Sep 7 | Michigan

[PANDFAN]

Lot of people don't realize that Luck is as fast as RGIII. People at the combine were surprised when their 40 times were almost identical. As a senior, his team was better balanced and he didn't have to run as often.

Luck's official time was 4.67
4.41 in 40 Robert Griffin...that's a big difference

 

[T Town Tommy]

Finebaum is such an asshat. Why is this guy on TV? They do this big lead in to ND vs Michigan and his analysis is, " Yeah I'll watch. I mean there is nothing else on tomorrow night." They do a Miami vs Florida intro as well and he says "after this year they won't play again."

Great insight Paul.

Don't let the "keeper of the spoon" get under your skin. He is just looking for callers.

 

[Kak7304]

Luck's official time was 4.67
4.41 in 40 Robert Griffin...that's a big difference

Griffin could have been an Olympic hurdler if he concentrated on it. His athleticism (pre-ACL tear at least) is on a different level.

 

[wizards8507]

At the end of the day it all becomes splitting hairs and debatable nomenclature.

Of course it does. That's why we're splitting hairs and debating nomenclature. It's Friday of game week and nobody feels like working at work anymore.

 

[ulukinatme]

I forgot about Air Force and Maryland but I meant his entire ND career. I said when we gave up more than 20. It is not a good sign when we give up more than 20 though.

True, it isn't a good sign. However, I'm hoping that a fairly experienced OL, and a more balanced offense was what was lacking in those previous seasons. I think Michigan could potentially score 20 points tomorrow, so we'll need that balanced attack to put some numbers on the board this time. 13 points isn't going to cut it this year I think.

 

[IrishLax]

Great job, Lax. I really enjoyed that article.

That being said, I still have some questions in the reasoning of your 5-8 record statement. Trying to wrap my head around how subjective this number actually is. The article doesn't specifically list the games. If it's not too much trouble, can you tell me what teams made up the 5-8 record?

Thanks

Yeah... that cut was difficult to make. You're right that it's a very subjective call after the obvious ones on either side. There is a big grey area where someone stops being statue and becomes athletic. Namely, I didn't know what to do with:
1) BYU, who has a guy who runs a little, but really isn't an athletic gem... so I left him out of the "athletic" category. This was probably the toughest call, but then I saw him on TV and he didn't look athletic at all.
2) Miami, who had Jacory Harris and Stephen Morris... both guys that should be athletic? Neither of them put up any rushing yards whatsoever when I looked over their game logs. This really surprised me. So I left them out.

The 8 losses are...
2x Stanford - Andrew Luck
1x Navy - Ricky Dobbs
2x Michigan - Denard Robinson
1x Tulsa - G.J. Kinne... surprisingly was not only the leading rusher of his team for the season, but the leading rusher of any player in the game we lost.
1x South Florida - B.J. Daniels
1x Florida State - E.J. Manuel

Weirdly... three of the QB go by initials with the second initial being a "J." WTF? As you can see... some losses were to good teams (Stanford, Michigan '11) others were to average-to-poor teams (Michigan '10, South Florida, 4 loss FSU, Tulsa.. although they did finish the year ranked, Navy). Some had good passers... an equal number were bad passers. The scheme differences are all over the map. So we're a pretty "equal opportunity" loser to teams that have athletic QBs, regardless of how they're used and whatever their strengths/weaknesses are.

The wins came over 8-5 Michigan last year, Navy x2, Army, and Air Force. So yeah... we simply DO NOT beat good teams with athletic QBs. Alternatively, we're damn near unstoppable against unathletic QBs... we've only lost to some truly fantastic Top 10 opponents with pure pocket passers.

 

[Irish#1]

Yeah... that cut was difficult to make. You're right that it's a very subjective call after the obvious ones on either side. There is a big grey area where someone stops being statue and becomes athletic. Namely, I didn't know what to do with:
1) BYU, who has a guy who runs a little, but really isn't an athletic gem... so I left him out of the "athletic" category. This was probably the toughest call, but then I saw him on TV and he didn't look athletic at all.
2) Miami, who had Jacory Harris and Stephen Morris... both guys that should be athletic? Neither of them put up any rushing yards whatsoever when I looked over their game logs. This really surprised me. So I left them out.

