Oct 26 | Michigan

[dublinirish]

Phil Steele is super high on them,... why, I have no idea. He’s usually high on us too in fairness, which typically has me equally perplexed.

favourable schedule - MSU, ND and OSU at home.
Hardest away games are Wiscy (True Frosh QB) and PSU (first year starting QB)

 

[condoms SUCk]

DPJ and Black are very good...i will point out that DPJ #'s are nothing great but that has been handicapped by qb play....black when not injured is a beast and then they Nico...they are well stocked at the wr position

They have potential, not doubting that, but have not been completely dominated in their bigger games or against higher level competition.
Also keep in mind UM is putting in a new offense, so could help them break out? Maybe the transition is a painful one, it's up in the air at the moment.
My point is no one really knows how all this will work out for them and there's not much history to really go off of to know how this will play out.

 

[condoms SUCk]

favourable schedule - MSU, ND and OSU at home.
Hardest away games are Wiscy (True Frosh QB) and PSU (first year starting QB)

On the outside that looks great, but I'm still thinking the go 2-2 against MSU/ND/Wisky/tOSU.
Wisky- new QB, ok but when is the last time that Whisky has been known to throw it all over the field?
MSU- IDK about them, heck it seems like every time you sleep on MSU they have a 10+ win season.
ND- We have a bye the week before and UM plays at Penn St, I like that set up.
tOSU- even though they don't have Urbs, they still have all those great assistant coaches, so it'll be interesting to see how they all work together. I guess is there's some drop off, but not a huge collapse.

 

[RDU Irish]

Georgia is the only game I have us underdogs for. Definitely not this pack of numbnuts. With their record against quality opponents they have to show something before getting any benefit of the doubt.

My OSU buddy is in agreeement, scUM is overrated by a wide margin entering the season and it is going to be fun to watch them shit the bed (again). He is however delusional in thinking OSU won't miss a beat without Urbie.

 

[Some Irish Bloke]

Georgia is the only game I have us underdogs for. Definitely not this pack of numbnuts. With their record against quality opponents they have to show something before getting any benefit of the doubt.

My OSU buddy is in agreeement, scUM is overrated by a wide margin entering the season and it is going to be fun to watch them shit the bed (again). He is however delusional in thinking OSU won't miss a beat without Urbie.

scUM is already a very arrogant fan base, and the national pundits propping them up and seemingly "rooting" for scUM to have success under Harbaugh, makes it so much worse.

Every singe one of those skunkbear asshats think they were better than us last year. They truly believe it; results be damned.

 

[RDU Irish]

scUM is already a very arrogant fan base, and the national pundits propping them up and seemingly "rooting" for scUM to have success under Harbaugh, makes it so much worse.

Every singe one of those skunkbear asshats think they were better than us last year. They truly believe it; results be damned.

Our offense will be better and their defense will be worse. With a bye week. This just does not add up well for them at all.

 

[Some Irish Bloke]

Our offense will be better and their defense will be worse. With a bye week. This just does not add up well for them at all.

Yep, and although they're down, they will be at a white out in Happy Valley the week prior, likely a night game, so that could be a tough one for them.

Meanwhile the staff and players will be at home resting up, re-watching highlights of Finke owning two of their DBs for 6 pts. from last year.

 

[matman4593]

I agree we have a large advantage here, but I've also been to two tough-to-swallow losses at the big house. We seem to play significantly worse there and they play significantly better.

 

[phork]

Black has been hurt most of his time there and DPJ has some lingering issues. Don Brown is stellar against mediocre teams however when faced with good teams his scheme isn't as effective. UM Fans hang their hat on a defense building stats on mainly cupcakes.
I don't mind UM being favoured, they are at home, but ND is going to win this game.

 

[Some Irish Bloke]

I agree we have a large advantage here, but I've also been to two tough-to-swallow losses at the big house. We seem to play significantly worse there and they play significantly better.

I was there in '09 when Tate fricken Forcier threw the game winner with like 0:07 left in the game. Threw the same route twice, a simple little 5 yard out on the goal line, connecting on the 2nd attempt.

