Sep 6 | Michigan

[Johannes]

Through your solo Polo peeper?

Ohhh yeah boy! I'm the Hitcher, let me put you in the picture, creeping in you room in the dead of night, with me solo polo vision!

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Ohhh yeah boy! I'm the Hitcher, let me put you in the picture, creeping in you room in the dead of night, with me solo polo vision!

At least no one will mistake for a reasonable man.

 

[BobbyMac]

I'm a little older than most here on IE, when I was a kid... Michigan was my back-up team. ND and Michigan didn't resume the series until '78 so it was easy to follow both.
I grew up in Indiana just a few blocks south of the state line. By the time Coach Holtz righted the ship, The ND-Mich game became the #3 game of the year behind the Miami / FSU 'Games of the Century' and SC, moving past MSU, Pitt and Purdue. After Miami and FSU faded away, Michigan was a solid #2... for a while. Then over the last 10 years, I'd say on the street in Michigan, Indiana and the Chicagoland area, the average fan would place it above even SC. There is some BAD blood in my hometown when that game is on, the only thing that I compare it to is when the Sox are beating up on the Cubs in the Crosstown series.

I'll be sad to see it go as the Irish were ready to go on a decade run over the Wolverines starting this year. I hope BK runs up the score in an almost tasteless fashion.

Going forward, I hope ND can get UM & MSU in a rotation where you play one of them every year. That would be key to building a good schedule. I'd also like to see them do the same thing with Purdue, Northwestern and IU on a 3 year rotation. That would fill 2 games per year.

Add to those games, SC, Navy, Stanford, 5 ACC games and you're at 10 games.

Keep one SEC game on the schedule...which is Georgia right now but I'd chose to play Vandy & Mizzou on a rotation... Vandy for the academic fit and a win against an SEC opponent and Mizzou for a test and access to St. Louis where ND can build a following and recruiting base in a Catholic town. That's game 11.

Lastly, keep Rice and add to them a rotation of Tulane and SMU / TCU so you are playing teams from Houston, DFW and New Orleans every year. Each of those schools would have to play at the local NFL stadium for ND to sign on. That would fill out the schedule nicely.

That's a 12 game schedule where you will have tests in 7-8 games and 4-5 victory games but you are playing in high population areas where recruits are... even if the team you are playing is a lower opponent. Playing Tulsa, Western Michigan, Army, Air Force and even BYU don't expose you to the right demographic. It keeps you out of playing lower conferences like the MAC and Conference USA (except for Rice as of now, until they move to the American or Big XII when something opens up)

 

[TomHaverford]

I call bullshit, Clark. The atmosphere in our stadium is frequently (and unfortunately) compared to Wimbledon, and the Irish are legendary for welcoming rival fans and opposing teams. I don't doubt that Michigan players get a frostier reception than most, but there's no way these guys are getting flipped off by a significant number of people.

 

[sfk324]

Yeah, look at that one guy...while everyone else figuratively sits on their hands. If that was at Michigan, and an ND player scored, the numbers would be reversed.


P.S. Michigan sucks.

P.P.S. This is not a rivalry.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

We can't even get the majority of our gameday attendees to stand up for the duration of the game. So I still have a very hard time believing your players are catching much visual abuse, anecdotal photo evidence notwithstanding.

 

[gkIrish]

Hey Tom, with all due respect:

 

[ulukinatme]

We can't even get the majority of our gameday attendees to stand up for the duration of the game. So I still have a very hard time believing your players are catching much visual abuse, anecdotal photo evidence notwithstanding.

I can tell you that the gold seats certainly aren't flipping the bird to Michigan players, at least from what I've seen. I sit behind the opposing bench in the gold seats 3-4 times a year, Michigan usually being one of those games if it's at home that year. You'll see the blue hairs "Boo!" the opposing players, but that's about the extent they're willing to go....and they certainly aren't getting out of their chairs to do so. Even the younger fans that sit in that section tend to be overly behaved for most games.

The last time I saw the gold seats really rowdy was against Utah in 2010. A lot of the older fans had packed it in after the Tulsa loss. They either sold their remaining tickets or game them to family. There was a dude 3 rows up from the field, just in front of me, that was leading the section in cat calls and harassing Utah players. None of it was obscene, but at the same time the entire section was behind him instead of telling him to sit down. It was quite the reversal, and it turned out to be one of the most enjoyable games I've ever seen!

