Notre Dame or Michigan: Which of the 2 Winningest Programs Has Brightest Future?

College football is at its best when the big names of the game are succeeding. As much as we love underdogs and parity, what keeps the sport going and enables it to grow is the performance of the traditional powers.

There are few who meet that lofty criterion as much as Michigan and Notre Dame, and with each in the midst of a great season, there's hope for a return to the old days when the two winningest programs in college football history were staples at the top of the mountain. But if only one could keep this up, which would that be?

Combined they have more than 1,800 victories, the two most successful programs in history both in terms of sheer wins and frequency of triumph. They lay claim to 22 national titles, 11 apiece, yet none has come since 1997.

That's when Michigan went 12-0 under Lloyd Carr, finishing first in the Associated Press poll but second to Nebraska in the coaches' rankings. Since then the Wolverines have ended with 10 or more wins only six times, finishing below .500 on three occasions after having avoided that for more than four decades.

Notre Dame's last national title came in 1988, but only three times since then have the Fighting Irish ended the year as a top-five team (most recently in 2012, when they lost to Alabama in the BCS Championship Game).

The last 15 or so years have seen one or the other have success—sometimes neither—but rarely both. That makes what these storied programs are doing this year so significant, since college football is at its best when teams like Michigan and Notre Dame are big winners.

Duane Burleson/Associated Press

Under first-year coach Jim Harbaugh, the Wolverines have quickly returned to national prominence and not for the wrong reasons. At 7-2, they sit 14th in the latest College Football Playoff rankings and remain in contention for their first Big Ten title in 11 years.

Notre Dame is doing even better, a playoff team if the season ended today after moving up to fourth in the rankings. The only loss for the 8-1 Irish came by two points at top-ranked Clemson, during a driving rainstorm, and only after they fell short on a two-point conversion in the final moments.

Ironically, this is happening during the first season the teams did not face each other since 2001.

The path taken to get to this strong 2015 effort is quite different—one the product of a many-season buildup (with the inevitable peaks and valleys) and the other making a huge one-year leap under new control. That's one of several factors we've considered in determining who has the best future.

The leadership

Harbaugh is a Michigan alum, the quarterback on teams that averaged nine wins per season from 1983-86. His return to Ann Arbor received the treatment normally reserved for the pope or a war hero coming back from battle, and though the level of hope was high, the first-year expectations were mostly conservative.

So to have the Wolverines doing so well in 2015—where would they be ranked if not for a botched punt at the end of the Michigan State game?—has rapidly accelerated the clock of Michigan's return to greatness. And as long as Harbaugh is in charge, the strong results figure to continue, and national championship contention in the near future now seems more like a certainty than a possibility.

But that depends on how long Harbaugh sticks around. Being at his alma mater creates a strong tie, but he wouldn't be the first coach to go from the NFL to college and then return to the pros. And if such a move happened in the next few years, it would make sustaining success that much harder to accomplish at Michigan.

At Notre Dame, head coach Brian Kelly's sixth season is also his sixth with at least eight wins, a benchmark that didn't used to be such a big deal in South Bend, Indiana, but compared to his most recent predecessors is quite significant. Charlie Weis won 19 games in his first two years but only 16 over the next three, resulting in his termination, and before him neither Tyrone Willingham nor Bob Davie could maintain success.

Kelly got Notre Dame into a title game in his third season, and though there was some drop-off the following year, it wasn't as pronounced as for previous Notre Dame coaches. And he's been able to get the car turned around headed back in the right direction.

Kelly will no doubt have his name mentioned for NFL openings this offseason, something that's become an annual occurrence.

Assuming he leaves at some point, even after this season, Notre Dame won't lack for great options to replace him. Kelly has made this as desirable a job as it's been in 20 years, making it a strong bet that the Irish can maintain success even with a change at the top.

