Sep 6 | Michigan

[GBdomer]

Thanks for the highlight tape. I saw UND but I remember about three plays from this game.

 

[palinurus]

Yes. Being surrounded by OSU co-workers makes it all the better.

Sorry to go off thread for a sec, but Koon, don't know if you've been asked yet, but are Ohio State fans (generally) as insufferable as you'd heard around here?

 

[GATTACA!]

Sorry to go off thread for a sec, but Koon, don't know if you've been asked yet, but are Ohio State fans (generally) as insufferable as you'd heard around here?

They are. I would rather move to Cambodia than Columbus. Fuck OSU and their fans.

 

[CanadianIrishFan306]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Huskies?src=hash">#Huskies</a> Shaq Thompson, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Oregon?src=hash">#Oregon</a>'s Arik Armstead, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Irish?src=hash">#Irish</a>'s Jaylon Smith lead five-stars that played like it Saturday: <a href="http://t.co/K7cj6wkPWq">http://t.co/K7cj6wkPWq</a></p>— Steve Wiltfong (@SWiltfong247) <a href="https://twitter.com/SWiltfong247/status/509027091946283008">September 8, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Didn't ND have a good chance of landing Shaq Thompson and Arik Armstead?

 

[irishfan]

Didn't ND have a good chance of landing Shaq Thompson and Arik Armstead?

I think we would've had Arik if we had accepted his brother, Armond, as a 5th year transfer from SC. Armond suffered a heart attack due to painkillers at SC, and was looking around for a place to clear him for a 5th year. The two brothers visited together, but ND's medical staff never cleared him, and Arik ended up staying closer to home.

Armond actually went to CFL instead of a 5th year in college and did really well, and was on the Patriots practice squad last year before retiring this summer.

 

[arndtjc]

I don't remember if I posted this already, but man what a great experience this was on Saturday! Me and my buddy walked around campus with a redneck cooler full of beer and Jameson, telling all those in piss yellow that there were worse things in life than being a Michigan fan. They talked a lot of sh!t all day, and to see them scatter like cockroaches midway through the third was a beautiful sight. My voice still isn't fully recovered, and neither is my liver. I will always hold this night in a very special part of my memory, it will go down as one of the best days of my life!

 

[stlnd01]

Didn't ND have a good chance of landing Shaq Thompson and Arik Armstead?

Yes, particularly with Armstead, who as Irishfan said was a sort of package deal with his older brother looking to transfer out of USC after a dispute over medical care. Can't imagine how nasty a D-Line we'd have with him and Day and Jones (and, just to dream, Vanderdoes).

 

[Buster Bluth]

Yes, particularly with Armstead, who as Irishfan said was a sort of package deal with his older brother looking to transfer out of USC after a dispute over medical care. Can't imagine how nasty a D-Line we'd have with him and Day and Jones (and, just to dream, Vanderdoes).

...and Tuitt and Nix staying for 2014. And Lynch not being crazy.

 

[Bogtrotter07]

Had the exact same experience. Attending that game is the origin of my intense hatred for Michigan and its fans. We could have been fighting off Wal-Mart Wolverines back-to-back and not even known it.

My two oldest sons have an aunt that was a graduate of Michigan's business school, and she became a fairly high powered alum, and therefore and thereby would get my boys tickets to whatever games they wanted. I was going to go to the Big House last year for the game but my son blocked me. He reminded me of the year that Michigan upset #1 tOSU, 28-0. A bunch of us that went to HS together went to the game. Two lettered at OSU, and provided the tickets; in those days we used to go to all kinds of venues, several guys had relatives playing for the team from Ohio, one, the team from the north.

Anyways, we were pretty lighthearted guys that were just looking for a little fun. When UM went up 28-0 the hometown fans started chanting "Over-rated!" We timed our reply of "Under-achievers!" to correspond to the lull in their cadence. Funny, no? We had every Buckeye fan in that part of the stadium chanting with us. We were effin' cheerleaders! It got ugly! It was a running gun-battle to get out of the stadium; A literal interpretation of that statement isn't far from the truth.