 

[greyhammer90]

Steve Breaston deserves a lifetime of middle fingers.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

I can tell you that the gold seats certainly aren't flipping the bird to Michigan players, at least from what I've seen. I sit behind the opposing bench in the gold seats 3-4 times a year, Michigan usually being one of those games if it's at home that year. You'll see the blue hairs "Boo!" the opposing players, but that's about the extent they're willing to go....and they certainly aren't getting out of their chairs to do so. Even the younger fans that sit in that section tend to be overly behaved for most games.

The last time I saw the gold seats really rowdy was against Utah in 2010. A lot of the older fans had packed it in after the Tulsa loss. They either sold their remaining tickets or game them to family. There was a dude 3 rows up from the field, just in front of me, that was leading the section in cat calls and harassing Utah players. None of it was obscene, but at the same time the entire section was behind him instead of telling him to sit down. It was quite the reversal, and it turned out to be one of the most enjoyable games I've ever seen!

That's been my experience as well.

To clarify for the Michigan fans posting here, I'm not skeptical of Clark's claim because I cherish ND's reputation as a welcoming environment for opposing fan. There are many Irish fans who lament the fact that our stadium isn't a more intimidating venue to visit. And most efforts thus far to remedy this defect have met with staunch resistance from alumni who prefer the family-friendly environment.

So when Clark claims that he's "never seen so many middle fingers," I kinda wish it were true. But as one who has attended far more ND-UM games than Clark has, I know it's not.

 

[ulukinatme]

I will say I used to witness a fair number of fights going on when Michigan fans were on campus, but for the last few meetings in South Bend those fights have all but disappeared. You used to see them a lot more years ago! I never saw anything like it with other teams that visited regularly, like MSU, Purdue, USC, obviously not Navy, etc. MSU fans would lead their "State" cheer as they came down from the upper bowl after a win, and it would echo off the bricks inside the stadium. That was always annoying, but their fans never really started fights like Michigan fans would. Nebraska fans were probably the coolest group I've ever seen on campus, it's a shame we couldn't win that overtime.

 

[Irish Insanity]

I feel like this can be compared to the situations where a dude wants a chic but she doesn't want anything to do with him. We dont feel the same and you do. We do WAY more for you as a match up than you do for us.

 

[irishog77]

I feel like this can be compared to the situations where a dude wants a chic but she doesn't want anything to do with him. We dont feel the same and you do. We do WAY more for you as a match up than you do for us.

Yeah, pretty much this.


Oh, and the fact that your school and its employees discriminated against and were hostile toward ND and its Catholicism.

And your fans and coaches freely tout your school as a true institution of higher learning, with amazing academics, yet you graduate an embarrassingly low rate of football and basketball players; 80% of which are kinesiology, general studies, or african american studies' majors.

I hope ND never crosses paths with them again.

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

Very pleased this series is ending. As everyone else has stated, dropping this game helps in recruiting with Southern/Western/Eastern shore exposure and quite frankly, I couldn't give a fuck less about Michigan.

I'm pleased to know that we'll never have to travel to the bitch house, at least not for a goodly amount of time. Let's continue to find good series like UGA (hopefully Texas?), Oklahoma, etc.

We need to beat the brakes off Michigan this year and then give them a shit-filled sayonara! How does one do that? I don't know. Fuck Michigan.

 

[greyhammer90]

I'm fine with dropping the game, but not for the recruiting reason. I don't think dropping the game will help recruiting. ND UM is a game everyone watches, in every state, every year. You can't buy that kind of publicity. Even ND Texas long term would be roughly equal I'd bet.

But ... it hurts Michigan way more than it hurts us. And I find that delightful.

 

[Booslum31]

It hurts Michigan way more than us. What do they have left on their schedule? OSU game which I think is played the same weekend as rivalry weekend and everyone is focused on their own regional game. Fuck Michigan! Fuck Hoke! And fuck the Pig House!

 

[IrishLion]

Just got a voicemail while at work from someone in the ticket office about getting tickets to the "sold out" games (Michigan, Stanford, UNC). I'm assuming they're trying to touch base in some way since I purchased Louisville tix through the school.

Anybody gotten a call like this before? What should I expect if I call back?

 

[]\/[GoBlue]

I call BS.

The michigan-osu game is usually the early game of the day. It also almost always coincides with tennessee-vandy or tennessee-ky (usually an early game as well), as well as alabama-auburn, florida-fsu, south carolina-clemson, georgi-georgia tech, and others. No way utjr fans care more about michigan-osu than those other games. If michigan-osu ever gets "marquee" status it's only because it's the only game on at the moment. When another game starts, a game people care about, then it loses its marquee status.

Hell, I very nearly got into 2 separate fights in Knoxville trying to have ONE television, of like eleven, tuned into a ND-MSU game....at a fucking TGI Friday's.

