Where are we really at in terms of the rivalry between Notre Dame football and Michigan?
It’s no secret that the Notre Dame football vs. Michigan series will be going on a hiatus after Saturday’s game at the Big House…again. For fans of both teams, and of college football in general, its an awful thing. These two playing is almost always exciting, and has a direct effect on the college football season as a whole.
Unfortunately, there’s only so many out of conference games per season, and with Notre Dame’s ACC agreement, finding the time to go from South Bend to Ann Arbor and back is getting difficult.
Both sides say they want to play again, but that hasn’t led to anymore scheduled games.
Desire, sure. We all know that games like Notre Dame-Michigan are what make college football great. So, why hasn’t it been scheduled?
To be honest, there’s no benefit.
Alabama gets to go and play the Citadel every November. They played Duke as their only out-of-conference game this season. They’ll play two or three challenging games and it doesn’t matter if they lose one. They’ll get the benefit of the doubt.
For Michigan, they need to play Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin and so on. Adding Notre Dame out-of-conference makes their schedule unnecessarily difficult. So, what’s the point? It’s nice to keep a rivalry going, but not at the expense of a potential Playoff birth.
That means, for the foreseeable future, don’t expect this game to come back anytime soon. Enjoy this Saturday’s meeting as much as possible.
The spread has gone back and forth, despite Michigan having a worse record, ranking, and team. Still, given the game is at the Big House, that means Vegas essentially sees this game as a toss-up.
After a long off-season of Michigan fans saying that their new offense would be lighting up scoreboards, they’re averaging 29 points a game. However, against teams with a winning record, that number plummets to just 17.25 points per game.
For some reason, Jim Harbaugh just can’t seem to get his offense to work. Notre Dame’s defense should feast on the Wolverines.
Luckily for Harbaugh, he still has Don Brown’s aggressive defense to attack the Irish offense. Book has struggled under pressure this season. If Michigan can keep Book on the run, they can keep it the low scoring type of game that they have thrived on in recent years.
Notre Dame is ranked in the top 10, and Harbaugh’s struggles against highly rated teams have been well documented. Michigan is 1-10 vs top 10 teams under Harbaugh. It’s gotten them a reputation as a team that can’t get over the hump, and are big game losers.
Not unlike Notre Dame under Brian Kelly.
Kelly has gotten further, making the CFP and a BCS Championship Game under Kelly, but the reputation remains.
Winning this game is one of the ways each coach can move beyond this reputation which haunts them. In either case, both teams desperately need a win. A third loss would effectively end Michigan’s bid to make a New Year’s Six Bowl. A second loss would kill an outside shot of Notre Dame making the Playoff.
Last time these two played their last game before a hiatus was in 2014, and Notre Dame won 31-0.
The two first met in 1887, and Michigan leads the all-time series 24-17-1. However, Notre Dame has won the last two. Let’s make that three in a row on Saturday.