Jim Harbaugh wanted Notre Dame back on the Michigan football schedule, in the worst way.
He got his wish, in every sense.
Soon all will see whether the Irish reappearance becomes a highlight of a breakthrough season, or a scheduling IED on the road to The Game.
Michigan already faced arguably the toughest back half of a schedule since Harbaugh returned to Ann Arbor. When the Wolverines aren’t hosting the Gambinos and Genoveses (Michigan State and Ohio State, for those without program translators), they’re hitting the road for a white out, a trap game and an attempted incessant pest extermination.
Throw the Irish into the mix, and it’s like adding a three-mile crab walk side trip into a marathon run.
Harbaugh will insist — as Michigan often proudly does — that they’ll take all comers. Where they take them represents an explosive TBD in a season fraught with them.
How the Wolverines got here is pretty simple. Harbaugh wanted the Irish back on the schedule. Athletic Director Warde Manuel made it happen, as best he could in a situation featuring limited opportunities on both sides.
Some fans didn’t like restarting the series back in South Bend last year, after it abruptly ended there — at Notre Dame’s insistence — a few years earlier. Certainly, wedging the Irish into the final October Saturday of an already loaded Big Ten schedule is worth some scrutiny.
Notre Dame represents a concern in itself, aside from any schedule placement considerations. The Irish obviously knocked off the Wolverines in South Bend last year, on their way to going 12-0 and making the playoffs.
Last year’s season opener marked senior quarterback Shea Patterson’s first game in a Michigan uniform and in a completely new offense, so he’ll be better prepped for this one. But the Irish could be as well, returning four disruptive defensive ends, quarterback Ian Book (2,628 passing yards and 19 TDs in 2018) and the usual assortment of high-level talent.
The insertion of the Irish into the gateway-to-November slot makes this one doubly daunting.
Both teams will be tested by then. Notre Dame plays at No. 3 Georgia in September, and hosts USC on Oct. 12. Then as Irish luck would have it, Brian Kelly’s crew gets a bye week to rest and recover before traveling to Ann Arbor.
While Notre Dame players are mending their wounds and devoting themselves to academics (Michigan study), the Wolverines will be seeking to survive a white out in State College. Penn State lost plenty off last year’s 9-4 squad, including triggerman Trace McSorley.
But here’s a guarantee, and a sobering one at that. This will be a physical, fourth-quarter contest, the home team backed by a deafening crowd fueled by more than Peachy Paterno ice cream. After that, here come the Irish.
Normally, a non-conference game slipped in after that one might be a welcome break. But not this non-conference game.
After the fistfight fortnight featuring the Nittany Lions and the Irish, Michigan gets to travel to Maryland to take on the Terrapins and first-year head coach Mike Locksley. The Terps can be tough at home, despite a 5-7 record last year — just ask Ohio State. OSU barely survived College Park, 52-51, before … well, you know.
Think Locksley will have the Michigan game circled, after Harbaugh stole the new head coach’s targeted offensive coordinator — Josh Gattis — away from him? Locksley and Gattis led the rolling tide out of Tuscaloosa after last season ended, and nearly joined forces at Maryland.
After that, it’s Michigan State, at Indiana, Ohio State. Indiana plays the role of incessant pest here, having lost to the Wolverines in triple overtime and single overtime against Harbaugh teams so far.
Michigan State speaks for itself (unless under an internal gag order). The Spartans certainly won’t lower themselves to stomp around and scuff the sacred turf at The Big House. They’ll save it for someone’s face at the bottom of a pile.
Ohio State? Again, that’s where the measure of the coming season will be taken. It’s the next step, the big step, the one that lets everyone know Michigan football is fully back under its former quarterback.
Certainly, Michigan could drop one against Notre Dame and still close things out with a flourish. But the Irish eyes in Michigan Stadium amid that drive provide one more reason Harbaugh’s crew can’t afford to blink.
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