Vandy didn't turn into a care until Franklin started, I mean, it's always PPV so you may not even see it. Also, you were either a dick, or around a bunch of dicks because I've never had issue having a game turned on in a place with a bunch of TVs.

 

[ulukinatme]

Just got a voicemail while at work from someone in the ticket office about getting tickets to the "sold out" games (Michigan, Stanford, UNC). I'm assuming they're trying to touch base in some way since I purchased Louisville tix through the school.

Anybody gotten a call like this before? What should I expect if I call back?

Can't say, although I also got a call from the ticket office this year trying to get me to buy season tickets. I've never gotten a call like that before from them, but I only started buying tickets from them 3-4 years ago. I usually just leached off family tickets before that.

 

[wizards8507]

Can't say, although I also got a call from the ticket office this year trying to get me to buy season tickets. I've never gotten a call like that before from them, but I only started buying tickets from them 3-4 years ago. I usually just leached off family tickets before that.

I just got the same call. What are the odds that this was in any way real?

EDIT: Just called and confirmed. It's legit.

 

[irishog77]

Vandy didn't turn into a care until Franklin started, I mean, it's always PPV so you may not even see it. Also, you were either a dick, or around a bunch of dicks because I've never had issue having a game turned on in a place with a bunch of TVs.

This statement just makes me think even more so that your initial one was bull shit. James Franklin has almost zero to do with fans watching a Tennessee-Vanderbilt game. Tennessee fans care and watch that game whoever the coach of Vanderbilt is. Any Tennessee game in the state of Tennessee (and particularly in Knoxville) is more of marquee game than michigan-osu. And pay per view? Are you serious? You do realize almost no games are ppv, particularly sec games? Yeah, that model existed for a few years...and fans of the teams would buy the game to watch it. Maybe a michigan fan is too cheap to spend the money to watch their team, but utjr fans aren't. Bars, over the years, have been known to show free and ppv games. People congregate at these establishments and watch games.

The fact remains, you're totally full of shit if you think people in Knoxville are watching a michigan-osu game when a Vols game is on...or if there are other sec games on-- which there are, because it's rivalry weekend. michigan-osu is only given "marquee" status if it's literally the only game on. And maybe it is...for 20-30 minutes. You and your 2 buddies in Knoxville that like michigan don't constitute any sort of plurality. And despite your belief that michigan-osu is a marquee game, it isn't to 99% of the population in Knoxville and Tennessee.

 

[Irish Insanity]

Just got a voicemail while at work from someone in the ticket office about getting tickets to the "sold out" games (Michigan, Stanford, UNC). I'm assuming they're trying to touch base in some way since I purchased Louisville tix through the school.

Anybody gotten a call like this before? What should I expect if I call back?

I just got the same call. What are the odds that this was in any way real?

EDIT: Just called and confirmed. It's legit.

So what you guys are saying is that you are going to buy a pair of tickets for the Michigan game and sell them to me at face. Thanks in advance.

 

[Bugzly21]

As this is my first post on IE, I feel it's fitting to lead with this......
FUCK MICHIGAN!

 

[dshans]

As this is my first post on IE, I feel it's fitting to lead with this......
FUCK MICHIGAN!

Not a bad start. Not a bad start at all.



Now show us your stuff ...

 

[Booslum31]

As this is my first post on IE, I feel it's fitting to lead with this......
FUCK MICHIGAN!

You pick things up quickly...

 

[Bugzly21]

You pick things up quickly...

If you think that's quick, my 7 y/o has been saying "Michigan sucks" since he was 3

 

[Bugzly21]

I've seen some people on here from Vegas, where do you guys watch? I was going to Buffalo Wild Wings when I first came back here in 2012. However, I've been asked not to return to 2 of them because of my passion. Also any of you planning on the ASU and fU$C games?

 

[Riddickulous]

As this is my first post on IE, I feel it's fitting to lead with this......
FUCK MICHIGAN!

This is an all-time great first post.

 

[MNIrishman]

I've seen some people on here from Vegas, where do you guys watch? I was going to Buffalo Wild Wings when I first came back here in 2012. However, I've been asked not to return to 2 of them because of my passion. Also any of you planning on the ASU and fU$C games?

I'd look up the alumni club watches for Vegas. Bdubs are not the place for a passionate fan due to their family atmosphere/mixed company.

 

[irishog77]

Plus, the waitresses at B'Dub's are like the JV squad. And if you're not wearing an Affliction printed t-shirt, you'll be seen as an outsider.