Notre Dame Wrap-Up

Well, that sucked.

We just handed the game to the Irish. 4 fumbles and 2 picks will do it every time. In a game like this, in bad weather, it really comes down to special teams and turnovers. When you turn the ball over on special teams, it's even worse. But that much we all know. It's easy to pick out things you didn't like yesterday. But the real challenge going forward, is seeing what we did right, and how to continue doing those things.

And for this Michigan fan, it starts with keeping Steven Threet as the starter. He showed good leadership yesterday, and he started to get those passes completed that were sailing 5 yards high in weeks 1 and 2. He showed that we can check off, move with the ball, and make good decisions in a tough situation. Sherridan showed how easy it was to throw interceptions in game like that. Which made Threet's performance that much more impressive.

Also, who can complain or find anything wrong with Sam McGuffie? He's proving that he can make plays happen. He was the one and only spark that Michigan could find when they got down 21-0 in the first quarter. His TD run was an odd combination of "Why aren't they tackling him?" to "Do they even know he has the ball?". Yeah, it was something special. It's easy to see why Fred Jackson, RB coach, is so high on him and fellow freshman RB Michael Shaw.

Aside from 2 real scoring drives , the defense really didn't do too bad. They were put in terrible positions early after 2 UM fumbles deep in their own territory. The DL was not able to get to Clausen, which can be attributed to a slick field, and a much improved ND offensive line. The DBs did a pretty good job covering NDs receivers. I still can't tell if I like Morgan Trent or not. Every time he does something wrong, he comes back and makes a great play. He has a reputation of getting burned in his career.

But, I will say that at halftime, I was pretty confident that Michigan would come out and score at least two more times. Of course, the rain took care of that. But that is a good sign looking ahead to the Big Ten schedule. I think this young team grew up a little bit against Notre Dame. It helps to go into some tough environments and play good teams. Michigan showed that they could come back and that they had some fight in them. This game, and what the players learned about themselves, will pay off down the road.

I will agree with some of my fellow Michigan bloggers, the refs sucked. They handed ND some pretty flaky PI calls. Especially a couple that occurred on 3rd downs. And they also screwed Michigan out of their first touchdown when Threet his Matthews in the first quarter on a long fade route. Matthews had his hand under the ball and had control of it. I don't care what the terrible Notre Dame commentators say. Those guys were awful! Thank God we don't have to listen to those guys for two more years. I didn't know anyone could suck harder than Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit. But Tom Hammond and Pat Haden take the cake! I mean WOW, they are the worst! Way to go NBC!