The 8 losses are...
2x Stanford - Andrew Luck
1x Navy - Ricky Dobbs
2x Michigan - Denard Robinson
1x Tulsa - G.J. Kinne... surprisingly was not only the leading rusher of his team for the season, but the leading rusher of any player in the game we lost.
1x South Florida - B.J. Daniels
1x Florida State - E.J. Manuel

Weirdly... three of the QB go by initials with the second initial being a "J." WTF? As you can see... some losses were to good teams (Stanford, Michigan '11) others were to average-to-poor teams (Michigan '10, South Florida, 4 loss FSU, Tulsa.. although they did finish the year ranked, Navy). Some had good passers... an equal number were bad passers. The scheme differences are all over the map. So we're a pretty "equal opportunity" loser to teams that have athletic QBs, regardless of how they're used and whatever their strengths/weaknesses are.

The wins came over 8-5 Michigan last year, Navy x2, Army, and Air Force. So yeah... we simply DO NOT beat good teams with athletic QBs. Alternatively, we're damn near unstoppable against unathletic QBs... we've only lost to some truly fantastic Top 10 opponents with pure pocket passers.

Okay, we've officially said and dissected this thing every way possible when someone starts breaking down wins and losses by the QB's middle initial.

 

[ulukinatme]

Tomorrow can't come soon enough, but I'll wait if it means we're getting a win.

 

[irishff1014]

Tomorrow can't come soon enough, but I'll wait if it means we're getting a win.

But the worst part is we have to wait til tomorrow night. I am already nervous enough about this game.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Yeah..... that's actually not at all what I'm doing. In fact it is literally the opposite. I'm done discussing this with people who obviously didn't read it, because most of these question are resolved by... you know... reading what was actually written.

I hope you haven't taken my posts as criticism. The article is awesome, and it's kicked off the best substantive discussion we've had here in weeks.

Finebaum is such an asshat. Why is this guy on TV? They do this big lead in to ND vs Michigan and his analysis is, " Yeah I'll watch. I mean there is nothing else on tomorrow night." They do a Miami vs Florida intro as well and he says "after this year they won't play again."

I think it's supposed to be a joke.

Don't let the "keeper of the spoon" get under your skin. He is just looking for callers.

"Why bother watchin' them slow yankees play, PAAAAWWWWLLLL?"

The 8 losses are...
2x Stanford - Andrew Luck
1x Navy - Ricky Dobbs
2x Michigan - Denard Robinson
1x Tulsa - G.J. Kinne... surprisingly was not only the leading rusher of his team for the season, but the leading rusher of any player in the game we lost.
1x South Florida - B.J. Daniels
1x Florida State - E.J. Manuel

Weirdly... three of the QB go by initials with the second initial being a "J." WTF? As you can see... some losses were to good teams (Stanford, Michigan '11) others were to average-to-poor teams (Michigan '10, South Florida, 4 loss FSU, Tulsa.. although they did finish the year ranked, Navy). Some had good passers... an equal number were bad passers. The scheme differences are all over the map. So we're a pretty "equal opportunity" loser to teams that have athletic QBs, regardless of how they're used and whatever their strengths/weaknesses are.

The wins came over 8-5 Michigan last year, Navy x2, Army, and Air Force. So yeah... we simply DO NOT beat good teams with athletic QBs. Alternatively, we're damn near unstoppable against unathletic QBs... we've only lost to some truly fantastic Top 10 opponents with pure pocket passers.

I apologize for not making this clear earlier, but most of my responses to your article have been attempts to figure out how the data presented can be used to improve predictions of our future performance. Thus far, I don't think it has much predictive value, because most of these losses came against singularly talented QBs (Kelly may never face a QB as complete as Luck or as uniquely dangerous as Robinson ever again) or were total flukes (Tulsa, USF), which indicates that there's probably not a schematic issue here.

