In all seriousness, how much worse could it have been?
You do realize Notre Dame played p.e.r.f.e.c.t defense through three quarters right? You couldn't have asked them to do a better job up to that point.
KLM dominated from my viewing. Considering that Notre Dame allowed six yards on ten carries to Michigan's running backs, I think we can assume the entire DL dominated. Denard got his rushing yards in huge chunk plays that happen because he is, well, amazing at running the ball. He didn't churn out sizable yardage consistently like he does against worse teams.
Then keep in mind that the Irish defense forced a ton of short drives. The Michigan offense was nowhere to be found for the majority of the game. This resulted in low snap counts by the Irish DL so they were still fairly fresh at the end of the game. As fresh as Lynch and Tuitt would have been? No way but still plenty in the tank.
You would be the coach who, with two senior DE's who are dominating (or at a very minimum doing quite well) and still pretty fresh, decides to put in two true freshmen against the most prolific quarterback since Mike Vick..with the game on the line? If so, you have a great set of gonads, but it is simply the wrong decision.
