Michigan (1-0) at Notre Dame (1-0)

Last Year / Last Week

Notre Dame battled back from an 11 point 4th quarter deficit, but lost to Michigan 38-34 in Ann Arbor last year on a 5-yard Tate Forcier TD pass with 11 seconds left. The Irish were ranked #18 at the time. Jimmy Clausen was 25-42 for 336 yards and 3 TDs. Golden Tate and Michael Floyd combined for 16 catches and 246 yards. The Irish had a lead with 5:13 left but could not hold it.

Michigan handed supposed Big East contender Connecticut a 30-10 opening weekend spanking in a newly refurbished Big House last Saturday. An NCAA record 113K+ fans were in attendance and they were treated to a record-setting performance by sophomore QB Denard Robinson. Robinson rushed for 197 yards, the most ever by Michigan quarterback, and completed 19 of 22 passes for another 186 yards. He really was a one man gang, running for a score and throwing for another.


Michigan Offense vs. Notre Dame Defense

OK, so Denard Robinson can run. He’s fast. I think we’re all pretty clear on that by now. But IFP thinks it is safe to say that Robinson isn’t going to rush for the better part of 200 yards every weekend. If he does, Michigan might go 12-0. Rather, we believe that smart, disciplined defensive teams will force Robinson (6-0, 190 from Delray Beach, FL) to make tough decisions in his reads and take some ill-advised shots downfield.

So how do the Irish contain Robinson? Clearly that’s the question of the moment.

Recent history suggests that slowing down the spread option requires defenses to be packing at least two if not all three of the following items in their bag of tricks: defensive team speed, excellent open field tackling, and focused gap responsibility/pursuit discipline. The Irish speed on defense is what it is, for the time being anyway, and this is frankly IFP’s biggest concern going into Saturday’s match-up with not only Robinson but with swift, smurf-like RB Vincent Smith (5-6, 180) who ran for 51 yards on 14 carries and a TD vs. UConn and WR Darryl Stonum (6-2, 195) who caught 5 Robinson passes last week. In all honesty, Notre Dame may not face a better athlete than Robinson, and his reported 4.3 sec 40-yard dash speed, all season. We did see glimpses of open field tackling improvement last weekend vs. Purdue, however (note Gary Gray’s 8 solos from his cornerback spot and the overall positive play of first-time starting sophomore ILB Carlo Calabrese). And we think Notre Dame’s Kelly/Diaco-inspired discipline on defense may already be better than at any point last season…at least any time in the last 5 or 6 games of the 2009 season. The four sacks and two INTs the Irish racked up while simultaneously preventing the big play and keeping penalties to a bare minimum vs. the Boilermakers and their spread-ready QB import from Coral Gables (Robert Mavre) were all very encouraging.

When facing the spread option attack, particularly the Rich Rodriguez variant that keys off the ‘zone read’ where a dual-threat QB makes the hand-off-or-keep decision out of the shotgun based on what the backside defensive end does at the line of scrimmage (an innovation that many actually credit Rodriguez with inventing), team defense and trust are paramount. Each player, all 11, must do his job on every play and trust that his teammates will do theirs. The Irish defensive line (Kapron Lewis-Moore, Ian Williams, and Ethan Johnson) must consistently attack the line of scrimmage and demand as many double teams as possible. Notre Dame LBs Manti Te’o, Kerry Neal, Darius Fleming, and Calabrese must manically maintain their gaps and occasionally “fire” when called upon (particularly Fleming from the weak side). And the Irish secondary will be asked to make a lot of plays in space while not over-committing to run support, given UM’s surprising success in the air as well as on the ground in the Connecticut home opener (IFP editorial staff note – Denard Robinson couldn’t hit Lake Michigan with a football if he was standing at the end of Navy Pier a year ago, so we are going to hold off on any proclamations about that facet of his game until more data is available).


Notre Dame Offense vs. Michigan Defense

This might be where the game will have to be won for Notre Dame, as often the best way to stop an opposing QB with a unique skill set is to keep him on the sidelines sipping H2O while your offense applies relentless, chain-moving pressure. Last week’s UConn game notwithstanding, IFP believes the 2010 Michigan defense could again be pedestrian vs. national standards. The Wolves couldn’t stop anyone a year ago (393 yards per game allowed…a boatload) and by far the best player on that sub-par defense was lost to the NFL last April (DE Brandon Graham, 13th overall pick in the 1st Round by the Philadelphia Eagles). Sustained, Dayne Crist-led drives out of the Irish no huddle that consistently end in points could wear down and soften the UM defense in the 2nd half and keep the pressure on Robinson and the RichRod spread to hold serve. In addition to the loss of Graham, UM’s best defensive back from a year ago (CB Donavan Warren) graduated and projected starting corner Troy Woolfolk remains knicked to our knowledge. So IFP again sees positive match-up potential for the Irish passing game this weekend.


Vegas

Notre Dame (-4) as of Thursday.

There has been an upset, per the Vegas line, in 5 of the last 6 and 7 of the last 10 Notre Dame-Michigan games. The home team has won 9 of the last 11.


Summary / Pick

The IFP staff is split on this one. The scouting department worries that a team speed disparity and Rodriguez’s three-year program rebuilding head start will rear its ugly head on Saturday. And the advanced analytics department, using still-a-little-early-to-be-reliable Week 2 Sagarin ratings and a dash of grad school statistics training, estimates a 58% win probability for Michigan a 67% probability that Wolverines cover the 4 point spread. But the sales and marketing staff, still reveling from the Brian Kelly-led Labor Day weekend Kool Aid kegger before, during, and after the Purdue win, sees not one, but two football teams with a lot at stake getting together on Saturday in Notre Dame Stadium and not one but two young QBs leading these teams. And only one of these two young quarterbacks will be making his first “big moment” road start in a rival’s building. Fears of how the Notre Dame will stop the UM spread option, while valid, are only half of the story. Michigan has to stop the Irish as well.

Notre Dame 30 Michigan 27