The game this week is going to be a lot like watching a Falcons/Dolphins game on Sunday this season.....a whole lot of shaking your head and covering your eyes.  First one to 5 turnovers loses.

"How come things that happen to stupid people keep happening to me?" -Homer Simpson

Two bad teams going at it next week. It could really go either way. But it's still Michigan-Notre Dame and going to be big anyway. 14-13 we escape South Bend.

We definitely have to keep away from turnovers. That was a definite plus in the Miami game, no turnovers. It was nice to punt the ball away after a faltered offensive attempt and let the Defense get the ball back. I feel ND is going to have trouble generating long drives against our defense, our front four are amongst the best in the land. I wonder what Charlie has in store for us...you KNOW he's been focused on this game for like, the entire summer! Hopefully the D is ready because the last thing we want is our offense needing to score in order to come from behind and having to face a raucous crowd, and a fired up ND defense to boot.

Woot! I'm getting excited already!! GO BLUE!!!

Bucki78

OC Michigan Fan

And that they both are loaded on both sides of the ball. Can't wait.

You didn't watch the Ohio State game today, did you?

Uh, no. Nope. uh,uh. Nyet.

SDSU lost to CalPoly at home.  I didn't know they even had a football program.  A lot of analysts are predicting 9 wins for ND.  4 or 5 seems like a more attainable goal.

"Winning is the science of being totally prepared." -George Allen

The only problem is to win, we are going to have to take advantage of Notre Dame's weak secondary.  So far, that is a problem, because our passing game SUCKS.

This may be a 6-3 game.  I just hope we're on top.

If we can find a way to beat ND, mark my words, Lou Holtzs' son will be coaching them next year.  He's gotten ECU in the top 25 already this year. Lou is an idiot, his son is almost a genius I believe.

ECU is pretty talented and Skip has the boys playing well.  But rest assured that Captain Pudding Pants (a.k.a. Chuck Weiss) will be in South Bend for a few more years.  Which makes me quite happy.

I think we can stop their offense as long as we don't give up the big play. That's the only way I can see them putting up points on us. They have some tall receivers who can jump and Clausen throws floaters to them. Their running game is really nothing special and I wasn't impressed by their o-line. They gave up no sacks, but Clausen was pressured all day by SDSU back-ups. That's just sad. The problem is that we need to throw downfield if we are going to win. From now on teams are going to have 11 guys in the box just daring us to throw over the top and we haven't shown we can do it, besides the one TD to Hemmingway.

Oh, yea....Lou Holtz is a moron.

Go Blue!

Michigan Alumnus since 4/28/07

ND WHO? Exactly!

After watching the ND game, I feel that Michigan has a good chance to go in there and knock the Irish out of the unbeaten ranks. If it wasn't for an SDSU fumble on the 1 yard line, ND is not 1-0.

The strengths of our D definitely match up well against the "strengths" of the ND O. Utah was definitely a much tougher matchup than ND. On the other hand, at this point no matchup is good for our O, even though ND's D is pretty awful. This could go to OT tied up 0-0. I'm looking for a dominant performance by the D, hopefully scoring some points.

We can talk all day about how our defense matches up and how ND sucks (LOL!!!) but the fact of the matter is we have a team full of freshman at the skill positions playing their first game on the road. Its a rivalry game and we're playing a team that we've embarrassed 2 straight years----u think they won't be ready for us? Plus we're michigan----we have a rich history of royally sucking on the road early in the year.

Our D should completely shut down their O. But at home in this game, you gotta think ND will make some plays on offense. We'll struggle to move the ball and ND will probably make more plays than we do.
Turnovers will be key. Zoltan and Lopata will be key. Just think we're too young. Not being pessimistic.....just realistic.

blueinflorida


We can talk all day about how our defense matches up and how ND sucks (LOL!!!) but the fact of the matter is we have a team full of freshman at the skill positions playing their first game on the road. Its a rivalry game and we're playing a team that we've embarrassed 2 straight years----u think they won't be ready for us? Plus we're michigan----we have a rich history of royally sucking on the road early in the year.

Our D should completely shut down their O. But at home in this game, you gotta think ND will make some plays on offense. We'll struggle to move the ball and ND will probably make more plays than we do.
Turnovers will be key. Zoltan and Lopata will be key. Just think we're too young. Not being pessimistic.....just realistic.

I don't think home field does anything to help this ND offense out against our D, but I do think the younger role players on our offense are going to have to play their best games to date in the hostile environment.  Another realistic point: this ND team is still the same football team that was 3-9 last year. 

Our defense matches up very well with this ND team, the few adjustments I'd make would involve bringing Trent up closer to the LOS in coverage more often, he still seems like he's giving too big of a cushion at times, whether that's by design or not I do not know.  Also, we MUST not let Clausen get away with those deep lob balls, that means our safeties have to keep plays in front of them... something that we haven't done consistently enough these first two weeks.

I know that our skill players are young, but they are going to create some mismatches with this ND defense based upon what I saw out of the Irish on Saturday. 

To me, this entire football game comes down to two points, both have been touched upon:

1. Turnovers
2. Our Quarterback (whomever it may be at the time) HAS to start making throws... HAS TO... I mean seriously... This offense has already shown flashes of what it can do in terms of getting guys open in space, but we CANNOT continue to blow wide open opportunities by missing throws... we can't.  If Threet or Sheridan step up Saturday, I think we can take advantage of our speed and mismatches all day.  If they continue to struggle, this is going to turn into an old fashioned slug-fest where a fluke play could flip it... that's where the unbelievable crap that always seems to happen at ND stadium to us comes into play...  I've seen it too many times.

http://www.maizenbrew.com/

What the mind can conceive, the mind can achieve; and those who stay will be Champions.
GO BLUE!

It would be nice to see a break-out style game on offense. Would be a nice time to see them put it all together! While having the defense still stout like usual.  I man can dream, until after the game.

Sorry I hope I am wrong but I do not see us beating ND.  All they have to do is to stack the line and stop the run.  Our QBs cannot make good passes over 20 yards!  Our defense will be on the field too long and ND will get their payback.

We can beat Notre Dame we are prepared to beat Notre Dame and we will beat Notre Dame.  (Quoted in part from Bo Schembechler)

To Hell With Notre Dame - Bo Schembechler

Let's Go Blue!!

He also said that ND would win 11 games this season and would be favored in every game except USC. 

Not sure why I don't agree with what seems to be the general consensus here but..

Yeah our passing game is weak.. run was minimal against Miami though we still won the game. 

But the defense hasn't given up a touchdown in like what 6 quarters?

Heres claussen's stats from las week J. Clausen 21/34 237 7.0 3-TD 2-INT

so 237 and 3 TD's sounds good... against a team who you're favored to beat by 3TDS tho??  Our D should be able to create more turnovers, and hold ND to fieldgoals at most  when SDSU gave up touchdown plays.


I'm not saying we kill them, because our offense is no threat, But I think a win is easily within reason.  Plus Weiss could accidentally eat claussen by saturday.