That was the absolute last straw for me with ol' Charlie. We had Jimmy, Golden, Floyd, Armando Allen, Kyle Rudolph, etc. We were way to stacked to be losing to MI and a freshman QB.

If I was there under the lights in 2011, I probably would have needed to recover in a psych ward.

 

[matman4593]

I was there in '09 when Tate fricken Forcier threw the game winner with like 0:07 left in the game. Threw the same route twice, a simple little 5 yard out on the goal line, connecting on the 2nd attempt.

That was the absolute last straw for me with ol' Charlie. We had Jimmy, Golden, Floyd, Armando Allen, Kyle Rudolph, etc. We were way to stacked to be losing to MI and a freshman QB.

If I was there under the lights in 2011, I probably would have needed to recover in a psych ward.

I was there for 2011. Im still speechless

 

[RDU Irish]

I agree we have a large advantage here, but I've also been to two tough-to-swallow losses at the big house. We seem to play significantly worse there and they play significantly better.

Those teams were significantly worse than our current offering.

 

[matman4593]

Those teams were significantly worse than our current offering.

The other loss I was refererring to was the 2013 loss, where I thought our talent level was relatively on par with this years team. Gallon terrorized our D-backs all game and made bennett jackson / kevari russel look like fools

 

[Some Irish Bloke]

The other loss I was refererring to was the 2013 loss, where I thought our talent level was relatively on par with this years team. Gallon terrorized our D-backs all game and made bennett jackson / kevari russel look like fools

You thought that even after the frozen five debacle? I don't think the post-frozen five squad really compares to our talent level this year, IMO.

 

[Blazers46]

I am nervous about their offense. I have never been afraid of any UM Harbuagh offense but if they open things up put people in space they have the talent to score some points. Horrible system that Harbaugh puts in place but with the Offense has me curious.

 

[Pops Freshenmeyer]

I am nervous about their offense. I have never been afraid of any UM Harbuagh offense but if they open things up put people in space they have the talent to score some points. Horrible system that Harbaugh puts in place but with the Offense has me curious.

For the 2019 ND defense I would be more concerned with good old fashioned ISO.

 

[zelezo vlk]

You thought that even after the frozen five debacle? I don't think the post-frozen five squad really compares to our talent level this year, IMO.

Frozen Five was 2014

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk

 

[Xtra point]

I think the skunkbears are really going to have a tough time with Army. They're returning a lot of their team which bodes well for them. They lost to Oklahoma by 7 last year and finished with a bowl win over 8-5 Houston 70-14.

Michigan may be caught looking ahead to Wiscy too.

 

[irishandy]

I have never been impressed with an offense at Michigan under Harbaugh. Their defense has carried them. Shea Patterson is meh, will they have a running game, and Donovan Peoples-Jones is overrated.

I think ND goes into Michigan the underdog and comes out with a W this year.

 

[Sherm Sticky]

All Irish fans talk about is DPJ and Black at WR for Michigan. They never mention that Nico Collins is the best WR at Michigan...

 

[irishandy]

I forgot about Tariq Black, when I think of Michigan in the Harbaugh era I think more of defensive players.

 

[Valpodoc85]

ND needs to do the David Groggins thing and take their souls....

 

[ulukinatme]

I am nervous about their offense. I have never been afraid of any UM Harbuagh offense but if they open things up put people in space they have the talent to score some points. Horrible system that Harbaugh puts in place but with the Offense has me curious.

The nice thing about this year is, yes, they may be employing a new offense which can give them some success early on, but fortunately we're not playing them early this year. They'll play several games before we get them, some of which aren't gimmies and will force them to show their hand. We should have some good film available by the time we play them, and hopefully Penn State plays them tough and leaves them gassed the week before.

 

[jspags10pg]

The nice thing about this year is, yes, they may be employing a new offense which can give them some success early on, but fortunately we're not playing them early this year. They'll play several games before we get them, some of which aren't gimmies and will force them to show their hand. We should have some good film available by the time we play them, and hopefully Penn State plays them tough and leaves them gassed the week before.

I'm almost positive Penn State is going to suck this year. Like 8-5 tops. And the bad thing about playing them late is that they will have plenty of time to work out the kinks in that offense like Penn State in 2016.