If less talented DT QBs were regularly upsetting us, that might be cause for genuine concern. But Kinne and Daniels didn't even play well against us. Breakdowns on ST and offense were, respectively, the driving factor behind both of those losses. The fact that those teams had mobile QBs was merely incidental.

 

[wizards8507]

The historic Notre Dame Michigan rivalry can never really be gone - ESPN

 

[Old Man Mike]

Defensive SPEEEEEEEEEDDDDD has differed. THIS is what Kelly/Diaco have been upgrading, and this is why we are now different.

 

[BleedBlueGold]

...

If less talented DT QBs were regularly upsetting us, that might be cause for genuine concern. But Kinne and Daniels didn't even play well against us. Breakdowns on ST and offense (respectively) were the driving factor behind both of those losses. The fact that those teams had mobile QBs was incidental.

The same can be said about the UTL game. The DT QB in that game didn't beat ND. That game was flooded with fluke plays (goal line stop/fumble/picked up by QB and walked in for 6), turnovers (Tommy had 5! and IIRC, most of them were in the redzone), and poor secondary play. A loss is a loss, but for this discussion, I can't justify counting that game as one where ND had trouble containing the QB and that being the main reason for the loss.

I can appreciate all this debate, but I'm honestly not concerned with DT QBs. There are plenty of other reasons ND lost the games they did. It wasn't just because they faced a duel threat.

 

[BleedBlueGold]

Defensive SPEEEEEEEEEDDDDD has differed. THIS is what Kelly/Diaco have been upgrading, and this is why we are now different.

Was just about to say something about this. You're exactly right. Watch the CMU vs UM highlights and watch how slow CMU is. ND defenses are by in large accepted as SEC-style defenses. When a play breaks down and the QB flees, the defense is fast enough to close in on him extremely fast.

As long as the defense can get off the field, ND shouldn't have any trouble with UM. Book it!

Cheers...it's almost my scotchy scotch time.

 

[GoldenIsThyFame]

I think it's supposed to be a joke.



"Why bother watchin' them slow yankees play, PAAAAWWWWLLLL?"

I guess but the host didn't even laugh. He kept probing for more and Paul just sat there saying the same thing.

 

[irishog77]

Athletic is used 10 times in the article. Mobile is used 19 times.

Dual-threat is only used 5. 4 of those times specifically referring accurately to dual-threat QBs. Only 1 of those times erroneously used as a catch-all for mobile/athletic because I simply missed it. Although to be fair, many analysts use "dual threat" as a catch all for any QB that can hurt you with his feet. I don't agree with this, but it's done frequently:
ProFootballWeekly.com - Dual-threat Rodgers, precise Rivers head QB class

Hope that clarifies. Or you can just read the thing and get the general gist of it all.

Well...then I'm not going to even bother to read the thing now.

I hope you haven't taken my posts as criticism. The article is awesome, and it's kicked off the best substantive discussion we've had here in weeks.



I apologize for not making this clear earlier, but most of my responses to your article have been attempts to figure out how the data presented can be used to improve predictions of our future performance. Thus far, I don't think it has much predictive value, because most of these losses came against singularly talented QBs (Kelly may never face a QB as complete as Luck or as uniquely dangerous as Robinson ever again) or were total flukes (Tulsa, USF), which indicates that there's probably not a schematic issue here.

If less talented DT QBs were regularly upsetting us, that might be cause for genuine concern. But Kinne and Daniels didn't even play well against us. Breakdowns on ST and offense were, respectively, the driving factor behind both of those losses. The fact that those teams had mobile QBs was merely incidental.

