Bye Bye Blue

Tonight will be the last game in the Big House for the Irish for a while.  This "schedule-gate" nonsense and coaches comments about the rivalry seemed silly fodder for the newspapers and blogs.  Of course this is great rivalry and the recent history of close games has made it must-see TV.  I expect ND will own 4-5 of the top watched games this season again with USC, Oklahoma, Stanford and Michigan being up there for sure.   I am confident the Wolverines will appear on the schedule again before too long.

But now it is time to leave them with some bad memories.  The spread has us as 4 point underdogs which is fine with me, we seem to do well when we are not favored.  The game 2 years ago was such a raucous and crazy loud affair it is hard to imagine it being even louder but stay tuned.  It may be.  Michigan fans talk about that night like it was a sacred event.  We know there is almost nothing more fun than winning on the last play of the game and the first night game factor added to the excitement.  Would be nice to disappoint the Michigan faithful and send them home early, but I doubt we will see that.  Expect another nail biter.

I do think we will win for a few reasons.   #1 and most important is that we have a better team than Michigan.  I think we can handle them on the line of scrimmage both ways and that is where the game will be won.  The other advantage for the Irish is our depth, the second string can play and will give our front guys a break when they need one.  Finally, we have been in a lot of big games in big stadiums and have the poise to play 60 minutes.  We can hang in there on close games too as we have shown again and again.  In particular it would be nice to score early and quiet the crowd a bit.

Keys to the game are pretty obvious.  No turnovers.  Make Michigan earn every score with long drives.  On offense, spread the ball around to keep Michigan on its toes.  Tommy is pretty good at getting the Irish in the right formation and protection but Michigan will throw in some new wrinkles.  We are likely to see more pressure from our D and 1/1 coverage on the corners.  I think the Linebackers are key for us this week, need to step up a bit there.  And finally, can we please win the special teams battle with some good kicks and perhaps field goals?   This cannot be a liability. 

So I say we win a close one again with a pretty decent point total.  Band of the Fighting Irish will be there to add our music to the effort.

ND 31, Michigan 28

GO IRISH!