In reading some Michigan forums today, I stumbled across a thread about this year’s Michigan-Notre Dame game which featured numerous comments about last year’s contest. The general consensus among Michigan fans seemed to be that Michigan handed the game away and that it was a lot closer than the score indicated. At first I tended to agree with this considering all of the bone headed plays Michigan made. Then I started to think about the rain that began pouring down right before half-time, and asked myself, what if the rain hadn’t come into play?
Remember the aerial attack that Jimmy Clausen and Golden Tate were putting on display while the skies were still bright and sunny? I do. Clausen and Tate were working the deep ball about as well as we saw all year before half time – until the Hawaii Bowl anyway. The Notre Dame offense was humming along and then the down pour came. With the rain and a nice lead, the Irish offense went into conservative mode though and
While Michigan handed the ball over plenty of times, the Irish offense could have easily put plenty of more points on the board in the second half to make the score a bit more lopsided as well.
All of this is of course mindless speculation at this point, but with not a whole lot going on until the team reports for camp its fun to think about. So what say you UHND readers? Would the score have been much different without the rain? Would the lack of rain actually have benefited Michigan more?
Interestingly enough, most Michigan fans seem pretty confident about the Wolverines chances against the Irish come September 12. Personally, the Michigan game is one of the games on the schedule this year that I feel more comfortable about considering they’ll be breaking in a new quarterback and lost a whole lot of talent on the defensive side of the ball.
That was a fun game. I think our group was pretty much the only bunch of idiots in the stadium without any rain gear.
Agree with everything but the date. I plan to be in South Bend for the MSU game on the 19th.
I think that we would have scaled back our gameplan offensively if the rain would not have come. Even though it is obvious, Charlie’s disdain, for the Wolverines, I still think he would have put a tighter leash on the dogs.
i was at that game and the UM fans around us were all talk before and did’nt even show for the second half.. GO BLUE!! lol what a joke…
Hey, it’s college football, and a rivalry game at that. Throw out last years records for both teams. It’s always been a back and forth series where ether team can win. I just hope some of this stuff is up on ND’s bulletin board.
I hope the team remembers Jimmy Clausen’s first time agianst Michigan. I still have a picture in my head of him getting sacked by 4 Wolverines at once. 38 points scored agianst us. It’s time to put a chip on their shoulders and leave it there all season!
And btw, as much as our developing flashy and high-power offense is making me giddy for the season opener…i’m REALLY looking forward to this year’s defense. I think we’re going to see a handful of pick-sixes and some serious sackin’ this year…
…it’s clobberin’ time!
Yes. Notre Dame went into ULTRA-conservative mode that second half…which meant using a non-existent rushing game leading to endless 3 and outs.
Jimmy’s aerial bonanza in that first half…wow…this kid showed some glimpses of greatness last season (that, i hope, will be pretty consistent this season). Perhaps this is blasphemy since Brady was one of my fav ND players of all time, but Clausen’s deep throw is phenomenal, and much more accurate than Brady’s was. Brady’s accuracy was incredible, until the passes over thirty yards or so. He never had that “down the sidelines or post pattern longball” pass down. Clausen does. With another year under their belts, look for he, Tate, and Floyd to have a ton more of those in this season’s Michigan game (and others).
As far as this year. I don’t see how Michigan is going to make it very competitive. Another stomping in the Big House.
I hope we destroy scUM 60-0 in the Little House. I want to destroy them and laugh at Richfraud and all the horrible scUM fans.
No rain? ND-68 UM-24.
Pretty much the same score as this years game is going to be.