That was in the days before WalMart. I guess they were KMart Wolverines back then. But on the way out of the stadium, I never saw more home made weapons; sand filled hoses, sawed off bats and axe handles, straps, antennas, and knuckle enhancing devices than I did that day. One idiot even had a zip gun, but thankfully it malfunctioned! We were trying to figure out where they came from, because we didn't see anything like that in the stadium!

Standing and fighting became pointless. But the end of the story is, here a bunch of us thirty something year old fathers head home with shiners, fat lips and skinned knuckles. That was the walk of shame that really was long and hard. Some of us spent several nights sleeping on the couch for that one!

 

[phork]

(Re: recruiting dividends)

Hey, you all realize this is what the '11 USC game could have been had Rees not put us in a hole and Crist not brain-farted on the 3...

I suggest you look at this box score: USC Trojans vs. Notre Dame Fighting Irish - Box Score - October 22, 2011 - ESPN

They ass hammered us bro. This game was nothing like USC '11.

 

[ThePiombino]

I suggest you look at this box score: USC Trojans vs. Notre Dame Fighting Irish - Box Score - October 22, 2011 - ESPN

They ass hammered us bro. This game was nothing like USC '11.

I would hardly call being down 7 points with under a minute left in the 3rd with the ball inside the 10 (5?) an ass hammering, but whatever floats your boat. If Crist punches it in instead of hiking it through his legs, who knows what the end result would be. At a MINIMUM, not a 14-point loss. Game would have been likely tied with most, if not all momentum swinging in our direction. Box score means jack shit.

 

[phork]

I would hardly call being down 7 points with under a minute left in the 3rd with the ball inside the 10 (5?) an ass hammering, but whatever floats your boat. If Crist punches it in instead of hiking it through his legs, who knows what the end result would be. At a MINIMUM, not a 14-point loss. Game would have been likely tied with most, if not all momentum swinging in our direction. Box score means jack shit.

They ran up almost double the yards from scrimmage and double the TOP. Koolaid from past years is not allowed.

 

[Buster Bluth]

They ran up almost double the yards from scrimmage and double the TOP. Koolaid from past years is not allowed.

Let's at least acknowledge that ND was putting itself in position to tie it up and possibly steal a game they had no business winning. That's not Koolaid or revisionist in the slightest.

 

[#1rish]

Glorious

 

[Grahambo]

Typical contrarian shock-jock bullsh!t. After news of the Four Coursemen broke, some posters here seemed genuinely touched that Cowherd stuck up for us. But he was just taking the contrarian viewpoint, as he always does, to drive ratings. Now that ND is on top, he'll start taking shots at us again. #HotTakes

While I definitely agree about getting ratings at any cost, the brakes do need to be pumped a bit.

 

[greyhammer90]

While I definitely agree about getting ratings at any cost, the brakes do need to be pumped a bit.

Agreed. I don't see how saying ND is a good not great team is contrarian. That's what 95% of people actually think. And they have a good chance of being right. We beat Rice and a 7-6 team from the worst "power" conference. We're not exactly world-beaters just yet.

 

[Grahambo]

Agreed. I don't see how saying ND is a good not great team is contrarian. That's what 95% of people actually think. And they have a good chance of being right. We beat Rice and a 7-6 team from the worst "power" conference. We're not exactly world-beaters just yet.

Basically my point. Purdue and Syracuse SHOULD be Rice-esque wins and the Stanford game, while super important, isn't as true of a test as I believe the FSU game to be.

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

Basically my point. Purdue and Syracuse SHOULD be Rice-esque wins and the Stanford game, while super important, isn't as true of a test as I believe the FSU game to be.

I agree about Purdue and Syracuse but Stanford has had our number like Michigan in past years. This is a test to see if we can play the power teams and beat them. Stanford notoriously has a hard hitting defense, can our spread work against them? They routinely run heavy sets, can our defense sustain against that?

I think Stanford is a monster game because it doesn't get easier after them. They are still a very good football club with one bad game against USC. This will be a very tough team to beat.

I think Stanford, FSU and USC will likely be our strongest tests (no disrespect to Louisville, ASU, Navy or North Carolina) and belong on that upper tier. Stanford has had 10+ win seasons for many years now, they are where we should be. We should be signing the Solomon Thomas' of the world, not the Cardinals.

