In last week's Irish Blogger Gathering, I got a question about Notre Dame's defense and if their performance against Temple was cause for concern against Michigan. I had the following to say: [Notre Dame] played a lot of man and press coverages, mixing in blitzes often, throughout the entire game. Even when the defensive play calling did get more conservative when the game was well in hand, the Irish were often blitzing and bringing five or more rushers on third downs to force Temple to ...
Gameday Open Thread: #MichiganSucks
Welcome once again to the HLS Gameday Open Thread -- this time with Twitter widgets that actually work! Yes, this time around you will be able to see tweets from the #HLSRecap Top 25 in real time (or a worst case 30 second delay). However, we changed the second Twitter widget just ever so slightly this week. Instead of allowing you to tweet with #NDFB and displaying top tweets with said hashtag, we have changed it to #MichiganSucks. Yes, you can taunt Skunkbears without even typing the ...
Friday Roundup: The “What Could Have Been” Edition
Imagine, for a moment, that Fielding Yost wasn't a gigantic asshole. He took the 1909 loss to Notre Dame's newly dubbed Fighting Irish like a good sport and the 1910 game wasn't cancelled. Michigan sees no need to blackball Notre Dame and the Irish gain membership into the Western Conference which would later become the Big Ten. Yes, Notre Dame and Michigan now have a guaranteed, annual inter-conference matchup. Considering the close geographic proximity to the schools, the game quickly ...
Notre Dame vs Michigan: A Michigan Man’s Perspective
Usually we spend our Thursday's doing what we can to break down our next opponent. This week though, we are doing something a little bit different. Justin Potts over at Maize and Go Blue reached out to us earlier in the week and asked if we could detail how Notre Dame could beat Michigan. There was no way I was going to pass up a chance to blueprint Skunkbear demise on their on turf, so I graciously obliged. Now, we may hate Michigan with a passion here at HLS, but we are all about fair ...
Irish Blogger Gathering: The Penultimate Hate Week
Ah, Hate Week, it's good to see you again. I must admit, this week is when I really miss the "Old School" IBG in which every corner of the Notre Dame Blogosphere would tear Michigan a new one. The annual vitriol was simply amazing. However, much like the ND/Michigan series itself, the Irish Blogger Gathering has changed, but that doesn't mean I didn't give Keith Arnold of Inside the Irish a chance to do some Skunkbear damage. But did he take a swing at our enemy in Ann Arbor? Find out ...
Four Pleasant Surprises and Four Areas of Concern
Week one is in the books. While all of us here at HLS will start diving in to some deeper analysis of the game, for now, I wanted to share some of my initial thoughts and takeaways from the tilt against Temple. So without further ado, here are four pleasant surprises and four areas of concern from last Saturday's game. Four Pleasant Surprises 1) Tommy Rees Has Improved And not just his stat line either. Oh sure, he had a career day going 16-23 for 346 yards, 3 TDs, and, most importantly ...
Temple Open Thread: The #HLSRecap Invades!
Gameday is finally upon us! This means that HLS Open Threads are once again live, but this year, we are adding the #HLSRecap to the mix. Below you will see two different Twitter widgets. One will showcase tweets from the #HLSRecap Top 25 in real time. The second will show what Twitter deems popular tweets using the #NDFB hashtag; however, the more important part about that second widget is that you can tweet directly from HLS! This means that you can join in the fun on Twitter and our ...
Friday Roundup: The “Who Gives a Hoot?” Edition
Let's be perfectly honest here, Temple sucks. Picking on them falls somewhere between grabbing the low hanging fruit or simply being plain mean. Bayou tried to find something positive about the Owls in his preview, but he simply couldn't find much. And it isn't like this current incarnation of Temple football is any better than Temple's overall history. This is a program with a 430-555-3 (.440) all time record that has led them to only 4 total bowl games and 8 total weeks appearing in the AP ...
Irish Blogger Gathering: Reesus Saves
On this college football eve, the final sign that the season is upon us is here: The Irish Blogger Gathering. For those unfamiliar with this exercise, various Notre Dame blogs from all corners of the internet partner up every week, ask each other three questions, and we post the answers for all to see. You then get to hop around all our sites all day so you can ignore work and focus on what matters: Notre Dame football. The roster for the IBG is as follows and you should check out all ...
Know Thyself Know Thy Enemy: Quarterback
So remember last year, when I thought I was being all smart and super-insightful with this article? Yeah, that was funny. But this year, Golson is gone, Hendrix seemingly never competed for the starting job, and there is no way Zaire is getting thrown to the wolves as a true freshman. So I'm really left with only one choice: Tommy Rees, the most accurate passer in Notre Dame history. Irish Player to Watch Tommy Rees, Senior 6'1.5", 215 lbs. Yes, I can't believe it either, but it's ...