September 13th, 2008 at 7:56 PM ^
or, F-ing Beat Ourselves Down. The fact of the matter is that Notre Dame was good, not great, on both sides of the ball. I felt that Michigan's scheme and gameplan were superior, but the difference was that Michigan repeatedly shot itself in the foot while Notre Dame played relatively mistake-free.
I'm more mad about Michigan literally dropping the ball so many times than about how "well" Notre Dame played.
September 13th, 2008 at 8:13 PM ^
September 13th, 2008 at 8:28 PM ^
We outgained them by 50% (390-260), and that doesn't include the long TD pass to Mathews that the refs screwed us out of. Sheer luck was the biggest factor. ND was lucky as hell to get that play taken away, lucky to get a couple of drive-extending pass interference calls that were borderline, and lucky that all THREE of their fumbles bounced right back to them while four of ours squirted away to them.
September 13th, 2008 at 11:59 PM ^
ND Won. They weren't lucky. We dropped the ball all over the field. There is no way to overcome all of those turnovers.
Are there signs of life. Yes. But if we don't handle the ball better, its irrelevant.
September 14th, 2008 at 12:10 AM ^
September 14th, 2008 at 1:39 AM ^
No, they were lucky in many, many ways. Or do you think that all seven (!) Michigan fumbles were caused by ND? That ND caused all three of its fumbles to bounce back into its players' hands? That ND caused the officials to rule Mathews' catch incomplete? That ND caused Threet to cramp up and have to leave the game?
If we were to play them again tomorrow, do you think it would be anywhere close to 35-17?
September 14th, 2008 at 1:50 AM ^
hat, no i don't think that the result would be the same. Its just that calling them lucky sounds like sour grapes and attempts to remove the blame from us.
ND played decently. They protected the ball reasonably well. It would have been difficult for us to play much worse.
On the Threet note,did you hear that it was cramping and not something structural?
September 14th, 2008 at 2:01 PM ^
September 15th, 2008 at 12:01 AM ^
My point is that I'm not going to say that it was poor luck that caused us to lose. (Obviosuly, certain things could have bounced better for us). But when we didn't take care of the things that were within our ability to control, implying that we lost due to ball breaks is a bit of a stretch.
But I didn't turn off the TV yesterday in complete disgust. There were a lot of things on offense that give me some hope for the near term.
Assuming ND is absolutely terrible, we were able to do a lot on O. We had nearly 400 yards in terrible weather while being, what -4 on turnoves? I can only recall winning one game as a -4, that being the Cap 1 Bowl, and it took 5 NFL draft picks on offense to do it.
September 17th, 2008 at 11:53 AM ^
There was some luck that played into it, as always, but we lost because of our own play. However, there were encouraging signs for the future.
I still contend that ND should feel lucky that Michigan played like crap on 7 or 8 plays. Similarly, 2007 Michigan should have felt lucky that 2007 ND played like much crappier crap even compared to their crappy 2007 baseline. 2006 was a different story, that was quite the dominant performance.
September 18th, 2008 at 9:24 AM ^
September 18th, 2008 at 2:02 PM ^
In 2006, I only remember one unforced turnover: Brady Quinn dropped the ball sometime later in the game and Woodley returned it for a TD. The others were pressure and good defensive play.
In 2007, there were several unforced turnovers. I think there were at least two balls snapped over players' heads. They had at least 5 fumbles total with maybe one of them forced. Plus an interception. Now I doubt ND had a shot in that game anyway, but Michigan was still lucky to have it gift-wrapped with such a pretty bow on top.