Notre Dame Is Going Undefeated UPDATE: 1-0

Dearly beloved, it is September 3rd in the year of our Lord 2018, and the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame are sitting at 1-0 after beating Michigan. I’m going to use a word not used very often to describe a school filled with girls named Mary Patricia and Kathy…Notre Dame is SEXY. The marquis game of opening weekend, under the lights, College Game Day on Campus, Fighter Jets flying over the stadium, the 1988 National Championship being honored, and a dozen or so ND alumni currently playing in the NFL on the sideline. The Irish were hot as fuck. The hottest program in all the land in week 1. It felt like it didn’t matter who was on the other sideline. Notre Dame was going to smash whoever they lined up against. It just so happened that one of their biggest rivals got the short end of this stick this time and it made that opening game so much sweeter.

I was sick and fucking tired about hearing how Shea Patterson was the “savior” for Michigan. I wrote about it in the annual uNDefeated blog.

“But Chief, Harbaugh finally has a good QB now. Shea Patterson, ever heard of him?”

I watched the film(youtube) and I agree. Shea Patterson looked really good against Tennessee-Martin and South Alabama. He also put up a whole 16 points against a Cal team that finished 5-7 and 11th in the Pac12. So yeah, Shea Patterson

He looked like every other Michigan QB we’ve seen recently. The only difference was that he got outside the pocket a little bit. Patterson was supposed to make the Michigan offense dynamic…well this wasn’t his night. Not against this ND defense. Michigan only had 2 plays over 20 yards and they averaged 1.8 yards per carry. ONE POINT EIGHT! Michigan couldn’t really move the ball at all until ND went into more of a prevent look up two scores late in the game.

Everyone knew ND’s front 7 was primed to be a difference-maker. They knew about Love and Pride at corner. Safety was supposed to be the big question mark and hole on the defense…WRONG. Alohi Gilman:

This is probably going to be the best Notre Dame defense is LONG time. Clark Lea stepped in at defense coordinator and turned the pressure the fuck up on Michigan with blitzes that had them rattled all night long. And with the game on the line, the pressure was there again. Tillery forced a fumbled, Coney was there to scoop it and the game was officially over.

The Fighting Irish offense was underwhelming at times. Wimbush isn’t a polished passer at this point and he did seem to consistently make the wrong read on read-option runs. But…boy is he a dynamic athlete. Wimbush does have a nice arm and he was able to drop a few dimes for big plays throughout the game. He’s also by far the best runner for ND. Even though he had a hard time in some aspects…that was the toughest D-Line Notre Dame will see all year and they still won the game. Rashon Gary is a first round pick for sure. Chase Winovich at DE and Devin Bush at linebacker will be NFL players too. Notre Dame had offensive tackles making essentially their starting debuts and they handled them just fine. The offense is only going to get better. They can use Ball State next week as a scout team scrimmage to work on some things offensively before they get back into the meat of their schedule.

Neither Stanford, nor USC looked particularly scary in week one. Notre Dame should be favored in every game the rest of the way. Notre Dame is back, they’re sexy, and they’re going undefeated.