Like many of you I felt an unease as Michigan put together a decent season. Used to seeing Harbaugh’s teams sulk and give up every time the slightest adversity presented itself in a road game, I figured Wisconsin would smash them, they didn’t. Like clockwork, they dropped a winnable game at MSU, which I figured locked them into 9-3 with a perfunctory bowl game pout-fest blowout. It didn’t. I got pretty excited at the idea of Ohio State lambasting them 78-6, but we know how that turned out.
A funny thing happened on the way to that beat down, though. Well, less a “funny” thing than a “Rocky IV” thing: Michigan came out and played poised, physical, team oriented football and despite having accumulated roughly 1/4th the premium talent on their roster as had Ohio State, they bopped the Buckeyes in the nose and won handily, in a game that wasn’t as close as the 42-27 final indicated.
Rather than being put out by the Wolverines’ success, though, I have been shocked to find myself at the threshold of cheering them on! Why? Read on!
Stipulated: Hating Michigan is Very Fun and Rewarding
Since 2009 or so, Michigan is the non-ND team I’ve watched more than any other. It hasn’t been “hate watching” per se, moreso that I just love watching bad things happen to them. And there’s been a lot to love:
- The late RichRod era, when any team with a pulse (plus Illinois) could push around the Wolverine defense with delightful impunity. Game crushing turnovers, crying recitation of Josh Groban lyrics, showing-your-ass classism from Michigan Men against the coach from West Virginia who dared to bring the spread n’ shred to Ann Arbor, and Greg Robinson rubbing a stuffed animal all over the faces of his players during a road-paving by Wisconsin;
- The late Hoke-era, when negative net rushing yards against Michigan State were a favorite pastime, ass-slaps the height of in-game coaching, and a loveable lout in the driver’s seat somehow lowered the collective university IQ by one-third;
- And, perhaps most richly, the heretofore pervasive floundering of wundercoach Jim Harbaugh, whom the wits on the Victors Board until very recently hilariously referred to as “Low T Jimmy.”
A bitter rival who tried to strangle ND’s football program in its infancy, Michigan provides a great foil to Notre Dame. Whereas Michigan’s tradition, history and standing have, with some exceptions, been built on decades of sturdy but relatively nondescript achievement, Notre Dame’s history has been a roller coaster: grand arcs punctuated by improbable moments and larger than life personalities. Notre Dame has Ronald Reagan as The Gipper, Rudy, and the Four Horsemen. Michigan has the most wins, The Big House, and The Big Chill. This drives Michigan supporters to distraction, and ND fans take outsized umbrage at the resentment.
Both schools fancy themselves as ideal matchings of academic prestige and big-time athletics. There are huge overlaps in applicant pools, feeder schools and post-graduation career paths. There’s a familiarity and resonance between each place and fanbase that creates something of a sibiling rivalry dynamic. Add in some unbelievably memorable contests over the years and you’ve got a recipe for Sports Hate.
Now add to those dynamics the overlapping existential crises of extended down periods and the long-and-tenuous climbs upwards into the light both programs have been mired within for a generation. Both fanbases fear, perhaps rightly, that only one of them can be asked to the ball and every ounce of beauty the other accumulates is a direct threat to their own chances.
But we both need to look past our old, comfortable hatreds and realize there are bigger picture problems.
Fighting for the Scraps from Longshanks’ Table
As fun as it is for ND fans to wallow in Michigan’s crapulence (and vice versa), we need to acknowledge there’s some real whistling past the graveyard going on. Perhaps the most overwhelming trend of the playoff era has been class consolidation at the high end. A mere five schools own twenty-three of the twenty-four CFP victories since implementation of the playoff system (pour one out for Oregon in the very first CFP game ever). There are ramifications to this! Very Top Talent is (probably correctly) perceiving the chance of winning a championship at any school outside of that “Win in the Playoffs” as prohibitively small.
Here’s a look at how many Top 100 Recruits the ‘Real Power 5’ schools have recruited in the latter-day playoff era (e.g., the 2019-22 classes), with also-rans ND and Michigan thrown in for scale.
_________________________________________
Alabama – 47 Top 100 Prospects
Georgia – 38 Top 100 Prospects
OSU – 32 Top 100 Prospects
LSU – 25 Top 100 Prospects
Clemson – 24 Top 100 Prospects
____________
ND – 11 Top 100 Prospects
Michigan – 8 Top 100 Prospects
_________________________________________
You can see the implication. The rich are getting ever richer, which promises a vicious cycle of talent acquisition to such point that other schools really end up doing nothing more than jostling for stature as sacrificial lambs on the high altar of a playoff game. Of the 14 CFP seminfinal games played to date, the outcomes of only three have been held in doubt into the fourth quarter, and of those games two of them (OSU-Bama ’14, Clemson-OSU ’19) were intra-power-5 tilts.