I like your thoughts more but we don't know which one we'll get.

 

[ulukinatme]

I'm almost positive Penn State is going to suck this year. Like 8-5 tops. And the bad thing about playing them late is that they will have plenty of time to work out the kinks in that offense like Penn State in 2016.

I like your thoughts more but we don't know which one we'll get.

It's been my experience that new offenses tend to be more effective earlier in the year than later. It's a common misconception that offenses have kinks to work out, when in fact they often come out of the gate strong and catch teams off guard because there isn't a lot of film on what they're doing. It's harder to prepare for a team that is doing something differently for the first time, as oppose to facing a coordinator that has been running the same offense for years.

We saw it in our own offenses early on in Charlie's tenure, but you see it happen every season in other teams. Early in Weis' career we came out of the gate pretty strong, but as we got to November the Pitts and USCs had some success slowing us down. The exception was in 2007 when the offense was just starting to come together at the end of the season, but that whole year was a bit of an abortion because of the lack of leadership and upperclassmen left behind from Ty's final recruiting classes. Overall though, Charle's tenure and his offenses were less potent by the end because they were old hat.

I'm not saying that a team running a new offense is going to be running on all cylinders day 1, but generally among bigger programs I've seen teams have more success than failures (At least early in the season) when they're switching to a new system. Smaller programs may have some growing pains if they don't have the personnel to make a switch right away, but you get the idea.

 

[jspags10pg]

It's been my experience that new offenses tend to be more effective earlier in the year than later. It's a common misconception that offenses have kinks to work out, when in fact they often come out of the gate strong and catch teams off guard because there isn't a lot of film on what they're doing. It's harder to prepare for a team that is doing something differently for the first time, as oppose to facing a coordinator that has been running the same offense for years.

We saw it in our own offenses early on in Charlie's tenure, but you see it happen every season in other teams. Early in Weis' career we came out of the gate pretty strong, but as we got to November the Pitts and USCs had some success slowing us down. The exception was in 2007 when the offense was just starting to come together at the end of the season, but that whole year was a bit of an abortion because of the lack of leadership and upperclassmen left behind from Ty's final recruiting classes. Overall though, Charle's tenure and his offenses were less potent by the end because they were old hat.

I'm not saying that a team running a new offense is going to be running on all cylinders day 1, but generally among bigger programs I've seen teams have more success than failures (At least early in the season) when they're switching to a new system. Smaller programs may have some growing pains if they don't have the personnel to make a switch right away, but you get the idea.

I completely understand what you're saying and I hope it works out exactly the way you describe in this situation. Happens a lot the way you are explaining. My only concern is that Gattis is a Joe Moorhead disciple and we saw how much better Penn State offense got under Moorhead as the season went along in 2016. They looked terrrrrrible at the beginning of that season and ended up being the most feared offense by the end of the year.

 

[arrowryan]

I think IE is becoming a little too confident about this game. Notre Dame hasn’t won at the big house since ‘05. Notre Dame is probably more talented, but weird things happen in rivalry games especially when you’re on the road.

I see a one score game either way. I’m not expecting a game like last year where the 24-17 final score made the game look a lot closer than it actually was.

 

[Some Irish Bloke]

I think IE is becoming a little too confident about this game. Notre Dame hasn’t won at the big house since ‘05. Notre Dame is probably more talented, but weird things happen in rivalry games especially when you’re on the road.

I see a one score game either way. I’m not expecting a game like last year where the 24-17 final score made the game look a lot closer than it actually was.

FTR, we haven't played there since 2013. We are on a four game drought there but still somewhat misleading.

Point taken, but wanted to clarify.

 

[ulukinatme]

I'm not confident, but I'm cautiously optimistic. I wouldn't be surprised if they won, but I don't think we should be the underdogs in this one. That said, we do better with the underdog role than when we're favored, so I'll take it.

 

[condoms SUCk]

I'm not confident, but I'm cautiously optimistic. I wouldn't be surprised if they won, but I don't think we should be the underdogs in this one. That said, we do better with the underdog role than when we're favored, so I'll take it.

Yup, my sentiments exactly