I'm with Whiskey here. Luck was largely considered the best QB prospect since Manning, who was largely considered the best QB prospect since Aikman, who was largely considered the best QB prospect since Elway. So there's a decent chance a player of that caliber won't surface for years...let alone be a QB on a team ND will actually have to play. I consider Luck a complete outlier. Robinson? I'd say more players/QB's are around that can do what he did than Luck, but he was still pretty rare. His pathetic passing ability has to mitigate his superb running ability somewhat. So call him a 1/2 outlier? Doing that would sort of discount 4 of those losses. And then I'd perhaps argue that FSU and USF (more so USF) didn't win BECAUSE of their QB's, but rather because of turnovers, poor ND QB play, etc.. I mean I think you could almost literally pick any human being at random to QB USF that day and it wouldn't have mattered-- the football gods were truly giving a F.U. to ND that dreadful day. So maybe switch another game and a half on the total W-L? So conservatively, I think you could chalk up 4 of those losses to amazing QB play and/or sh!tty ND play and/or astronomically high odds of bad luck occurring. Liberally, you could switch maybe 7 due to those circumstances?

And Whiskey is right also -- this has been a great discussion. Great work, Lax, and thank you for putting in a lotta leg work on research and analysis. IE is better for it.

 

[IrishLax]

I hope you haven't taken my posts as criticism. The article is awesome, and it's kicked off the best substantive discussion we've had here in weeks.

I apologize for not making this clear earlier, but most of my responses to your article have been attempts to figure out how the data presented can be used to improve predictions of our future performance. Thus far, I don't think it has much predictive value, because most of these losses came against singularly talented QBs (Kelly may never face a QB as complete as Luck or as uniquely dangerous as Robinson ever again) or were total flukes (Tulsa, USF), which indicates that there's probably not a schematic issue here.

If less talented DT QBs were regularly upsetting us, that might be cause for genuine concern. But Kinne and Daniels didn't even play well against us. Breakdowns on ST and offense were, respectively, the driving factor behind both of those losses. The fact that those teams had mobile QBs was merely incidental.

Yeah, absolutely not. I was more talking to the fact that I spent about half a dozen posts in a row clarifying things that were actually presented in the article. Having to delve into the next level or information that wasn't included is great fruitful discussion.

"Past results are no guarantee of future results" obviously applies here, and that's why the article tried to analyze more why have things gone wrong before and how they might be fixed, than say "we're doomed this year because we play a lot of athletic QBs." The biggest argument against their being an issue is that Tulsa, USF, and FSU were not lost by our defense. You can go round and round in circles on why we lost the Michigan games, and there are a number of valid points of view, so let's just table that and say an awful lot of stuff went wrong.

The biggest argument FOR there being an issue is that even if you flopped USF, Tulsa, and FSU to Ws, we'd still be just 8-5. 62% is still a solid notch below 88%... and furthermore, if you start ignoring W/L record, we still give up 50% more points (and a bunch more yards, but I didn't finish the math on that) to teams with mobile QBs. If we give credit for USF/Tulsa/FSU, then we should also consider that Air Force moved the ball with ease against our D. No matter what way I tried to slice it, the numbers and results continue to come back to us being worse against athletic QBs than pure pocket passers who can't evade a rush.

The best positive I could find that makes me hopeful for the season was first half against FSU (and really the whole game). We mixed some blitzes into a disciplined rush from the DL and it worked like a charm. Granted, they had an awful OL, but we almost never lost contain and then by bring additional pressure up the middle it forced Manuel to get rid of the ball/try to make a play. I think against Gardner that is basically the way to go... contain, bring a delayed blitz or stunt to the middle to force him to do something. I also think we need to consider getting 1 of our ILBs off the field whenever it makes sense and have Shumate match up with Funchess.

 

[ulukinatme]

Good Fridays W/Padre: Misremembered - Her Loyal Sons

Funny perception of Notre Dame from the Michigan perspective, from the late Father Sorin.

 

[TheSunIsRising]

Yeah... that cut was difficult to make. You're right that it's a very subjective call after the obvious ones on either side. There is a big grey area where someone stops being statue and becomes athletic. Namely, I didn't know what to do with:
1) BYU, who has a guy who runs a little, but really isn't an athletic gem... so I left him out of the "athletic" category. This was probably the toughest call, but then I saw him on TV and he didn't look athletic at all.
2) Miami, who had Jacory Harris and Stephen Morris... both guys that should be athletic? Neither of them put up any rushing yards whatsoever when I looked over their game logs. This really surprised me. So I left them out.