There are a handful of “talent black holes” in college football, and they’re sucking the stakes out of the game for everyone else. What’s more, this is accelerating.
The Four Bonus Armies of The Apocalypse
This is the image I really ought to have made the header for this article:
This is what’s been happening to college football in the playoff era. Saban is out there getting 7 bonus armies every turn. OSU is picking up reinforcements from the windswept heartlands of Fortress Europe. Clemson has been cruising through domination of the entire western hemisphere, and only needing to defend like 2-3 territories. Georgia is the kid who is just overloading Indonesia with masses of armies but can’t get any purchase in Southeast Asia.
In this scenario, ND and Michigan are jockeying for position in the mid-board territories of Africa. You can make a persuasive argument that ND actually struck first, Ian Book finding Avery Davis across the vastness of the South Atlantic to rupture Clemson’s hold on South America. It was a close-run thing, though. The Tigers swept back through the token force the Irish had left behind only a few weeks thence. Perhaps some damage had been done, though. The Buckeyes thrashed the Greenland garrison that postseason, and now today we see the Pawprint Empire wobbling how it has not for a decade.
Enter 2021. Michigan’s trampling over Southern Europe was even more resounding. Could this roughshod thrashing of the Buckeyes reverberate throughout The Continent for more than a turn or two? Hard to know, but it’s possible a good showing in Miami could bolster Ann Arbor’s Italian force to a degree not measurable only in men, but perhaps by horses or even cannon. And who, ask yourself, would stand to benefit most immediately from a crisis in the EuroZone? Why none other than General Freeman and his troops, who are embarking from desert shores in an invasion of Columbus/Western Europe on the third of September. Two months after that, we’re heading back to Brazil. Chaos is a ladder, and ND has been poised and ready to climb for a good long while now.
Today, Michigan constitutes not our blood enemies in an interceine war for to be the last eliminated from the game, but our allies in the glorious cause of breakout! The board has been almost fatefully tilted against us both, and in moments like that all disruptions of a hostile hegemony ought to be welcome. If Michigan can play a few RISK cards and break through, than so can we, and that’s exactly the proof-of-concept that can make that pivotal recruit and/or 3rd/4th year player believe they really can make all the difference for the next year’s team.
TL; DR – Go Blue!
Nope.
Do you guys like the article
This is either going to make us all rich through page-views or the site will be closed by dinner time.
Dinner? Mike is out to lunch. Michigan winning makes it tougher for ND, not easier.
I love the risk analogy actually.
But I’m not sure quite the argument. If Michigan wins, is the idea it shows that those with less talent CAN win in the playoffs?
I’ve never seen greater collective self control than this article being up for five hours now and no downvotes on this comment.
I get the premise of the article and for the most part agree. I mean when ohio state won in 2014, it did sort of feel like a huge opening for the 2015 irish team. michigan with comparable talent to ND making a push would feel similar. I have to think we all feel less pessimistic about the ohio state opener next year than we did a month ago. I mean foskey, aydemioli twins, plus mills and another guy dominating up front doesn’t seem as far fetched after michigan did it. Plus they will have earned whatever they get, having to go through ohio state, georgia and bama. having said all that, hell nah, I won’t ever root for michigan.
It would only make sense if Notre Dame hasn’t made the playoffs in 2/3 of the last years with the same basic formula (team with northern geography, run first, great o-line, great RB, very stout front 7).
The problem is, we’ve seen how this movie ends. Regardless of what happens to Michigan, Notre Dame still needs way more top 100-150 players to compete on the field with the elite (Alabama, tOSU, Clemson, Georgia).
Even last year, Kelly liked to say and some of the media still repeats something like “we were right there with them in the trenches, Bama had little to no advantage up front, we were their equals”….As if Najee Harris didn’t average 8.3 yards/carry and Kyren had 4.0. Still huge issues on what was supposed to be where gains were made, and that’s even before dealing with the fact the powerhouse playoff teams almost always a have future 1st round QBs, at least 2 stud WRs, probably a great RB or TE in the mix too, and ND usually has 1 of those things at the same time, at most.
