You might recall Mark May waxing nostalgic for Michigan-Notre Dame games in his childhood, games that sounded like quite a lot of fun, had they existed. Skip Bayless also had some minor issues keeping the facts straight, per Deadspin.
The greatest fake Michigan-Notre Dame rivalry moments, as remembered by ESPN
After Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly wondered whether this week’s College GameDay game is even that big of a rivalry, a couple ESPN personalities invented epic backstories for this series. Let’s get more epic.
Perhaps the Worldwide Leader is onto something, though. If we’re unburdened by pesky things like truth, it becomes clear that Michigan-Notre Dame is one of the greatest rivalries in all of sports history. Here’s a look back at some of the all-time “great” “moments” in the “rivalry’s” “history.”
1746: Michigan and Notre Dame invent football.
1909: An escalation of pregame college pranks leads Michigan fans to taint South Bend’s drinking water with typhoid fever. Notre Dame president Rupert Fakeguy admits Michigan “got us good” but is forced to cancel the rivalry out of respect for the 83 residents that succumb to the illness.
1943: Notre Dame and Michigan rekindle the rivalry during WWII but tensions come to a head the next year when Michigan’s halftime festivities include fighter planes strafing the Notre Dame sideline as part of a “training exercise.”
1977: Joe Montana, or “Football Montana” as he’s known to fans, enrages coaches and pundits alike after making autograph and money gestures throughout the game.
1984: For the seventh straight year, Daniel Ruettiger tries unsuccessfully to get a “Rudy” chant going during a lull in third-quarter action.
1988: Play is briefly halted when Zombie Knute Rockne rises from the 50-yard line and terrorizes the Wolverines before being subdued by stadium employees. Notre Dame rallies to win, but after a Michigan protest, the NCAA bans interring former coaches on the field of play within months.
1992: Lou Holtz spends the entire halftime berating a chalkboard eraser for not doing its job. Nobody has the heart to tell him he’s holding it backwards.
1997: The game is postponed two hours when Bob Davie forgets to bring the footballs and has to run to the nearest sporting goods store. Notre Dame students wear “Where’s The Doggone Scheels?” T-shirts for the rest of the season.
2006: Brady Quinn throws for 543 yards and eight touchdowns in the first half, leading Notre Dame to a 62-17 halftime lead over the Wolverines before 13-year-old Justin Reynolds of Dearborn Heights, Mich., turns off the PlayStation, accusing his opponent and friend Mikey of “cheating.” The game is not recorded in history books and Mikey never musters the heart to tell Justin that calling all-out blitzes on every single play is just poor play-calling.
2012: Denard Robinson becomes a legend among Vegas bookies after throwing four straight interceptions on consecutive passes without tipping off his intent to shave points. "He's like the Tim Tebow of throwing the game," says one unnamed Mafia member afterward in Corrupt Gambling Monthly, unaware of what Tebow's pro career held in store.
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