Did Michigan Linebacker Throw Punch at Domer's Dome?

More loose ends from Ann Arbor to tie up. First, on Sunday Charlie Weis briefly alluded to players being punched during Saturday's game. No one quite followed up on it. But in the text/Twitter/YouTube age, you cannot hide anything.

Earlier this week someone sent this video into the South Bend Tribune, which anyone who DVR'd the game has at their disposal. Watch the end of the 2nd-quarter play, lower left on the screen, as Michigan linebacker Jonas Mouton (8) gets up off the ground and appears to take a swing at Irish center Eric Olsen (55).

First of all, as LaGarrette Blount will tell you, most punches are instigated by a previous action. Perhaps Mouton was upset that Olsen blocked him so vigorously, and arguably in the back, on the play. Maybe he didn't like that Olsen hit him after he'd already fallen at the end of the play, and possibly after the whistle was blown. Maybe something between the two had occurred earlier.

Regardless, the refs missed it and Olsen didn't miss any time if the punch even landed at all. What the video does demonstrate is how much action we miss on any play because our attention is usually focused on the football.

Another Young Signal Caller From Michigan

It's not -- as Tom Jones might say --unusual that one of Michigan State's team captains is its quarterback, Kirk Cousins. What is strange is that Cousins is a sophomore. And that entering this season he had but two starts in the green helmet. And that on this week's Spartan depth chart, Cousins is listed only as a co-starter along with fellow sophomore Keith Nichol.

The Spartans may remind you of that other team from the Great Lakes State to whom the Irish lost last Saturday. In fact, you may have flashbacks. Michigan State is as inexperienced offensively as it has been in years, led by a first-year starter at quarterback who will not take all of the game's snaps.

Like Tate Forcier, Cousins has been a precocious find. Although Michigan State is 1-1, Cousins is ranked sixth nationally in passing efficiency (Jimmy Clausen is third). The Holland, Mich., native has completed 65 percent of his 35 passes, with four touchdown passes and zero interceptions. By the way, the only other sophomore captain in Michigan State's 113-year history of football was not Bubba Smith, not Lorenzo White, not Plaxico Burress, not even Kirk Gibson ... it was Robert "Buck" McCurry, in 1946.

Head coach Mark Dantonio simply has not asked Cousins (17.5 pass attempts per game) to do too much in home games against Montana State and Central Michigan. This week, especially if the Spartans have to play from behind, that could change.


Why Jimmy Clausen is Salivating

Where the Spartans are particularly green is in the secondary: three of their four listed starters -- safeties Trenton Robinson and Marcus Hyde, and cornerback Jeremy Ware -- entered the season with a combined five starts among them. The fourth starter, cornerback Chris L. Rucker (not to be confused with teammate Chris D. Rucker, or comedian Chris Tucker), entered the season with 13 starts.

Two of the four are listed at 5-11 and 5-10, and if MSU uses the same tape measure as the Irish (who list Armando Allen at 5-10 ... really?), they may be more vertically challenged. More worrisome for Dantonio is the fact that the Spartans have allowed the opposition to complete 64.4 percent of their passes. And while one of those passers was Central Michigan's Dan LeFevour -- the all-time total offense leader in the MAC -- who threw for 352 yards on 34 of 47 passing, there's no reason to think that Clausen & Co. cannot equal those numbers.

All of which is to say that the Spartans are just as green as their home jerseys. At least on offense. The Spartans return six starters on that unit, but gone are quarterback Brian Hoyer and tailback Javon Ringer, who seemed to have been in East Lansing so long that he was actually on the last Spartan team that lost in South Bend.
The year was 1993.

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Stat of the Week

You'll be hearing this within the first 45 seconds of NBC's telecast, but Michigan State has beaten the Irish six straight times at Notre Dame Stadium. The Irish last defeated the Spartans in South Bend in 1993, when they finished 11-1. Michigan State's six-game win streak at Notre Dame Stadium is the longest any opponent has ever compiled, though I should mention that USC has won three straight here,


On Ratings

The Notre Dame-Michigan game, which did not take place in prime time, drew a 5.2 Nielsen rating for ABC. By comparison, the previous week's primetime game between Alabama and Virginia Tech on ABC did a 2.4 rating. Also by comparison, Saturday night's prime-time showdown between USC and Ohio State was the most-watched college football game in ESPN history, drawing a 7.3 rating (more than 10.6 million viewers). Notre Dame's season-opening home win against Nevada did a 1.3 share on NBC, or about one-fourth the rating of Saturday's game in Ann Arbor.

More Video

The Armando Allen did-he-or-didn't-he step out of bounds screen pass controversy only got hotter on Tuesday. First, Big East officals -- who Notre Dame uses for all of its home games except when Michigan visits (I know!) -- decided to chime in on the play and said that, based upon the ABC broadcast replays the Big Ten officials had at their disposal, the play should never have been overturned.

The Big Ten did not respond, although surely someone in their suburban Chicago offices muttered, "Who asked you?" under their breath.

Second, WNDU, the local NBC affiliate here in South Bend located just beyond the western edge of campus, had a camera at the game. And it was perfectly placed for that moment. WNDU showed a clip of that footage and proposed that Allen actually was out of bounds. Not that the Big Ten replay official had access to that video at the time, but WNDU just felt obliged to, you know, point that out.

It's amazing, by the way, how closely this all resembles the Brady Bunch episode in which Greg, injured and unable to play, takes photos of the game, one of which shows the opposing school's receiver also being out of bounds, on the game-winning touchdown. Even more amazing is how much of what I learned in college that I have forgotten, but that I still remember episodes of the Brady Bunch I saw 35 years ago. Scary.

Tip-Off

Hoops season does not begin until November, but there's already a front-page, news tip-off item here in South Bend. Last April Sara Gaspar, a 47 year-old catering employee here at Notre Dame, received a gratuity of $29,387 in her paycheck. The tip was supposed to be $29.87, but it's amazing how a typo can change one's fiscal outlook.

Gaspar claims that she attempted to notify Notre Dame of the error, but Notre Dame questions that. Meanwhile, Gaspar told the South Bend Tribune that "I guess because it was there and I was in a bad situation, I went out and spent it." She paid off some medical bills and purchased a new car with the unexpected fortune.

Notre Dame, which discovered the discrepancy in May, has filed a lawsuit. Gaspar's response: "How am I ever going to win against them?"

If you can run the ball, Sara, you can beat 'em.