Notre Dame vs Michigan: Why Wolverines' Thrilling Win Was Not a Surprise
By now, you can find Notre Dame fans pulling out their hair and headed straight for coach Brian Kelly with torches and pitchforks.
That's because, after such a promising offseason, the Fighting Irish find themselves 0-2 to start the season, and thoughts of a BCS bowl have all but vanished after their latest heartbreaking last-second loss at the hands of the Michigan Wolverines, 35-31.
But while Notre Dame proved to be overrated in the first game of the season, Saturday's game at Michigan Stadium was more the work of the Wolverines than the ineptitude of the Fighting Irish.
You see, we should have seen this coming all along.
Not only were the Fighting Irish headed for disappointment after the opening game of the 2011 season, the Wolverines were set to surprise everybody.
It all starts and ends with a coach named Brady Hoke and a quarterback named Denard Robinson. After a season of turmoil in 2010, long-time Wolverines coach Rich Rodriguez was fired. At the time, it may have seemed a bit trigger-happy, but when they found Hoke, they found a man who had a history of turning programs around.
Before Hoke headed to Michigan to try to revitalize the Wolverines, he was coach at San Diego State. In two seasons, he turned a perennial loser in the Aztecs and into a team deserving of a bowl game. For those who haven't followed San Diego State football, first of all, I don't blame you. Second of all, the only reason I do is because I am an alumnus.
You see, at SDSU, there were always two constants when it came to the Aztecs football team—they were going to lose, and they were going to lose horribly.
Most people don't truly understand that Hoke's biggest victory wasn't simply getting them to a bowl game; it was turning around a losing culture.
Before SDSU, Hoke turned around the Ball State Cardinals into a 12-1 team by 2008. Since Hoke's departure, the Cardinals have gone 6-18 in the last two seasons combined.
That's why it didn't surprise me that the Wolverines defeated the Fighting Irish, nor the way they did it. In one play, the Wolverines demonstrated they were far beyond 2010. When Robinson threw a 16-yard touchdown pass to Roy Roundtree with two seconds remaining to win the game, the losing culture had officially disintegrated. These were the new Wolverines, led by one of college football's top coaches and a quarterback who will be in the Heisman discussion this season.
Robinson is still a raw player; he went 11-of-24 and threw three interceptions. But his big-play ability is uncanny. He passed for 338 yards and four touchdowns on 11 completions and ran for 108 yards and a touchdown on 16 carries.
The truth is, the Fighting Irish shouldn't have lost this game. But they did, and that's only because a team that went 7-6 last year turned into a team virtually unrecognizable.
