Notre Dame at Michigan

Notre Dame comes to the Big House in a game has lost its luster from a fan's perspective. But it's still very important to both of these teams. An unheard-of 0-3 start awaits the loser. Ryan Mallett will start at QB for the Wolverines and he, as strange as it sounds, may be the infusion of energy this team needs. They have a rallying point to look to - a reason to believe things will be better. Think they have mailed it in? NOT! RB Mike Hart guaranteed a victory against the Irish, so they are coming to play. If you remember back to 1998, Michigan opened with losses to Notre Dame and Syracuse, and went on to win the Big Ten Championship. The problem so far this season has been a bad defense. In this game though they fortunately face a very weak Notre Dame offense. They are led by a freshman QB in Jimmy Clausen. The Wolverines defense struggled against mobile QB's running out of a spread offense, and that is not what Notre Dame has with Clausen. This is a Michigan team that was ranked in the top 5 in the country to start the season, so you know the talent is there somewhere. In contrast, this is an Irish team that was expected to struggle. And they have. Notre Dame used three QB's vs. Georgia Tech, and still couldn't move the ball. They also could do nothing against Penn State and the result is 13 points in two weeks! The defense was also shredded apart, allowing almost 1,100 yards in the two games. Hart will get a chance to back-up his prediction, because he is going to get a lot of carries and Notre Dame can't stop either the run or the pass. We would be surprised if this game is within two TD's because it is more likely to be a blow-out Michigan win. And you can bet if Michigan has a chance to post a massive win, they will not even think of letting up after their bad start. Michigan minus the points.