Total Domination Is Always Nice

There comes a point in many college football games, maybe midway through the third quarter, when you're up against a team who's having a down year or perhaps they just aren't quite in the same league as your team, when you feel like "well, this game is a foregone conclusion. I can safely go do something else now," and you take off.

I've had a few situations like that in my time as a Notre Dame fan. Wins over Navy, Purdue, SMU, Rice, etc. weren't games that required a lot of stress on my part.

But you certainly don't expect to get that situation when you're playing PENN STATE. Yet the Irish came out of the tunnel on Saturday and thoroughly stomped the Nittany Lions in pretty much every facet of the game. If we were an SEC or Big 12 school we probably would have left our starters in for the whole game, but being Notre Dame, we didn't. We didn't have to!

I have to admit that I'm a tad bit worried about controlling Michigan's running game next weekend, as that was the one thing that was sort of working for the Nits, and Michigan is definitely a major running team. But on the other hand, we controlled the line of scrimmage most of the time and that's the key to a running game. Our linebackers are going to have to be on the top of their game next week, but I'm confident. Much more confident than I was coming into this game.

Was Penn State that bad? No. They'll come back and do have a decent run in the Big "We Can't Count." They had a similar situation that we did against Georgia Tech, where a couple early misfortunes colored the game for them. Is ND that good? Yes. Unlike PSU, ND took a bad start and turned it into a win last week, and we thoroughly trounced Penn State like nobody's business.

Michigan? Watch out!