The landscape

The Big Ten has two of the top five teams in the latest playoff rankings, a far cry from a year ago, when the league was getting stepped on for a horrible showing during the nonconference season. Ohio State's dominant run into and through the postseason helped change that, but having an unbeaten Iowa as well as Michigan's surprising performance in 2015 have been just as important.

Because of the strength of the conference, Michigan should continue to benefit from strong competition that will translate into championship contention if it can navigate the minefields. The Wolverines have also lined up valuable non-league opponents over the next decade, games that can continue to enhance their image for a long time.

But few teams can compete with Notre Dame when it comes to schedule strength. The Irish have the luxury of picking and choosing all of their opponents instead of just a few thanks to their independence.

While that doesn't always translate into juggernaut matchups—who's excited for that visit from Wake Forest this Saturday?!?!?!—it does abstain them from the knock that conference members often deal with when their league goes through a down year.

Having a loaded schedule can be as much a detriment as a benefit, though, since a lack of assured wins can lead to peaks and valleys in the win department. That's something Michigan likely won't ever have to deal with, since no matter how strong the Big Ten is in any given season, there will always be bottom feeders to feast on.  

The recruiting trail

As of Thursday, both Michigan and Notre Dame are on pace to have top-15 recruiting classes for 2016. Per 247Sports, the Wolverines have 21 commitments and a No. 9 overall ranking, while Notre Dame is 14th with 17 pledges.

National signing day is nearly three months away, though, and a lot can still happen. And because of this, the jury is still out on whether Harbaugh and the Wolverines will be able to keep things going via reinforcements from the high school and junior college ranks.

Michigan's 2015 class ranked 37th compared to 13th for Notre Dame. Many of the Wolverines' signees were ones Harbaugh and his staff had to scramble to get between the head coach's hiring and signing day, and they did a masterful job of this. But the real test comes with being able to assemble complete classes over the course of a year and to hold on to them.

The past and present

What Harbaugh is doing this season at Michigan is nothing short of remarkable, considering he is basically playing with the same roster (other than graduate transfer quarterback Jake Rudock) that Brady Hoke could only get five wins out of. Rudock has made a difference but not enough to consider him the difference.

The last time the Wolverines changed coaches, Hoke won 11 games in his first year with the leftovers from Rich Rodriguez's final team. This led to Hoke getting a lot of credit for the turnaround. But as his tenure went on (and kept getting worse), it became more evident that Hoke had happened upon a good situation in 2011, and his real mettle could be seen in the diminishing returns of 2012-14.

Kelly, on the other hand, didn't do anything earth-shattering when he debuted at Notre Dame in 2010. Rather, a 1-3 start against the toughest portion of the schedule robbed him of any early praise and thus made him have to earn admiration the hard way.

He said as such during that first year, per Erick Smith of USA Today: "There's going to be a lot of 1-3 football teams across the country. Some are going to finish 1-11, some are going to be 8- or 9-3. It's what you decide to do from here on out. ... There's going to be success down the road for them if they stay with it, and I'm certain that they will."

Notre Dame ended up going 8-5 that year and the next, and in Kelly's third season it went unbeaten before falling in the BCS final to Alabama.

The verdict

Notre Dame has more going for it at this time than Michigan and thus has the better chance to remain near the top of the college football heap for the foreseeable future. This isn't a knock on Michigan as much as it is an assessment of that program's lack of results prior to 2015.

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Check back in a few years, and the Wolverines' future outlook could be just as good as it is for the Irish, if not better. But it's not right now.

Harbaugh still has to show he can do what he's done this year over a longer period of time, something Kelly has accomplished. The Wolverines also have to get their program to a point where the person in charge is just a piece of the puzzle and not the one who means the difference between success and failure.

And as long as Notre Dame remains in the position where it has complete control over its schedule, it will always have a trump card to pull out when in need of an extra boost. Michigan will remain at the mercy of the rest of its league, one that has strong opponents but not enough to ensure an impressive schedule each and every year.

Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.