Hart Backs Guarantee in 38-0 Rout of Notre Dame

Following two of the worst games in Michigan football history, the Wolverines took the field on Saturday in desperate need of a win. It worked out well that the opponent would be another 0-2 team, and I mean a really bad 0-2 team. Notre Dame turned out to be just as awful as advertised, and Michigan did everything needed en route to a 38-0 pounding of the Fighting Irish. It feels nice to be on the winning side of things again as the four times before this game we saw Michigan lose. Finally, that streak has ended.

With a game full of questions, no one really had a great idea of what exactly would take place. Jimmy Clausen and Ryan Mallett were the starting quarterbacks, leading many to believe that things would be extra ugly with the two freshmen in there. That would be true, but only for one team. Luckily, it wasn't Michigan.

From the very start it didn't look good for Notre Dame. On the game's opening play, ND put a running back in at QB in the shotgun to try what I would imagine was going to be a draw. It was similar to the spread, and anything mildly like that formation gives Michigan problems, so the idea of the play was a good one. Execution on the other hand was something completely different. The snap went right over the player's head and rolled all the way down to the 1-yard line where it was recovered by ND. Continuing to try to fool Michigan, Charlie Weis called an end around on the next play, even though it was run in Notre Dame's own endzone. The play ended up gaining 4 yards, but was not enough to dig the Irish out of the deep hole they were in. After an incompletion on third down, Michigan received a punt in ND territory.

Michigan's first offensive play was not so great either. Ryan Mallett fumbled the snap, but did manage to recover. That was big as Michigan marched down the field after the mistake and ended up with a 39-yard field goal by Jason Gingell to take the early 3-0 lead.

When Notre Dame got the ball back for their second drive of the game, things continued to go wrong. On only the second play of this drive, Jimmy Clausen dropped back to pass and had the ball knocked loose by Donovan Warren since he was holding it out there so freely. Clausen should've recovered the fumble as he almost had full control of it in his hands but let it go again. Warren quickly jumped on it for the Michigan recovery. The turnover was huge for the Maize and Blue's defense and led to a Mike Hart TD run shortly after. 10-0 Wolverines.

With Notre Dame's offense struggling so much already, Michigan just sat back and went after Jimmy Clausen. He faced blitz after blitz after blitz and really had nowhere to go. It didn't help that the Irish kept fumbling either. After two drives that were killed due to fumbles, that was the case yet again on the third drive of the game. The first fumble was another bad snap by the center in the shotgun as it went right over Clausen's head for a loss of 14 yards. On the very next play, Clausen mishandled a handoff to his running back and the ball hit the turf again. Neither of the fumbles ended up in Michigan's hands, but they both absolutely killed the drive ND had going.

Michigan's next drive didn't go anywhere and Zoltan Mesko came out to punt for the first time of the game. Upon getting the ball back for another possession, take a wild guess at how the Wolverines put a halt to this Notre Dame drive. Just as we had seen on every prior drive by the Irish, it was another fumble that led to Michigan getting another chance to score. On this occasion, the ball was jarred loose due to a big hit by Chris Graham and was recovered by Brandon Harrison. After a 22-yard pass from Ryan Mallett to Mario Manningham once the ball was back in Michigan's hands, Mike Hart got the call for another TD run to put U-M on top 17-0.

Cue up the turnover call again for Notre Dame once they went on offense again. At least it wasn't a fumble this time, but it did give Michigan the ball in good field position. John Thompson picked off a Jimmy Clausen pass, continuing his horrific day. Ryan Mallett had an embarrassing moment of his own on the proceeding drive, although it was nowhere near as bad as Clausen's. Mallett passed to Adrian Arrington, who in turn tried to complete his own pass back to Mallett on the opposite side of the field. It was the same play that scored Michigan a TD against Minnesota years ago in the classic Friday night comeback in the Metrodome where John Navarre caught a throw and ran to the endzone for a score. Mallett didn't have that good of a result. Instead, he tripped over his own feet and fell as the ball got there. At least Mallett was able to smile about it though. Plus, he made up for the mistake on the next play, connecting with Greg Mathews for a 26-yard TD pass, the first of his young career.

Michigan wasn't done scoring in this half just yet. With under 30 seconds to go in the second quarter, the Wolverines had a solid drive of passes and rushes capped off with a 5-yard TD pass to Adrian Arrington in the corner of the endzone. That put Michigan on top by a whopping score of 31-0. Going into the locker rooms at the break, you can bet everyone in Maize and Blue was happy with the way things were going in this game.

The final scoring play of this game came in the third quarter when Ryan Mallett found Mario Manningham wide open in the endzone from 13 yards out. That put the Wolverines up by a score of 38-0, putting things fully out of reach for Notre Dame. From this point on, Michigan really took their foot off the gas (it feels nice being on the other side of things this time) and just sat on the lead. With that, the final score would end up 38-0, just like what we saw on the scoreboard 4 years ago in the Big House.

Just how big was this win? Without a doubt, it turned the season around. Considering Notre Dame is as bad as they are (don't even have an offensive touchdown yet after 3 games), anything less than 38-0 would be a disappointment. Obviously I wouldn't have said that prior to kickoff, but after watching ND's horrific offensive and defensive play, I'm glad Michigan won as big as they did.

The final thing to address from this game is how great Mike Hart played. He guaranteed a win after losing to Oregon and stepped up big time. The final stat line for Hart was 35 carries for 187 yards and 2 touchdowns. By the way, that was through three quarters. With such a huge lead after three, Hart left the game and didn't return since there was no reason to risk an injury. Hart carried the team on his back and will need to do the same next Saturday when Penn State visits Ann Arbor.

Enjoy the win everyone -- I know I will -- but let's start to look ahead to Penn State. The magnitude of this next game doesn't seem to be astronomical right now, but I have a feeling it will be once the season is over and we look back on it. Opening the Big Ten schedule against the team that just might be the best out of anyone in the conference is more than important. A win and who knows, we could be looking at a huge turnaround for this season. On the other hand, lose and we may be talking about barely making a bowl game just because the mood will be so down again. Regardless, let's hope for win #2 and Go Blue!

P.S. No matter how bad the first two weeks of the season were, I'm just glad it wasn't ever "emu" bad.