If Michigan’s woes in the early season are a source of much frustration, at least there is the ever-so-slight consolation that Notre Dame has started 0-2 as well.

This Saturday, the two winningest programs in college football history will battle for their first victory of the year.

Adding to the intrigue is the fact that both Michigan and Notre Dame will be starting freshman quarterbacks, the top two recruits in the 2007 class. Charlie Weis named Jimmy Clausen as Notre Dame’s starter going into the Penn State game, feeling the Emu gave the Irish the best chance to win, both now and in the future. Michigan’s starter will be Ryan Mallett, not by choice, but because starter Chad Henne suffered a leg injury against Oregon.

It will be interesting to see if Weis changes his mind on starters, going with Demetrius Jones after viewing game film on Michigan’s pathetic performance against scramblers in the last two contests.

This is a prime opportunity for Michigan to get their first win, since, as poorly as the Wolverines have played, Notre Dame is just bad. Mike Hart is among the confident players wearing Maize-and Blue, as he guaranteed victory against the Irish following the Oregon embarrassment.

Posted under Personnel

In the Dark Ages before a strong, Michigan blogosphere developed, the only outlet online for a fan to see others’ opinion and voice his or her own were free, online message boards. Premium message boards and blogs have claimed the best posters from the ESPN.com message boards and left them a demolished wasteland with sticky caps-lock keys. I plan on venturing into these groups of partisan savages and report back with the most outlandish claims and back and forth claims of “OWNAGE!1”

In today’s edition we explore the rantings and ravings of a poster who goes by the handle WCD34. He is what the local refer to as a “troll.” A vagabond poster who travels from board to board bringing any intelligent discussion to halt.

In this thread he is defending Notre Dame and trying to justify his position of Michigan losing to Notre Dame. When someone mentioned that pretty much every Notre Dame offensive unit is worse than the corresponding Michigan unit, he (I assume) came back with this:

Moving on…Our RB situation is BY FAR MUCH BETTER than Michigan’s. Again, it’s young, but sick. Do you guys even pay attention?

…

Guys, we’re going to have so many RB’s, you’re not going to be able to keep up with which one is which. And ALL OF THEM are talented. I know plenty of Irish Fans who are happy that D. Walker chose the draft. I can’t wait to see the shocked looks on your faces when ND rushes for over 200 yds in Ann Arbor. :)

The dotted out section is a list of running backs who haven’t really played (except for a bit of Blue & Gold game action). So his argument is that their running backs by batallion composed of totally unproven players is better than Michigan’s give the ball to one of the premiere running backs in the country approach.

Let’s take a look at this…

Adding up the yards that all the running backs he mentioned gained last year we get… 241 yards. Michigan’s top returning back-up (Brandon Minor) has 249 yards. To get over the whole “Michigan runs more” argument, the Notre Dame running backs had 65 attempts while Brandon Minor had just 42.

So… with Michigan’s primary back-up posting better numbers than the entire field of Notre Dame backs AND having a preseason Doak Walker candidate, I really can’t see where he is coming from.

I understand being exciting about a good group of young studs, but to say that potential is better than a top-5 back, not to mention a few young guys with their fair share of potential, is just down right dumb. I guess that is why he’s cruising around ESPN message board, and maybe why he’s a Notre Dame fan (I kid…).

[Click here to see the thread]

Posted under Misc.

http://www.rudybeverage.com/

Posted under Misc.