The two most tolerable fan bases, the two best coaches, and the two smartest teams in the country will clash in the most raucous stadium in the country this Saturday night. This is going to be the biggest hate watch of the year until the Peach bowl where we see if we will meet Bama or Clemson in the championship.
So first who is going to win. While many have noticed Michigan has lost a couple games few have noticed how much they have improved. They almost came back from 21-0 in the white out against the 6th ranked team in the country. Say what you want about preseason expectations but to go from the Wisconsin blowout to that is a big improvement. Michigan at home is actually a 4 point favorite over a Notre Dame team coming off a bye. Notre Dame has been given a lot of credit for a quality loss to Georgia that continues to look worse. A 15 point home win over (5-2)Virginia or a 3 point home win over (4-3)USC are Notre Dame's best performances in a win. If Michigan plays the way they did in the second half against PSU this may be an easy win.
Second who are you rooting for? Last year an undefeated Notre Dame team likely kept OSU out of the playoffs by 1.Taking up a spot themselves and 2.Preventing us from beating an 11-0 Michigan. Notre Dame wont be making the playoffs this year but Michigan beating them is still very important. OSU could go undefeated and this is all stuff that doesnt matter but incase a slip up happens we would want to avoid a second SEC team getting in over us. If Michigan can beat Notre Dame it would be hard to argue that Georgia is that much better than Michigan. Also a 9-2 Michigan team at the end of the year with a couple ranked wins would be ranked much higher than an 8-3 Michigan team losing to the 3 best teams they played. Michigan winning helps us and hurts the SEC 2 team argument but is that enough to root for Michigan?
