Is Notre Dame finally back?
The question has been asked for years since the Fighting Irish were last national title contenders and after a strong 3-0 start, the answer might finally be yes.
Notre Dame will host the rival Michigan Wolverines on Saturday night and attempt to go 4-0 for the first time since 2002. That year the team won its first eight games.
The Irish are ranked at No. 11 after upsetting Michigan State 20-3 last Saturday, while Michigan is at No. 18 after starting the season at No. 8. The Wolverines lost the opening game to Alabama but won their next two against lesser opponent's air Force and Massachusetts.
Notre Dame hasn't been ranked this high since 2006.
"You want your team with confidence and you want people to talk about your team in the sense that this is a big game," Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly told the Associated Press. "Those are the kind of things that coaches want to try to balance. Because if you don't have confidence and nobody cares, that's not a good place to be. These are the dynamics that come with building a program."
Notre Dame and Michigan have a long-standing history that dates back to 1887. Michigan and Notre Dame respectively #1 and #3 in all time wins and have played against each other for over a century. The all-time record for head-to-head games is 23-15-1 in favor of Michigan.
The Wolverines have won the last three games and have taken five of the last six played. The last three games have been close, with Michigan winning by only a combined 12 points.
Last year featured one of the most exciting games of the series, with Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson throwing the winning touchdown pass with only two seconds left. The team made a comeback in the fourth quarter from a 24-7 deficit, scoring 28 points to win the game 35-31.
He's a superior football player. He is a difference maker," Kelly said of Robinson. "We have to find a way to limit big chunk plays, just like we have the first few weeks. It's about our defense not giving up those big, chunk plays. We gave them up in the running game in year one and we gave them up in the passing game in year two."
This season Robinson was expected to be a Heisman trophy candidate but has only completed 54.7 percent of his passes. He has 699 passing yards and six touchdowns with four interceptions. Last week he had a huge game against Massachusetts, rushing for 106 yards and passing for 291 yards with three touchdowns.
The Notre Dame defense will be shorthanded after losing starting safety Jamoris Slaughter, who is a fifth-year senior. Slaughter tore his left Achilles tendon in the game against Michigan State and will be lost for the season.
"The most important thing is our defense continues to be the group that we committed to in building when we started this process," Kelly said. "They are starting to get to that level where they can play with anybody."
The teams match up fairly even with each other, but the Irish secondary will be weaker without Slaughter and will find Michigan trying to exploit it. The Wolverines rank 70th in the nation in passing offense and are averaging 425.3 yards per game, while the Irish are ranked 37th in pass defense.
"To see how far we've come from Game 1 to Game 4 is exciting," Michigan coach Brady Hoke said. "There's no question that it's going to be a test. They have been very productive as a football team and as a defensive team. We'll have to block at the line of scrimmage and need to do a great job of protection."
The Notre Dame schedule doesn't get any easier after this game, with the Irish playing No. 9 Stanford and No. 6 Oklahoma in October.
The team will hope to get a win against a Michigan squad that has had their number in the past few years.
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