Michigan making it or doing well might provide a road map for how ND can get there, but ND has gotten there multiple times already. Michigan can’t perfect the formula any further.
I won’t ever root for Michigan.
You saw it here first, folks. Cardinal fans and Cub fans together in body, soul and spirit. This may be a sign of the Impending Apocalypse..
.
HCH is literally speechless right now.
I hope he’s ok .
Like some others have said, I understand your sentiment. However, there can be no cheering for michigan. They quite literally tried to choke our program out of existence. To date, I’ve not heard anyone from there apologize for Yost’s antics, and I doubt they ever will.
No, the only acceptable outcome: they lose this game 84-0. They only make it across midfield once, settling for a field goal attempt, which is subsequently blocked and returned for a touchdown. This brutal loss begins a renewed institutional tailspin. They never win another game, in any sport, ever. Three years later they disband the entire athletic department, tear down all stadiums and buildings on campus, shut down the university, and salt the ground.
Only then will justice be served upon the skunkbears.
You know, it might be time to forgive Michigan for Yost’s behavior. It has been a hundred years now.
And, as Oscar Wilde said, always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them more.
Oscar Wilde never had to attend a Michigan/Notre Dame game with Michigan fans. Had he done so, he no doubt would have condemned them to a fiery pit for all eternity.
If the main argument is that we don’t want “the rich to get richer” so we need to cheer for a talent-poor team then why aren’t we cheering for Cincinnati?
This, I can get behind. Plus, as our only loss, a Cincinnati win, provides both hope and a small amount of vindication.
Totally concur!
Oh, I’m definitely cheering for Cincinnati. Until they lose to Alabama. (Unless they don’t! Then I will cheer for them all the way.)
No
So having one of our top 2 or 3 recruiting competitors win a national title, would help us recruit?
I understand how it could possibly happen with like a million other things also falling into place. But what I think is much more likely, is that Michigan would simply enter that top group, and there would be 2 NC caliber schools in the Midwest that could boast winning a playoff game and/or NC, which would make recruiting for ND much harder. UM is already a football elite (in perception), them winning isn’t going to suddenly make kids start coming to ND instead of Bama. But it might make Dante Moore commit to UM.
Cincy winning would make a much better case for your stated end goal.
This smells of someone trying to either reverse jinx Michigan (bravo if so), or convince himself that something good could possibly come from the actual worst case scenario (emotionally and for ND’s success).
ND getting ranked best OL and LB class in the country! Only other school with 2 groups is aTm (DL and DB).
https://247sports.com/LongFormArticle/College-football-recruiting-best-position-classes-2022-class-178880947/#178880947_5
They could also be joining this elite group over the years. That would also be a better alternative to Michigan joining the group.
aTm has three total groups, DL, DB, and TE. They took three TEs, which seems weird to me, but what do I know, I’m just a fan of TEU.
Completely missed TEs. aTm had quite the haul.
$uch recruiting $ucce$$! $EC! $EC!
It ju$t mean$ more.
It’s never been more important to point out that the opinion of one writer is not necessarily that of the entire publication.
This. I had to dig up my log-in just to co-sign with Andy here.
And here I thought ND basketball had killed Joe.
Both my parents went to Michigan. There they met their roommates, who also wed and are effectively my Aunt and Uncle. I grew up a Michigan fan. Literally the sole reason I applied to Notre Dame is I went on what I thought was a fake college visit my senior year of high school that overlapped with the ND-Michigan game in South Bend, basically entirely so I could just go to the game. What I am saying is, I would literally not exist nor would have I attended the University of Notre Dame but for Michigan. And, with that context, I say:
No.
Did your parents and their roommates ever rent a lakehouse after their friend’s funeral, and many hilarious hijinks ensued? Also, is it possible that one of your parent’s former roommates looks a lot like you?
Can I downvote an article?
Other people are saying they “agree with the premise” of the article, but I don’t think I’m in that camp. If a recruit goes to Not ND, then they don’t go to ND. It doesn’t make ND’s job any easier if there are more good teams. The upper echelon of teams can still only have 11 players on the field, just like every other team, so if their bench goes 2-3 deep with 4*&5* players, those 4*&5* players aren’t going to FSU/Miami/Mich/USC/(other random decent team ND schedules). Why add in extra mines to the minefield? I’d rather know that the path to a Championship involved beating Alabama rather than worrying about more peripheral teams. The goal should be to once again become as hated as Alabama, not for Alabama to become less good.