The 8 losses are...
2x Stanford - Andrew Luck
1x Navy - Ricky Dobbs
2x Michigan - Denard Robinson
1x Tulsa - G.J. Kinne... surprisingly was not only the leading rusher of his team for the season, but the leading rusher of any player in the game we lost.
1x South Florida - B.J. Daniels
1x Florida State - E.J. Manuel

Weirdly... three of the QB go by initials with the second initial being a "J." WTF? As you can see... some losses were to good teams (Stanford, Michigan '11) others were to average-to-poor teams (Michigan '10, South Florida, 4 loss FSU, Tulsa.. although they did finish the year ranked, Navy). Some had good passers... an equal number were bad passers. The scheme differences are all over the map. So we're a pretty "equal opportunity" loser to teams that have athletic QBs, regardless of how they're used and whatever their strengths/weaknesses are.

The wins came over 8-5 Michigan last year, Navy x2, Army, and Air Force. So yeah... we simply DO NOT beat good teams with athletic QBs. Alternatively, we're damn near unstoppable against unathletic QBs... we've only lost to some truly fantastic Top 10 opponents with pure pocket passers.

Reps for the work and overall concept

It is very gray, as Riley Nelson has averaged something like 4 yards per carry over his career (inclusive of sacks), and ran for something like 400yds in 2011 - but he doesn't look like a 'typical athletic QB' (kind of like Luck, with nowhere near the arm); Jacory Harris' official combine time was only .05 off of Luck's, but never really saw Harris run (his YPC stats would be deceiving because of a number of sacks at Miami; Luck probably wasn't sacked all that often as his line was pretty stout). Other relatively athletic QB's along the continuum: Alex Karder from WMU, and Marve/Terbrush/Henry from Purdue (Marve lost mobility with his knee injuries but had the potential to keep plays alive; Terbrush actually rushed for over 200yds in 2011 - with a better YPC than Gardner, although the eye test favors Gardner when comparing athleticism; Henry hasn't played much against ND, but no doubting that he is mobile).

Fundamentally, whereas I would argue the 5-8 record could move a little above .500, none of those wins would fall into a 'Strong Opponent' category.

 

[ulukinatme]

Apparently there will be a Gameday Reesus sign. #ReesusGamedaySign

Oh, and it should be noted that NDNation forbids the use of "Reesus" on the site:

Consider the use of 'Reesus' verboten on this site *

 

[IrishLax]

I'm with Whiskey here. Luck was largely considered the best QB prospect since Manning, who was largely considered the best QB prospect since Aikman, who was largely considered the best QB prospect since Elway. So there's a decent chance a player of that caliber won't surface for years...let alone be a QB on a team ND will actually have to play. I consider Luck a complete outlier. Robinson? I'd say more players/QB's are around that can do what he did than Luck, but he was still pretty rare. His pathetic passing ability has to mitigate his superb running ability somewhat. So call him a 1/2 outlier? Doing that would sort of discount 4 of those losses. And then I'd perhaps argue that FSU and USF (more so USF) didn't win BECAUSE of their QB's, but rather because of turnovers, poor ND QB play, etc.. I mean I think you could almost literally pick any human being at random to QB USF that day and it wouldn't have mattered-- the football gods were truly giving a F.U. to ND that dreadful day. So maybe switch another game and a half on the total W-L? So conservatively, I think you could chalk up 4 of those losses to amazing QB play and/or sh!tty ND play and/or astronomically high odds of bad luck occurring. Liberally, you could switch maybe 7 due to those circumstances?

And Whiskey is right also -- this has been a great discussion. Great work, Lax, and thank you for putting in a lotta leg work on research and analysis. IE is better for it.

The problem you run into with normalizing for "that team was just awesome" or "that was a really fluke filled loss" is that it becomes very difficult to draw the line.

For example, you could say to not count the loss to Alabama because that was a world-beater team in a weird situation with the layoff. You could also discount the loss to 11-2 MSU as it came on a fake FG that was snapped after the play clock hit zero AND they missed offensive pass interference. Even the USC loss had the closest thing to a butt fumble ND has ever had when Dayne Crist screwed up while going in for the game tying score and the ball was returned alllllll the way for a TD. That was the USC margin of victory. Get rid of those games and we're freaking 23-0 against unathletic guys in the pocket.

