Michigan in Rear-View Mirror for Irish

Some final thoughts on Notre Dame-Michigan: Neither team was ranked in the top 15, so why did it feel like such a classic contest? Is it just the uniforms? The 110,000 fans? The presence of Holly Rowe on the sidelines? Maybe a little of all of the above, plus: a kickoff return for a touchdown, a Statue of Liberty play, a gutsy, fourth down QB sneak, a last-second touchdown and no shortage of controversy.

Last year's game was forgettable, but this one had the feel of a classic. Michigan should feel awfully good about itself after the win. On to the musings:

1) Who knew that Michigan's Forcier would be the more golden Tate on Saturday? Michigan frosh QB Tate Forcier has been rightly praised for his performance in Saturday, while Irish wideout Golden Tate has drawn mild criticism for the two fourth-quarter passes he dropped.

Tate actually had a pretty decent outing, catching a game-high nine passes for 115 yards and two touchdowns. Much has been made about the two passes Tate allowed to slip through his hands in the fourth quarter -- a rarity considering the bizarre grabs Tate has become known for the past two seasons -- but both both drops occurred on the same drive, a march that ended with Tate catching a pass at the 5-yard line and practically strolling into the end zone after the defender overplayed the ball.

Two dropped passes? Yes. But, considering that the Irish scored on that drive, anyway -- that Tate scored, in fact -- those drops were mostly irrelevant.

2) I'm watching a replay of Saturday's game. Forcier's fourth-down QB sneak in which he jukes Irish linebacker Darius Fleming and then heads upfield, completely untouched, for a 31-yard touchdown. And then I hear Matt Millen, ABC's color commentator, say, "If you look real close, there's a jock strap on the field and it belongs to Darius Fleming."

I have two problems (maybe more, but I'll list only two) with what Millen said: First, for Matt Millen to make a snarky remark about any perceived gridiron failure taking place in the state of Michigan is absolutely shameless. Really?

Second, Millen should know better. Fleming had outside contain and he did his job. He kept Forcier from getting to the outside. Watch the play on YouTube if you don't have it on DVR. Middle linebacker Brian Smith blitzes, but he heads into traffic instead of staying home where the hole was. Smith buys the handoff fake hook, line and sinker and is still heading upfield, lost in a sea of offensive linemen, when Forcier is five yards downfield.

3) That interception by Kyle McCarthy in the fourth quarter? Tom Zbikowski would have pitched it -- Raeshon McNeil and Darrin Walls were both waiting ... it was like watching the All-Blacks take on the Kiwis. Anyway, Zibby would have pitched it and who knows, McNeil had plenty of daylight in front of him.

4) If you want to see the best run-blocking the Irish have done in, what, all of Weis's tenure, take a gander on the final touchdown scamper by Armando Allen. Sam Young basically steamrolls his man all the way to Ypsilanti, while Chris Stewart takes his man into the end zone. The entire O-line just owned the line of scrimmage on that play, something that hasn't been seen around here in awhile.

5) You know who is extremely relieved that no one in Ann Arbor is talking about him this week? LaTerryal Savoy. He's the Wolverine wideout who dropped the easy catch in the end zone one play before the game-winning TD.

6) On the game-winning touchdown, the body language of Harrison Smith says it all. It looks as if the Irish line up in the proper defense. Smith is lined up inside Greg Matthews to cut off any slant option. McNeil is lined up to outside shoulder of Mathews and, if he stays there, the Wolverine wideout never comes open. The Irish corner bites on the inside fake, though, and that allows Mathews to spring open outside. And there's Smith, just looking on helplessly.



7) It happens every September (and usually following a loss). One extremely earnest, hyper-sensitive Notre Dame undergrad (aren't you being redundant, JW?) takes issue with some aspect of the Saturday football experience (e.g., seniors leaving the game in the third quarter of a blowout, or male students' unhealthy infatuation with the USC Song Girls, etc.), expressing said displeasure in a letter to the editor of The Observer.

Said letter is published, triggering a vigorous excoriation from another student or students in the following day's paper. This is what's so great about Twitter: the entire slapfight is over in a matter of minutes. But in the old world forum of print media, the volley of insults can last for up to two weeks. It usually ends, by the way, with a third voice writing in to The Observer admonishing both of them for devoting so much energy to an argument about football when there's so much hunger and social injustice in the world. Who knew Sinead O'Connor reads The Observer, right?

Anyway, the first shot in this season's letters-to-the-editor war was fired Monday by Kale Frank, a drum major in the Notre Dame band. Frank, who had a sideline view of the Michigan loss as did the entire band, chastised the football players for not remaining on the field after the crushing defeat to sing the alma mater with the band.

Seriously.

Frank wrote that "I win and lose, live and die" with the team every Saturday.

It was no surprise, then, to open Tuesday's Observer and find this rebuttal from N.D. senior Corey McNeilly:

"Dear Kale Frank,
You dress up in a funny costume and play an instrument. Nothing more, nothing less. Please do not feel like you have the authority to berate the football team because they decided to leave the game early."

McNeilly signed off with a "Very Respectfully".

That is so Domer.