 

[Ndaccountant]

Agreed. I don't see how saying ND is a good not great team is contrarian. That's what 95% of people actually think. And they have a good chance of being right. We beat Rice and a 7-6 team from the worst "power" conference. We're not exactly world-beaters just yet.

That's one of the best parts of the game IMO.

From my view in the stadium, ND left quite a bit on the field and benefited from UM's awful line. For example:

- EG needs to clean up some throws. He had a few accuracy issues on some short to mid-range throws. Missing Ben over the middle, short hopping some out patterns, etc. Didn't hurt us Sat, but they very well could in October.

- WR drops. This has already been covered so I will move on

- Running game timing - For whatever reason, the timing and spacing was really bad. Some of that goes to UM doing a good job with the design of their scheme.

- Day was awesome with his penetration. I was watching him on quite a few plays and he seemed to always be forcing a cut back or the RB to run more outside than what was designed. However, he usually was the only DL able to do it. Those plays are ripe for no gains or a loss. Instead, on Saturday, they were three yard gains. We need better DL play and LB's consistently shooting those gaps Day creates.

- Cole Luke needs to watch his physicality in the passing game. It was clear it was Funchess or bust for UM in the passing game. But holy hell there were probably 3 times were Luke was clearly beat on the backside of a play and just assaulted the WR. Since it was so far away from the play, it wasn't called, but it was occurring.

- Punt pro was a little shaky even when we knew they were coming after us

All of these things are correctable and I have confidence the team will only get better. I think this team will be so much better in November than they are now. It's a question of how soon they can get there for me.

 

[drake29]

Anyone with a link to a replay of the Rice and Michigan games? TIA

 

[Grahambo]

I agree about Purdue and Syracuse but Stanford has had our number like Michigan in past years. This is a test to see if we can play the power teams and beat them. Stanford notoriously has a hard hitting defense, can our spread work against them? They routinely run heavy sets, can our defense sustain against that?

I think Stanford is a monster game because it doesn't get easier after them. They are still a very good football club with one bad game against USC. This will be a very tough team to beat.

I think Stanford, FSU and USC will likely be our strongest tests (no disrespect to Louisville, ASU, Navy or North Carolina) and belong on that upper tier. Stanford has had 10+ win seasons for many years now, they are where we should be. We should be signing the Solomon Thomas' of the world, not the Cardinals.

I don't mean to overlook Stanford. I just mean that I don't think its the powerful Stanford that we've seen recently. If they handle Purdue/Syracuse like they're supposed to, they could come in as favorites against Stanford.

 

[woolybug25]

- Day was awesome with his penetration. I was watching him on quite a few plays and he seemed to always be forcing a cut back or the RB to run more outside than what was designed. However, he usually was the only DL able to do it. Those plays are ripe for no gains or a loss. Instead, on Saturday, they were three yard gains. We need better DL play and LB's consistently shooting those gaps Day creates.

Jarron Jones would like to have a word with you.

 

[Buster Bluth]

Anyone with a link to a replay of the Rice and Michigan games? TIA

They're on the NBC sports site, and a really cool feature is that you can watch the entire game from the overhead camera's perspective. It's pretty cool to get a different and closer view.

 

[ab2cmiller]

They're on the NBC sports site, and a really cool feature is that you can watch the entire game from the overhead camera's perspective. It's pretty cool to get a different and closer view.

I agree. The overhead view is pretty slick. Here's the link to the Michigan game on NBC. I'm not sure where to locate the Rice game.
NBC Sports

 

[ulukinatme]

(Re: recruiting dividends)

Hey, you all realize this is what the '11 USC game could have been had Rees not put us in a hole and Crist not brain-farted on the 3...

Tommy didn't put us in a hole that game. He didn't really do us any favors either, but we were playing pretty conservative against a USC defense that held us to less than 50 yards rushing that day. He kept us in that game though, until we had to go pass happy at the end to try and make up 2 scores with 6 minutes left. We were driving to tie the game up before Tommy got temporarily knocked out and Crist fumbled that ball...that fumble and subsequent scoop and score killed the momentum we had built. We still stood a good chance of coming back at that point as Gray scored on the next possession to put us back within 1 score, but the next time we got the ball Cierre fumbled, and USC scored on their next possession to put the game away. We tried to go pass heavy, but it was late and USC knew it was coming, so Tommy threw an INT after keeping us in the game most of the day. We probably win that game if we weren't +3 on turnovers, and that first one was certainly the most damaging.