Maybe it's best just to ignore W/L and look at the numbers. We give up 50% more points and a bunch more yards to teams with athletic QBs. That's including bad games from BJ Daniels, etc. It simply is what it is. The bigger question is whether it's just correlation or if there is some causation.

I think there is a big element of causation... namely due to their ability to pick up 3rd-and-short or 3rd-and-moderate 1st downs at a higher clip. And I'd imagine, though I'm not sure, that they also have an easier time scoring in the red zone... I didn't pull any numbers on that though.

 

[ulukinatme]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Michigan fans: Light up toys are for 10 year olds who can't focus on what is going on. <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23MichiganSucks&src=hash">#MichiganSucks</a></p>— Knute Rockne (@Rocknes_Ghost) <a href="https://twitter.com/Rocknes_Ghost/statuses/376022660515246080">September 6, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[IrishLax]

CHANGE OF SUBJECT: Anyone have a link to the Michgan AD's quotes about having to end the series in the future BEFORE we handed them the letter?

 

[irishog77]

The problem you run into with normalizing for "that team was just awesome" or "that was a really fluke filled loss" is that it becomes very difficult to draw the line.

For example, you could say to not count the loss to Alabama because that was a world-beater team in a weird situation with the layoff. You could also discount the loss to 11-2 MSU as it came on a fake FG that was snapped after the play clock hit zero AND they missed offensive pass interference. Even the USC loss had the closest thing to a butt fumble ND has ever had when Dayne Crist screwed up while going in for the game tying score and the ball was returned alllllll the way for a TD. That was the USC margin of victory. Get rid of those games and we're freaking 23-0 against unathletic guys in the pocket.

Maybe it's best just to ignore W/L and look at the numbers. We give up 50% more points and a bunch more yards to teams with athletic QBs. That's including bad games from BJ Daniels, etc. It simply is what it is. The bigger question is whether it's just correlation or if there is some causation.

I think there is a big element of causation... namely due to their ability to pick up 3rd-and-short or 3rd-and-moderate 1st downs at a higher clip. And I'd imagine, though I'm not sure, that they also have an easier time scoring in the red zone... I didn't pull any numbers on that though.

All true.

As for the bolded, I think you may even be onto something more concrete.

And I'll go ahead and apologize in advance in case you covered it (because I've still only perused your article), but I wonder what national stats are in some totality against athletic QB's vs. non-athletic QB's. Just what you said alone about 3rd down conversions and red zone are so very true. I mean look at Florida. They were almost completely unstoppable in short yardage situations for 3 years with Tebow back there-- so many things the defense has to account for and so much wait/read time involved for a defense out of respect for what COULD happen.

 

[koonja]

How is he NOT Vince Youngish?

Devin Garnder has the athletic build of a 4/5 WR. He's a tad smaller than Young, but not much. They've basically got the same speed/athletic profile. Young also sucked at reading defenses and was a sketchy passer, much like Gardner.

The difference, IMO, is that Young had TONS of skill position talent around him. Gardner has a good OL, average RBs, and below average WRs for a BCS level team. So if you take away his individual playmaking ability, I don't know how effective he'll be. I doubt he's able to go all Andrew Luck and calmly move through progressions and make tight, timely throws to the correct guy. If he CAN do that OR the running game is awesome, then I think we're in a world of trouble defensively. Hopefully our O is ready to go for this game, I think we might need 28+ to win it.

In the Central Michigan game, he literally did not go through one progression one time. If primary receiver was covered, he ran.

Oh, you mean the season where Brady tore his ACL and the Pats didn't make the playoffs?

Pats were 16-0 in the regular season the year before, and Cassell was throwing to a Randy Moss still in his prime and a Wes Welker that was just entering his prime. He threw for 21 TD's vs. 11 INT's throwing to those guys. Brady threw for 50 TD's and 8 picks the year before.

