and think of what happens if Michigan loses to ND last year. That is the ONLY thing they can really point to over Harbaugh's sorry coaching tenure. Imagine if we put on the Doc Martens and stomped their arses that night and he'd have a horrible record without a win against ND, OSU, and a losing record to Michigan State.

And Kelly let Harbaugh and that entire program, hell, the whole athletic department off the hook with that sorry coaching. RIO to Maverick, "we could have had him...we could have had him man"

ever. I only watched a few minutes at the beginning and knew what was going to happen. Just like the time when we were out at SoCal and Golson I think was intercepted right at first
And I told my wife, “Forget it. We’re going to lose by 5 touchdowns.” Yep. It was 49-14.

There is no way I would have let him back on the team bus to go back to ND.

He was finished. No rational ND fan would ever trust him again after October 26, 2019.

If he can't roll a major power that literally is tanking, what makes you think he could ever win a playoff game....

Unless he gets them at home and most of their marquee players are out because of a pandemic...

So rather than buying merch, maybe we need to travel to Wuhan markets and start eating bats...

I can accept an occasional flop game. Lou lost to Air Force. Ohio State lost to Purdue (or was it Iowa) not that long ago, and barely beat Navy. Clemson has their occasional Pittsburgh.
I know it was Michigan, but we beat them pretty well the previous year and Michigan was down, so I put that more in the "flop" game category. As long as that's a once every 3-5 year happening I'll accept it as par for the course (as evidenced by the elite teams having a similar rate of flop games.)
My issue is the repeat ass-whoopings in the big games. That's where those elite teams shine and we stink -- a huge difference between a Kelly team and the elite teams in these games. Not as big a different with the occasional flop.
(I am admittedly a bit torn on not counting Michigan as a big game, since it fits the profiles of some of the other Kelly blow-outs. But I remember the ND fanbase view of that game, myself included, as it being a fairly sure victory for us.)

I am not one to ever defend Jack - but I will this time. This wasn't a "flop" game situation - those are games you didn't know could be a loss, or you were coming a big win (like 1996 and Washington or 1993 and Florida State) or a really bad defeat (Tennessee 1991 and we just mailed it in against PSU the next week).

Jack did everything to telegraph this game was big:

1) Jack moved the USC game back a week (Oct 12) to give us two weeks to prepare for the Michigan game (that was the earliest date for that game in decades, it probably should have been Oct 19).

2) Michigan played PSU on the road on Oct 19 (a tough game that they ended up losing).

3) Michigan had never played an out of conference game that late in a season since.... well, at least 50 years? 70 years?. They were always opposed to any game in October (Delaware State a few years ago as an exception) since it took away their focus from the conference games.

And yet still BK shows up totally unprepared... in year 10 of his "program"

Agree with everything you said, and those are some of the points that give me pause about putting this in the "flop" vs. "big game ass-whoopin'" category. Even within this thread posters are giving contradictory points -- why it was a big game and others saying Michigan was tanking. I can see it either way. Just because Savvy treated it as a big game didn't mean the team did.
In either case there is still the obvious elephant in the room: Kelly's teams consistently get their butts kicked in big games, while the elite teams up their level of play in those games and (at least sometimes) win their share. I don't need to put the Michigan game in the 'big game' category to support that point.

UM was reeling coming into that game and his game plan was a repeat of the NC State hurricane game. During the halftime interview of that shit show, he simply said “we have to pass the ball better.” Meanwhile UM was somewhere in the midst of running it 25 straight times or whatever in that foul weather. He is incapable of a sound game plan.