I do think dispersing talent more evenly would likely be positive for ND, but the net effect of possibly losing talent to Michigan in this scenario seems likely to be negative.
If you just want dispersed talent join team 24 school playoff (just like the FCS). Players want to play in games that matter, and right now the way to guarantee that is to go to Alabama or Georgia. If OkSt, MSU, and Pittsburgh were all hosting playoff games this year players would have lots more options about where to go to get to play in important games.
This article feels like a direct response to Eric sending all the writers surplus Adidas ND gear and a Jelly of the Month subscription as their Christmas bonus.
That’s the gift that keeps on giving all year round.
That it is, juicebox! That it is…
Never.
Yeah. No.
Consider this:
No
No
No.
And it made me a little nauseous to click on that.
I would root for any team in America, and most other places, before rooting for Michigan. I almost feel like finding an eye washing station just from reading this article.
Gather round, everyone.
Faith restored after reading the comments. Muck Fishigan. Go Cinci!
gif fail…
self reply
In Gator Bowl news, aTm is dropping out of the bowl game because 4 of their 42 COVID negative players are kickers, which makes them useless.
I’m getting a bit concerned about the status of all these bowl games. Seems like more disruption to the schedule is certainly possible. Did you see the playoff committees rulings on the semis and finals?
Yeah, the playoff committee thinks it’s a good idea to win the championship by forfeiture, morons that they are.
Yeah….. no. I just don’t buy the premise. Barring some fundamental shift in college football, it’s going to be dominated by a top handful of schools at a time for any given period. Especially now with the transfer rules and NIL, college football is essentially becoming a pro league with no draft, no salary cap, and contracts with built in player options. Kids are gonna want to go to the school with best combo of: money, chance of making it to the league, playing time, and winning a title. If I were a player looking at my options, I would want to play for the best teams that regularly win titles and send players to the league.
Michigan winning won’t help us in anyway whatsoever.
That’s exactly so. And the transfer portal is making the rich richer. Bama, for instance, is losing guys who don’t see the field to the portal, and receiving guys like Jamison Williams, Henry To Oto O (can’t swear I spelled that right) in exchange. This year they’re getting Eli Ricks from LSU and Jahmyr Gibbs from GA Tech, the best DB and RB respectively in the portal.
Same thing with NIL–the rich are getting richer.
Yup, this is putting us at a huge disadvantage against those elite teams.
nope, nope and nope
Skimming the comments, I also have to say: wouldn’t a midwestern school with a very similar profile becoming Playoff-worthy be a *problem* for Notre Dame? Michigan already still wins recruiting battles against us when their program has had at most three noteworthy seasons in the fifteen years prior to this season; what happens when people start viewing them as our equal or near-equal as a program?
That makes sense. Also applies to a lesser degree to Penn State in the years they are good or recruiting well.
I suppose programs will rise and fall all the time, but for Kelly’s stint (and certainly Kelly 2.0) Notre Dame was advantageously about perfectly positioned with USC in the desert, Michigan/Penn St/Stanford mostly down and/or fading away. Too bad it took him until 2019 to talk about top-5 classes (and then seemingly do not nearly enough legwork personally to make it happen).
Yea I think I agree here. I don’t see how it’s good for a regional school to have more success (other than tOSU) than ND. I’m not sure that would help ND in any way. IMO, Alabama winning is best for ND. They’re already top dog, it isn’t going to change anything if they win again.
As a strictly football-related matter, Cincy winning by COVID default is the best scenario for ND.
Never hearing the end of how Cincinnati won a National title and ND didn’t would not be great for someone who lives in the area lol.
Gee in the portal.
I looked Gee up and he was only a three star (#398 overall) and kinda meh. Thought I remembered him being a much bigger deal, or at least thought that way until now.
Guess this is a sign of Henderson + Watts moving into the future of safety, with so many other DBs in the recent two classes. Probably going to be more DB transfers in the next 12 months as the numbers sort out and some aren’t making moves or seeing a path to do so.
Yea there was a lot of buzz about him as maybe even moving to rover (I thought) as a really good athlete (so maybe the LB class coming in has something to do it with it too). But like you said with a lot of numbers being thrown at the problem (whether secondary or at LB) it seems like some of it will work itself out through attrition.
No.
Ok, admittedly I don’t come around here much anymore. But when the F did we start CHEERING FOR MICHIGAN???? Hell to the no on that one, sir. I hope UGA steps on their throat and they lose by 50.
The jinx worked