Michigan has a hard enough time beating Notre Dame @ ND in normal circumstances. It can only be that much tougher with all the fans ready to reminisce about the glory days of the 80’s (and before), in the mood for an 80’s-style @ss-kicking of a highly-ranked-but-unproven squad.

And if Notre Dame does indeed lay a beatdown on Michigan, then I’m guessing they’ll keep the 80’s thing going and do to Michigan State what they always did to them in the 80’s–rip their hearts out. And so on, 7-0 record before ND’s one real tough game, at Tennessee, national championship talk, yadda yadda yadda.

Brady Quinn should be all that much more effective at QB (and Carlyle Holliday will be utilizing his speed downfield now, as a WR). If the Irish can get their offensive line to not suck like an imploding nebula this year (as they did last), then they should go at the very least 8-3.

Have some faith in Ty-Will. He took Stanford to the Rose Bowl. TWICE.

2.) Penn State will do what they always do to Michigan State in Happy Valley–win, either by 40 points, or with a ridiculous last-minute come-from-behind rally. Watch out for Penn State’s linebacking corps–should be considerably improved from last year.

3.) Memochat to Ron Turner: reactivate your monster.com account.

4.) Purdue NEVER beats Michigan*. Lloyd Carr owns Joe Tiller like Hank Schillinger 0wn3d Tobias Beecher. Look for Kyle Orton’s stats at the end of that game to be something like 22 for 66, 320 yards, 3 tds, 4 ints, 18 dropped passes, 2 fumbles. I mean, if Purdue were to rush for 100 yards against Michigan, then they’d have a much better chance, but expecting Purdue to put up 100 yards on the ground against the Wolvies is sort of like expecting the Libertarian (/Green/Reform) party to win A state (and its electoral college votes) in the upcoming presidential election.

*The victory that Drew Brees orchestrated was obviously a flook.

5.) Is Barry Alvarez coasting into a George Perles-esque decline? Last year’s Wisconsin team was about the sloppiest Badger squad in many years. They seemed to play Wisconsin Football exactly once, in their slaughter of everybody’s favorite Peleponnesian Caricature With The Jay Leno-esque Chin.

6.) Don’t count out Northwestern for a timely upset or two, what with the 500+ plays that they’ll have in their playbook, and a 3rd-year quarterback who’s had time to fully learn the offense. Of course, they could be considerably better than last year, but with the rather nasty OOC sched, still finish 3-8.

7.) As a MSU fan, having witnessed two previous losses to Central Michigan, as well as the cluster-#$#$ against Northeast-Southwest-Central-Lousiana-Polytechnical-A,T&M-State last year, I am very leery of this year’s game with Central Michigan.

So the Chips have a “new coach”.

Ah, but do you know who that coach is??

Yes, it’s Brian Kelly.

(”Who the hell’s Brian Kelly?”)

He was previously the coach at Grand Valley State University who led the Lakers to three consecutive Division II national championship games, finishing 2nd in 2001 and winning the last two years.

It’s not just that GVSU won, either–check out some of their scores, especially in 2001 and 2002. It was unusual if Grand Valley DIDN’T roll up 60 points and 600 yards of offense on an opponent.

Brian Kelly -will- turn CMU around, although this observer hopes that he’ll wait until week 3 or 4 of this season before he gets the Chippewas going at full speed.

Personally, I thought Michigan State should have given him a much longer look last year when looking for their new coach.

Alvarez’ potential decline is even more amazing when you consider that he’s also the Wisconsin AD and, therefore, unfireable.