First, I will certainly agree that this year's Michigan loss was worse. But I think it's a little messy comparing the relative "quality" of losses there. One was by 31, one was by 26. One was at home, one was on the road. And yes the 2006 UM team was clearly much better.

But ultimately I think they both proved the same thing that we couldn't compete with the top end of our schedule. I don't think losing by essentially four touchdowns at home (to anyone) is much less damning that what happened this October.

Two, USC was #8 at the end of the regular season. So we have a 26 point loss to #3 and 20 point loss to #8 vs. a 6 point loss to #4 and a 31 point loss to #14. I'd have trouble deciding how to rank that.

And I guess, ultimately, perhaps my point should have been more about how I (we) feel rather than the numbers (which are admittedly not that disparate). Maybe ThreeD has it right that I was still optimistic about Weis. But while I don't really like Kelly, I'd certainly say I'm higher on him than most here. And yet I'm really okay with ND being relegated to what I feel they deserve this year, and in 2006, with a worse resume, I saw it in a very different way. And I just wondered if I were alone or in the minority there and what that might mean.

It was number 2 at the end of the regular season.

Also, the Michigan game in 2006 was bad, but not as bad as the game this year. Brady played extremely poorly -- but ND could actually move the ball at times. And the Grimes fumble on the kickoff was basically the backbreaker. Michigan scored 20 points in 7.5 minutes between the end of the first quarter and the beginning of the second.

They lost to a 7-6 UCLA team to blow their chance at the title game.