National columnists weigh in on Michigan-Notre Dame game

National sports columnists are already weighing in on Saturday's Michigan-Notre Dame football game.

Of last weekend's results, Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports writes: "Simultaneously two of college football’s giants awoke from a multi-season slumber, each offering at least the hope that this time they won’t just roll back over to catch some more sleep."

About the upcoming matchup, Wetzel writes: "Michigan and Notre Dame have played when both were ranked in the top five. They’ve battled when both thought they could win a national title. They’ve met with rosters of All-Americans and Heisman candidates.

"They have rarely played with this particular emotion at stake. The pressure here isn’t on big goals, but small ones. Win and behold the promise of the season where that long-awaited turning of the corner occurs."

Meanwhile, over at the Sporting News, Dave Curtis writes that both Michigan and Notre Dame will "discover the college football caste in which they'll reside in 2010" when the Wolverines travel to South Bend, Ind., on Saturday.

Curtis writes on SportingNews.com that both teams spent last weekend "growing closer to the stability and success that's eluded them of late. Each has taken a different road, one no less traveled than the other, to achieve those goals."

At Notre Dame: "Everything is different. Athletic director Jack Swarbrick decided late last fall his football program needed gutting and started things with his Charlie Weis-for-Brian Kelly exchange. From the conditioning program to the head coach’s charisma, little looks like it has before here. You half expected the Irish to take the field in red and black uniforms."

At Michigan: The Wolverines found many of the same positives against UConn that Notre Dame found against Purdue, but they did so "by not changing much at all. Some UM fans called for coach Rich Rodriguez’s dismissal after the five-game losing streak that ended the 2009 season. And some Wolverines officials no doubt considered that move, especially with NCAA officials waiting with questions about the program. But Michigan stayed with Rodriguez, and Saturday he enjoyed his greatest victory in maize and blue. For an afternoon, at least, the guy and his system looked like a fantastic fit."