I would hardly call being down 7 points with under a minute left in the 3rd with the ball inside the 10 (5?) an ass hammering, but whatever floats your boat. If Crist punches it in instead of hiking it through his legs, who knows what the end result would be. At a MINIMUM, not a 14-point loss. Game would have been likely tied with most, if not all momentum swinging in our direction. Box score means jack shit.

Yeah, I agree, that 2011 USC game was anything but an ass hammering. We gave up a lot more yards than they did, but you have to remember that our "Bend, don't break" defense would do that sometimes. We'd let teams get easy yards till the red zone or goal line, then stiffen up to prevent scores. We were also pretty vanilla on offense because the defense was doing a decent job keeping us in the game. Our time of possession was really low, Cierre didn't have a great game (Tommy had more yards on his one carry than Cierre on his 5 carries), and the fumbles ultimately killed us.

 

[ulukinatme]

They're on the NBC sports site, and a really cool feature is that you can watch the entire game from the overhead camera's perspective. It's pretty cool to get a different and closer view.

This is actually pretty cool, I never noticed that. Not only do you get the different perspective, but you can hear the sounds on the field and the crowd, it takes the announcers out of play. It gives you more of a live game experience.

 

[palinurus]

That's one of the best parts of the game IMO.

From my view in the stadium, ND left quite a bit on the field and benefited from UM's awful line. For example:

- EG needs to clean up some throws. He had a few accuracy issues on some short to mid-range throws. Missing Ben over the middle, short hopping some out patterns, etc. Didn't hurt us Sat, but they very well could in October.

- WR drops. This has already been covered so I will move on

- Running game timing - For whatever reason, the timing and spacing was really bad. Some of that goes to UM doing a good job with the design of their scheme.

- Day was awesome with his penetration. I was watching him on quite a few plays and he seemed to always be forcing a cut back or the RB to run more outside than what was designed. However, he usually was the only DL able to do it. Those plays are ripe for no gains or a loss. Instead, on Saturday, they were three yard gains. We need better DL play and LB's consistently shooting those gaps Day creates.

- Cole Luke needs to watch his physicality in the passing game. It was clear it was Funchess or bust for UM in the passing game. But holy hell there were probably 3 times were Luke was clearly beat on the backside of a play and just assaulted the WR. Since it was so far away from the play, it wasn't called, but it was occurring.

- Punt pro was a little shaky even when we knew they were coming after us

All of these things are correctable and I have confidence the team will only get better. I think this team will be so much better in November than they are now. It's a question of how soon they can get there for me.

I agree with this. I think we're a good/very good, but not great, team, but with potential to be better, both this year and definitely next. Problem is that the Cowherds of the world see this as static, and for this year at least, he'll be disposed to see ND as "good, not great" regardless unless ND beats FSU.

I also think a #10 ranking is a little high, but in a world where Ohio State and Nebraska stay ranked (and Michigan gets 2 votes) in the coaches poll even after last weekend, who am I to argue?

I still think 9-3, 8-4 is the most likely outcome for this year, but 10-2 won't absolutely floor me. I am an experienced enough Irish fan to know the Irish will have a stinker against some bad team, that they will probably, but may not, win. Plus ND still has 5 games against teams BETTER than Mich: FSU, Stanford, So Cal, AZ St and Louisville.

 

[Ndaccountant]

Jarron Jones would like to have a word with you.

I thought Jones had some really good plays. I also think he wasn't nearly as consistent as what Day was. I think he can be like that, just a matter of time.

 

[koonja]

Jones and Day in this game only impressed me more than Nix and Tuitt from last year.

If they keep that effort up and we get Ishaq back, DDDDD BOYZZZ!

 

[ulukinatme]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Hadn't seen this until today, but it makes me happy. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MichiganSucks?src=hash">#MichiganSucks</a> <a href="http://t.co/itxdudDOz5">http://t.co/itxdudDOz5</a></p>— Knute Rockne (@Rocknes_Ghost) <a href="https://twitter.com/Rocknes_Ghost/status/509346343844716544">September 9, 2014</a></blockquote>
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