ANN ARBOR, Mich. — It’s the end of an era Saturday night: the last Michigan-Notre Dame game in the Big House.
The teams have one more game against each other — next year in South Bend, Ind. — and then … one of the most storied rivalries in college football may never be renewed.
The quest for this season’s national championship will end for one of these teams, but there will be no winners in the long run. You don’t eliminate tradition, the lifeblood of college football, without feeling empty.
Michigan, in a stroke of marketing brilliance, will give all fans who enter the Big House a plastic, light-up bracelet that will flash blue. It should flash “S.O.S.”
Yep, college football has lost its soul.
Gone are Oklahoma-Nebraska, Texas-Texas A&M, and Missouri-Kansas. Florida-Miami is on life support.
Whether or not Notre Dame chickened out of this series, as Michigan coach Brady Hoke said several months ago at a booster club meeting, will be debated forever.
This is fact: this series, like the others mentioned, is ending because of greed.
Notre Dame (1-0) was intent on keeping its football independence and its NBC television contract. The No. 14 Fighting Irish preferred to join the Big Ten, but there was no way that conference would allow admission unless Notre Dame was all in.
So the Irish joined the ACC and agreed to play five football games each season against ACC foes.
Goodbye, Michigan. Hello, Wake Forest. Ugh.
Hoke has said this is a national rivalry. Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly has said it is a great regional rivalry.
It does not have the blood boiling fervor of an SEC contest. Michigan and Notre Dame see themselves as being in a more genteel competition, like two elite chess players. Pompous? Perhaps, but neither institution has abandoned the student-athlete concept, which is admirable.
And the football is physical, if not fast and furious.
So, we will get to savor one last game — the 41st in this series — in the largest on campus stadium in the nation. Michigan leads it 23-16-1.
The quarterbacks will determine this last meeting in Michigan.
Notre Dame quarterback Tommy Rees wasn’t supposed to be the starter this year, but Everett Golson was suspended for academic reasons. Rees’ best moment last season was against Michigan, when he started in place of the injured Golson and was nearly flawless.
But Rees has shown a knack for throwing picks. He had thrown 32 touchdown passes and 22 interceptions coming into the season. Last week, he threw three touchdowns and no interceptions in a season-opening win over Temple.
His counterpart, Devin Gardner, also has struggled with turnovers. He made the transition from wide receiver to quarterback last season as Denard Robinson battled injuries. Gardner finished with 11 touchdowns and five interceptions.
Last week he threw two picks and one touchdown in a rout of Central Michigan by No. 17 Michigan (1-0). In addition to developing as a quarterback, Gardner has transformed himself into what Wolverines fans like to refer to as a Michigan man — a student as well as an athlete.
Rees and Gardner have a chance to be remembered forever. This will be only the second night game in Michigan Stadium history. The first also was against the Irish.Notre Dame obviously can’t win the series, even with wins in the final two games, but the Irish can win the last chapter in Ann Arbor. Spoiler alert: In this book, everyone loses in the end.