Following a lovely 4-year break we now welcome the odorous Michigan Wolverines back to Notre Dame once again. When we last saw the winged helmets the Irish delivered one of the sweetest victories this century, sending Michigan on its way to a 5-7 season and a firing of head coach Brady Hoke. Now, with the Hoke-era seemingly a million miles away, and Michigan nailing a generational home-grown hire, the Wolverines are in a weird spot. They’ve typically taken care of business against weaker teams in recent years but are still longing for much more under 4th-year head coach Jim Harbaugh.

#14 Michigan (+1.5) at #11 Notre Dame

Notre Dame Stadium
South Bend, Indiana
Date: Saturday, September 1, 2018
Time: 7:30 PM ET
TV: NBC
Series: 24-17-1 Michigan

The matchup is pretty important and ESPN College GameDay is in town for the 8th time in history out of Notre Dame’s 28 overall appearances on the weekly game of the week feature. The Fighting Irish are 6-2 in their last 8 home games against Michigan, are ranked higher in the pre-season AP Poll, and Notre Dame was almost a rare home underdog in the Brian Kelly era until earlier this week.

3 Pre-game Topics

Harbaugh, Withering? 

It hasn’t been a perfect linear regression but Jim Harbaugh almost seems to be slowly descending down the college football pyramid of success. To date, a couple of conference titles at San Diego, a couple 2nd place finishes in the Pac-12 at Stanford, a couple 3rd place divisional finishes at Michigan, prior to last year’s 4th place finish within the Big Ten East. Selective editing (which doesn’t include a 44-19-1 visit to the NFL) so sue me.

With 4 years and $28,000,000 still remaining on his initial 7-year contract it’s not practical that Harbaugh is legitimately on the hot seat. Although, if he loses in South Bend–with an additional 4 more pre-season ranked teams to go on the 2018 schedule–things will start to get deliciously interesting.

For reasons largely revolving around a crumbling offensive system, things fell apart in mid-November 2016 and Harbaugh hasn’t been able to get things back on track as of yet. To that point, he was 19-3 (5-3 against ranked teams) to start his Michigan tenure and had his 2016 squad off to a 9-0 start averaging 48 points per game. Since then, the Wolverines are 11-9 and 0-7 against ranked teams while averaging only 24.7 points per game.

Kelly Renaissance?

Jim Harbaugh has beaten 5 ranked teams in 3 years at Michigan. Brian Kelly beat 4 ranked teams last year alone, so there’s that tidbit. Notre Dame did re-set the program in a positive way in 2017 although as per usual the lingering issues of a higher ceiling, fear of another drop-back, and Kelly’s future remain a constant topic in South Bend.

Kelly certainly isn’t in any greater position than Harbaugh to afford a loss. A defeat likely jacks up the improbability of making the playoffs and/or securing a major bowl game. A win very likely means a 4-0 start heading into another titanic matchup with Stanford. Buckle up.

Is it Worth it?

This is the first of a home-and-home series that will conclude on October 26, 2019 in Ann Arbor. It’s been a 4-year absence from not really paying much attention to Michigan, which honestly, felt pretty good didn’t it?

These upcoming 2 games could play a large role in any future signed contracts between these programs. We likely won’t even know who will be around in power at Notre Dame by the time a renewal is signed, either. Will these games be premier college football must-see TV? Also, Brian Kelly could finish his Irish career (assuming no new games in the series well into the 2020’s and beyond) going on a 4-1 run against Michigan which could feel damn satisfying.

2 Key Opponents

LB Devin Bush

Notre Dame is going to have its hands full dealing with defensive ends Rashan Gary (rumored to be banged up) and Chase Winovich who combined for 30.5 tackles for loss last year. Those two would’ve been nearly 40% of Notre Dame’s TFL’s last year, for reference. You can imagine new offensive line coach Jeff Quinn will be working in concert with Chip Long and quarterback Brandon Wimbush to set protections properly on the edges.

There may be overcompensation which could open the door to aggressive middle linebacker Devin Bush to wreak havoc. He’s used freely in Don Brown’s aggressive scheme and is constantly around the ball with 102 tackles last year. He wears #10 at the linebacker which is worth probably 18% more production due to increased swag levels.

QB Shea Patterson

Last week I was listening to the Ryen Russillo Show with Scott Van Pelt as a guest and they discussed a point that made me completely take notice. Shea Patterson quarterbacking at Michigan under Harbaugh is super weird. He’s athletic, kind of squirrely, and is coming from a super wide-open spread offense at Ole Miss. It’s far easier to take a spread quarterback and tweak his game to a more pro-style scheme, but still. This is an odd mash-up transfer that could take a while to gel with no spring practices in the books and UM rumored to be opening things up in a way that hasn’t occurred under Harbaugh.

Or, maybe Patterson is a whirling dervish and completely unpredictable for Clark Lea to combat in his first appearance? Michigan’s offense was an astoundingly bad 85th in S&P+ last year with an abysmal passing game bringing up the rear. Picture a slightly worse 2017 Notre Dame passing game in this regard without the accompanied 1,000 rushing yards from the quarterbacks.