Fact: before Brady, Belicheck was a failure in Cleveland and 5-13 in New England.
Fact: Belicheck has never made the playoffs in New England without Tom Brady at QB.

Fact: Michael Jordan never made the playoffs without Scottie Pippen. Not the same thing because it's playerlayer, but that argument doesn't always work.

FACT: I make up facts.

Just like Teddy Bridgewater would be backing up Tommy Rees at ND.

Lol. I hate Michigan, but Hoke doesn't sound like an overly intelligent guy. I mean, listening to a Brian Kelly press conference and then a Hoke one is night and day.

Finebaum is such an asshat. Why is this guy on TV? They do this big lead in to ND vs Michigan and his analysis is, " Yeah I'll watch. I mean there is nothing else on tomorrow night." They do a Miami vs Florida intro as well and he says "after this year they won't play again."

Great insight Paul.

After that, the co-host said 'I could see you being the AD at Notre Dame'. Not sure what that meant.

Apparently there will be a Gameday Reesus sign. #ReesusGamedaySign

Oh, and it should be noted that NDNation forbids the use of "Reesus" on the site:

Consider the use of 'Reesus' verboten on this site *

Can't wait. That twitter handle cracks me up.

-How cool is the multi-quote feature on this site.

 

[PANDFAN]

CHANGE OF SUBJECT: Anyone have a link to the Michgan AD's quotes about having to end the series in the future BEFORE we handed them the letter?

In a story entitled Michigan AD Dave Brandon doesn't want nonconference road games (other than Notre Dame), Brandon was quoted as saying:

"I don't believe we can or should go on the road for nonconference games when we can put 113,000 people in our stadium. It's, financially, the right thing to do. It's the right thing to do for our fans, in terms of their ticket packages. And we're going to alternate with Notre Dame, so we're going to have one game on the road every other year. So the rest of those games, I would like to have at Michigan Stadium."

Brandon told the AP he was handed the letter on the field in South Bend, Ind., about an hour before Saturday night’s game.
“I put the letter in my pocket and didn’t bother to read it right away because I was focused on the game we were about to play,” Brandon said. “I read it on the way home Sunday morning
“Michigan has always enjoyed and respected our national rivalry with Notre Dame,” Brandon said. “We understand there have been periods of times that we’ve had a hiatus to take a couple years off to play other teams and that was something we expected along the way.
“It’s unfortunate that it would appear we’re going to go a substantial amount of time between games. But that is a decision Notre Dame has made. Our job is to find opponents that are exciting for our student-athletes as well as our fans to replace Notre Dame.”


after :"The decision to cancel games in 2015-17 was Notre Dame's and not ours," said Brandon, the Donald R. Shepherd Director of Athletics. "We value our annual rivalry with Notre Dame but will have to see what the future holds for any continuation of the series. This cancellation presents new scheduling opportunities for our program and provides a chance to create some new rivalries."

 

[UmphreakDomer]

Does anyone find it funny that, from the limited time i've looked at UM message boards, there is NO ONE that is genuinely concerned, like our fan base.

why do you think that is? is it the years of sub-par play?

the nature of the series in general?

the close games recently?

what is it that allows them to be ever confidant and us popping alka seltzer on tuesday?

 

[Jebediah Springfield]

Does anyone find it funny that, from the limited time i've looked at UM message boards, there is NO ONE that is genuinely concerned, like our fan base.

why do you think that is? is it the years of sub-par play?

the nature of the series in general?

the close games recently?

what is it that allows them to be ever confidant and us popping alka seltzer on tuesday?

2 years ago ruined me forever...

 

[FLDomer]

2 years ago ruined me forever...

And me as well...

 

[arrowryan]

Does anyone find it funny that, from the limited time i've looked at UM message boards, there is NO ONE that is genuinely concerned, like our fan base.

why do you think that is? is it the years of sub-par play?

the nature of the series in general?

the close games recently?

what is it that allows them to be ever confidant and us popping alka seltzer on tuesday?

Probably the recent history IMO. Hopefully BK and company can change that tomorrow though