a 9 game schedule (and it sounds like it will) ND might need to find teams to replace some or all of the Big Ten teams they play.
With 9 conference games, Big Ten teams will be less likely to play home-and-home OOC games, and less likely to play tough OOC games, and ND falls into both categories. I expect ND to play at least one Big Ten team every year, but probably not 3 like they have been.
But that's what ND gets for passing up on joining the greatest conference in America.
August 3rd, 2010 at 11:54 PM ^
Delany's motivation for going to 9 games is to get rid of that 1AA opponent all the big10 teams schedule. Last I knew ND wasn't a 1AA team
August 4th, 2010 at 12:07 AM ^
Well there have been a few years lately...
Anyway, I know that's Delaney's intent. However, the coaches' and AD's biggest gripe about adding the 9th game is $$$, so I wouldn't be surprised if many, if not all, of the Big Ten schools schedule fewer home-and-home OOC opponents. With 9 conference games, the strength of schedule will be high no matter who the OOC opponents are, so why not find 3 teams a year that will come to your place and not ask for a return game? When you have 4 slots to fill, it makes sense to schedule one tough one. With 3, there is less motivation.
With 9 conference games, it will be tougher to make bowl games. Right now most Big Ten teams have 3 gimmes on their schedule. I expect they will want that to remain. Just because Delaney wants to see tougher schedules, doesn't mean it makes fiscal sense for the individual schools to make it happen.
Combine that with the fact that scheduling will be more difficult with fewer openings, and I bet ND sees fewer Big Ten teams on their schedule down the road.
August 4th, 2010 at 12:29 AM ^
Why will 9 games hurt bowl eligibility? The Pac10 plays a round robin schedule, each team plays the other, they didn't have that hard a time last year filling their bowl bids.
So MSU, UM and/or Purdue will drop ND to schedule a lower tier opponent because it will net them more money since they don't return the visit?
ND brings a guaranteed national TV audience, it will sell out their stadium and its within a 4 hour drive for all 3 of those teams. You really think Delaware St. is a more attractive opponent year in and year out?
Let's be honest.
Notre Dame is a big and critical rivalry to at least Michigan, I'm pretty sure Purdue, and somewhat for State. None of these teams are going to exchange an extended series like this for a shitty opponent, least of all Michigan.
Having this established and fan-loved fixture is something all the schools involved love.
What may suffer is the quality of those other two out-of-conference games.
Traditionally, Michigan plays Notre Dame, two cupcakes, and one school that tends to be a mediocre to mid-level BCS program (UConn, Oregon, Vanderbilt).
What could happen is you lose that other decent game on the schedule and keep the two cupcakes. I bet sparty will do that.
Purdue tends to have guts with their scheduling and I'd anticipate they kept on with one of those as a regular home-and-home fixture with someone half-decent.
Michigan will probably do the same in my estimation but it will vary heavily with who is good and what kind of offers come in.
Also, it will depend on the division alignments. If Michigan, Michigan State, and/or Purdue don't have a particularly scary division, they will be more likely to schedule scarier out-of-conference opponents.
Furthermore, if the Big Ten gets very good, then having that stronger schedule will get us that second BCS bid and will give us the nod for the National Championship game over anyone (because the pac-10 is shit)
Finally though, I think Jim Delaney is sick of Big Ten schools mailing checks to shitty teams and is going to take more further action to tighten up strength-of-schedule standards.
I completely agree with you that most Big Ten teams will take the 2 cupcake, one real opponent approach to OOC scheduling. Assuming Purdue, MSU and UM all take this approach, this means that either ND is the same real opponent every single year, or they decide to pick other teams to replace ND on occasion.
Fans like variety, and there has been a big push to set up either home-and-home games with big opponents, or one off neutral site games. Michigan certainly has a history of this, playing teams such as Washington, Oregon, UCLA, Colorado, Syracuse, FSU, Miami all in the last 20 years, and I'm sure there are some I'm missing. Even recently we've scheduled decent OOC opponents like Utah and UConn. If we (as well as MSU and PU) keep ND on the schedule every year, those games likely won't happen.
I expect ND to be a frequent opponent for those teams in the future, but for ND to expect to play them every year likely won't happen.
That ND audience puts the game on basic tv, not cable and not the bigten network. When Purdue played Oregon last year what channel was it on? When UM played Delaware St. last year what channel was it on? Anyone in the country with a TV can watch ND play football 8 weekends out of the season on basic TV. The remaining 4 games will be carried by no one lower than espn2.
Guess which game had the highest attendance last year for Purdue? It was ND, at night in primetime on abc. Do you think abc/espn would have even contemplated carrying Purdue vs. MAC whatever team ever in primetime? That national exposure ND brings is a recruiting tool that every ND opponent takes advantage of. How many purdue, MSU or UM games could even be seen by recruits in California and Florida last year, not counting ND? You are not comparing apples to apples.
As long as the big ten has at least one OOC game, ND will be the first school MSU, Purdue and UM call to fill it.
First of all, I live in LA and I can find nearly every UM on ABC (or ESPN, a channel everyone with a TV and cares to watch football has).
Secondly, you'll see that I didn't say they would replace ND with Delaware St. They would replace ND with Florida State, or Texas A&M, or UCLA or someone like that. So will Purdue and MSU. I'm sure all of those teams will play ND regularly, like 2 years on, 2 years off, or something like that. But those three schools will still fill 2 of their slots with CMU, WMU, Ball St, Toledo and so on, with the occasional FCS team. The third slot will sometimes be ND, and sometimes another interesting opponent.
Stop talking as if ND is the only team people tune in to see.
August 4th, 2010 at 12:14 AM ^
In addition to money and bowl eligibility, Big Ten teams will want some variety in their opponents. For example, if Purdue keeps playing ND, their OOC slate will likely be MAC, MAC, ND. Every year. But Purdue likes to play other BCS opponents, like Oregon the last couple years. Same with UM. To do this, they would either have to do 2 home and homes in the same year, which would leave only one MAC type opponent (and would mean only 6 home games some years). Or, ND would get subbed out to throw in the Oregons or UConns of the world, which is far more likely.
Sounds like they're getting Texas instead. Not too bad of a trade.