Was the Notre Dame game the best game we’ve played in the Harbaugh era?

JT was short.

But the ND Nightmare at the Big Sponge was one of the most lackluster, ho-hum, matter of fact, never in doubt beat downs I've witnessed.

Hell, even when John O'Neill scored to make it:

UofM 17, ND 0, JO'N 7

The Hassan Chop ended that with such voracity that it was shocking.

Took them a half too long for this year to being "special" but they can still reach summits and once you get the high ground ...

Here are the top games:

(1) 2016 Penn State

(2) 2019 ND

(3) 2016 Wisconsin

(4) 2018 Michigan State

(5) 2018 Penn State

Well, I think it was a convergence of circumstances that emphasized some of our strengths and hid some of our weaknesses. I'll be honest, I don't think this was the offense Gattis would run on a 70 degree day or for that matter just a random cloudy 50s fall afternoon. Ironically this may actually have helped us because it took the Shea factor out of it as much as you can possibly get away with.

I noticed that some people listed the 2016 close defeat against OSU. Michigan didn't have a good complete performance in that game. OSU was able to come back and win mainly because the Michigan offense was very bad in the second half.

Though the questionable refereeing was also a factor.     

It is the biggest win of the Harbaugh era. We ran the ball. We dominated both sides of the line of scrimmage. We made stops, we didn’t turn it over, it was never ever in doubt.

Let’s not forget this is against a team that a month ago lost by 6 at Georgia. A team that if they win this Saturday has a legit shot to go to the playoffs. Especially if they beat an undefeated LSU or Alabama. 

This will remain the biggest win of the Harbaugh era until the Saturday after Thanksgiving when we beat an undefeated OSU team 28-27.

Biggest win, yes.  Although the UF Citrus Bowl was pretty convincing!  Both games featured an opponent that just gave up well before the 4th quarter was half way gone.

Most impactful would be 2016 OSU.  That 'loss' knocked the air out of the program for 3 years, so far.  Whether the air is back this year remains to be seen, but its starting to look promising.

Best coaching job was a loss.  The circumstances that devoured all team spirit just before that game started, then what happened early on, were just turrible.  Yet he pulled that team back together, adjusted the offense so Speight could do some work, and damn near won that game against a fucking good FSU team.  One missed tackle at the 10 yard line on a kickoff - make that, game over.

To this outsider's eyes, U-M has looked the best under Harbaugh for the first 43:00 of the 2016 OSU game.  Looked like a machine, and OSU and Meyer looked defeated, which you basically never saw from them.

I'm not trying to discount Saturday's ND game, but there were some game elements that it was hard to make heads or tails of.  The passing game was still - well, sort of "just there."  But it was in the weather too, of course. 

But it's hard to say ND was the "best game of the Harbaugh era" when something as major as the passing game could be graded as "inconclusive."

The 2 PSU games: I'd say 2016 was more impressive for U-M. 

To be honest, PSU quit in the 2nd half of the 2018 game.  PSU never did quit in that 2016 game (I was at that game, the U-M fans around me all noticed PSU's players kept fighting, even if the coaches were kicking field goals down 28-0).  2018 was also only 14-0 at the half, vs. 28-0 at the half in 2016. 

I still think the Citrus Bowl vs. Florida was the best game they've played in the Harbaugh era.

It was the sort of total physical domination I had been expecting with this regime. And I was kind of hoping it would be a weekly occurrence ever since.

What struck me most about this game was going for the jugular against ND. There was a point where everyone (including ND) expected Michigan to run the ball knowing that: a. Michigan doesn't usually run up the score, and b. It didn't matter if we gave up some points because Michigan usually just runs out the clock.

And then Shea throws the ball to Sainristil and he catches it and HOLY CRAP they are going to try and keep scoring rather than turtle the game away! I'm trying to think of another game under Harbaugh that was a "What's your deal?" kind of game and the only other one was against Florida in the Citrus Bowl. There have been other great wins, but those two were special in part because Michigan didn't do the usual "play not to lose" and didn't leave us wondering if they were holding anything back.

The ND game is now part of Michigan lore. It will be something everyone will talk about for a generation. A win over Wisconsin or PSU? Not so much. If Michigan demolishes MSU similarly and somehow beats OSU, who really gives a crap about the B1G Championship? This team will be cheered over and over again in the years to come when they return to visit the North end zone during media timeouts.  Let's see what happens against Maryland and hope there is no regression of the offense, but it's a good time to be a Wolverine fan.

And the best is yet to come....beat MSU next.  Then beat OSU. 

The best game we've played in the Harbaugh era was 2019 OSU.  Now give me a few so I can shut this time machine off.  It's really noisy and our toddler is trying to sleep.

I thought 49-10 PSU was just a straight up annihilation.

Personally, aside from beating OSU, beating ND was the most important thing for me this year.  Not playing them for 14 years meant the loser was going to have a very long time to think about this game.  Given the beatdown, those 14 years will seem even longer.  I really like the idea of ND  having more than a decade to be upset about what happened.

Let's get zen, live in the moment: it was a great game.

No

The thing that excited me the most was the energy and aggressiveness we played with. Cam McGrone plays so confidently and aggressive and it permeates throughout the rest of the defense. That kid is our best player on the team .. I cannot believe he wasn’t starting early in the year

I recall a game against Northwestern a couple years ago that was quite special. They were ranked higher, and we quickly built a 14 point lead or something and never gave it up.

I'm not sure, but it was the most surprising win - for sure. 

Given the criteria I would use:

1. Opponent is highly ranked (top 10) - even if bogusly

2. We dominate physically and on the scoreboard for 60 minutes

3. NAME opponent (ND, PSU, OSU, MSU, etc.)

This was the best win since:

1. 2006 at ND 47-21. That ND team went 10-3 until2011 Nebraska losing to #3 USC and #4 LSU

2. 2015-16 Florida bowl game. They were SEC East Champs. 

3. 2011 Nebraska 45-17 (OK, UN wasn't top 10 but still ranked and a big game). Probably Brady's best coached game ever at UM

4. 1997 at PSU 34-8

The 2016 PSU Team wasn't considered strong until it got hot with the OSU win on the blocked FG return. It didn't feel "big" even 49-10 since I wasn't sure they were any good - retrospectively, YES but not that day when we won

Rarely does a baseball player become a warrior - Scherzer enters legend status today...

No, the Penn State game last year was...there was the revenge thing and I think that, overall, PSU might have been a better team than the Domers this year.

I’d maybe trade that ND win for the Penn State win. We are facing a near impossible scenario in winning the big ten because of that loss. Wiscy is in the west. That doesn’t hurt us as much. Besides...If we win all of our games in the East...we’d have a chance for revenge in conference playoff against that Wisconsin team. IF they actually can beat Minnesota. At Minnesota. PJ Fleck has some serious momentum in the West right now. We’re about to see how good the gophers are in their next 4 game stretch. 

From a morale boosting perspective, I don't think there's any doubt that this game is the best one yet, but Wisconsin and Penn State last season stick out as better wins.  That Wisconsin game has a shitload of hype coming into it, with GameDay in town and playing at night and then we just throttled them.

No other game was even close