Patterson is by far the most talented quarterback Harbaugh has worked with at Michigan and should craft a short-passing game to fit his strengths. The crucial breaks will be how many poor decisions he makes and how well Notre Dame tackles in space.

1 Prediction

I haven’t been able to focus much on anything else for this game beyond Notre Dame’s ability to establish a running game, particularly from the running back position. Michigan carried the 8th best rushing defense last year according to S&P+ and their defense overall is projected to be second only to Clemson for this upcoming season.

Notre Dame faced a pair of top 10 rushing defenses last year in Michigan State (4th) and Georgia (9th) being able to total 237 yards on 77 carries for 3.0 yards per rush, obviously performing much better against the Spartans as most remember. Perhaps more troubling, Irish running backs were successful on only 20 out of their 49 carries (40.8%) in these 2 games, including just 7 successful carries against the Dawgs.

I can’t imagine Notre Dame seriously relying on their running backs in this game–the Irish didn’t explore options against Georgia beyond Josh Adams while Brandon Wimbush finished with his third most carries of the 2017 season in that game, too. So much of this points to Wimbush going for 20+ carries which I don’t hate, it’s just what else can Notre Dame do on the ground outside of the quarterback?

Many are low-key buying Notre Dame’s running backs for the length of the season which I understand because their stock is so low. In part, I agree but for this opener I’m terrified. You’d think Michigan will be hyper-focused on bottling up Wimbush’s legs and that could leave some big lanes for the running backs. That’s my hope but I can also see the backs totaling about 38 yards with Tony Jones receiving 80% of the snaps as we’re left wondering where all this talk about Jafar Armstrong and Avery Davis was for the opener. As tough as it may be, I have a hard time seeing either of those guys getting much run for their first games ever in this game.

The path to victory has to be Notre Dame’s defense, not necessarily outplaying Michigan’s defense, but encountering a Michigan offense out of sorts with a quarterback barely able to find his way around campus yet, baffled by perhaps the country’s weirdest (would you expect anything else with Harbaugh?) offensive coordinator situation, and generally not handling (dare I say) a tough big-time road environment all that well.

A lot of this doesn’t make sense. Notre Dame was a significantly better team last year finishing 19 spots higher than Michigan in the F/+ ratings, the Irish are at home, and they are rated higher in the polls. Yet, they were not favored to win the football game until early this week when the line moved again presumably based on some Michigan injury news.

With Notre Dame football we’ve been stuck in this vortex where all of these big games have to mean something deeply to the future. I can’t remember a time when this wasn’t the case, certainly since covering the team. And yet, we’ve been down this road before (like Georgia last year!) and it’s hard to argue that any single game has really, truly mattered like we thought it could. More than anything, I’d like this game to have enormous meaning.

If the Irish win can they actually ride a very good, perhaps great, defense to post-season success? Or, if Harbaugh takes one out of South Bend do you believe it’s really going to usher in the end of the Kelly era and possibly a rough season? I don’t have these answers of course, all I can do is go with my gut and it says Michigan wins.

Although, it feels extremely unwise to bet against Kelly versus Michigan. Even his largest critics within Notre Dame have to admit maybe his greatest attribute is a reported utter disdain for the Wolverines. I feel foolish already betting against that.

Michigan 22
Notre Dame 17

QB controversy: I’ll say Wimbush puts up 17 of 31, 218 passing yards, 1 passing touchdown, 1 interception, 22 rushes, and 87 rushing yards. Decent numbers against this competition, the crowd never gets too restless due to a close dragged out game, and Book never sees any snaps.

Notre Dame wins if: They show that Michigan’s offensive line is the weakest unit on the field by a fair margin.

This guy could be a problem: Wideout Donovan Peoples-Jones is 6’2″ with the length of someone 6’6″ and runs like he’s 5’10” so he’s scary. He was going to be teaming up with Tarik Black (out, foot surgery) to form a dangerous young receiver corps and will now likely get a ton of targets, plus he’ll likely be used as a return man.

Sneaky big Irish advantage: Michigan’s punting situation is in limbo while Notre Dame’s Tyler Newsome–sometimes a little inconsistent–has shown he can be a huge asset flipping the field in a close game with little offense.

Since this preview was written largely in advance of the late line movement here’s more info on the Irish as a home underdog for reference: Notre Dame has been an underdog in 25 out of Brian Kelly’s 103 (24.2%) games coached. This will be only the 6th time the Irish will be a home underdog in this era joining Georgia Tech (2015), Stanford (2014), Oklahoma (2013), Utah (2010) and Stanford (2010). That’s a sneaky stat that Notre Dame has been favored in its last 17 (well, now 18) home games.

As an underdog, Notre Dame has been 3-2 at home, 4-2 at neutral sites, and 2-12 on the road.