Part Two, you can see September here .  This is going to be rather light on predictions, but when we reach the "Rough Estimate of the Expected Difficulty of Game" section, I have to sort of guess where this Notre Dame team is going to be. While you can legitimately make a case for almost any record between 3 and 10 wins, I’m going to say this team falls somewhere in between, with a steady running game, capable quarterback play and a defense that’s capable of some big plays but struggles against the run due to defensive line depth. If you want to dismiss all of that and just look at the other information, I would not be offended.

Also, all of the returning starter stuff is coming from Phil Steele . Go buy his magazine if you haven’t already.

Opponent: Stanford (October 4th at home)

Result Last Year: A 21-14, turnover-filled, slap fight victory in the season finale.  Robert Hughes showed what the future could hold, being almost unstoppable at 136 yards and a score on only 18 carries (that's 7.6 per).  Duval Kamara had a nice game (6 for 93), and you all remember David Grimes being absolutely robbed of a touchdown catch by biased, evil officiating.

Notes From the 2007 Season: A respectable first year for Jim Harbaugh coming off a 1-11 season, as he knocked off Troy and ended all sorts of streaks for Southern Cal in Los Angeles, gutted out a one-point road win against Arizona and won The Big Game against California.  4-8, 3-6 in conference play is not too awful with what he was working with.

Key Returnees, or Lack Thereof: 16 returning starters (7 on offense, 9 on defense)...QB TC Ostrander is gone, but Tavita Pritchard had nearly as many reps last season. . . top four rushers are back, although they lose the second and third most productive receivers. . . ten of the eleven top tacklers return, including three players from the front seven who had six or more sacks. 

Rough Estimate of the Expected Difficulty of Game: 3 (probably should win), because even if the defense does get better with all of the starters returning and the offense grooves in the second year of Harbaugh's system, I would assume the relative improvement of Notre Dame would be comparable to Stanford.  The Irish won by a touchdown on the road, and Pritchard doesn't have a lot of positive experience with 9 picks to only 5 TD's last year, although he does have the win against USC.

2008 Summer Movie Comparison: Hell Boy II: The Golden Army, because this is the sequel to Harbaugh's pretty successful first movie/season, and if they achieve nothing else in 2008, the Cardinal will knock around people (they had a lot of sacks and tackles for loss in '07), just like Guillermo del Toro's title character.  Plus, you cannot deny the red connection or the fact that even if this team/movie is any good, their thunder is quickly going to be stolen by something much bigger, better and more mainstream (Southern Cal will still be the talk of the PAC-10; The Dark Knight opens a week after Golden Army).  I wanted to compare this to The Happening because of the killer tree angle, but needed that for later.

Opponent: North Carolina (October 11th in Chapel Hill)

Result Last Year: The Irish and Tar Heels took a year off, but the Irish won at home 45-26 in 2006, although they could never quite put UNC away until the fourth quarter.

Notes From the 2007 Season: Butch Davis went 4-8 in his first season, but had a slew of close losses, including by 3 to East Carolina, 2 to Virginia, 7 to Va Tech, 6 to South Carolina, 4 to NC State and 2 to Georgia Tech.  

Key Returnees, or Lack Thereof: 18 starters return (10 on offense, 8 on defense)...sophomore TJ Yates will attempt to improve on his 14:18 TD:INT ratio in '07, throwing to all of his top receivers with all of his top running backs there to complement him. . .lose their top two tacklers and leading sack man, but return their secondary intact, which had 8 picks last year and kept UNC at 28th in pass defense.

Rough Estimate of the Expected Difficulty of Game: 7 (beyond feisty team on the road), because Davis is a good coach and he just unloaded his first recruiting class onto the field last year, meaning that there are a lot of talented underclassmen who already have a ton of experience in close games.  The Tar Heel's stadium doesn't strike me as overly intimidating, but I'm sure it'll be rocking for a potential prime time game against the Irish.

2008 Summer Movie Comparison: Pineapple Express, because nearly every summer there is a comedy that anyone who looks closely at the release schedule can tell is going to be both really funny for the audience and really lucrative for the studios (Wedding Crashers in 2005, Superbad in 2007; The Break-Up might qualify for 2006 because it made a lot of money and had Vince Vaughn in it, but it was an awful, mis-marketed movie that wasn't funny).  Still, when they become huge successes, everyone acts surprise and those that read the writing on the wall cash in big-time on the Hollywood Stock Exchange.  North Carolina has all the makings of a success (good coach, awful conference, loads of talent), but when they do well, people are going to act surprised.  Plus, TJ Yates plays quarterback like a stoner and Carolina Blue is sort of a trippy color.

Opponent: Washington (October 25th in Seattle)

Result Last Year: The Huskies and Irish haven't played since 2005, but the most recent meetings have been floggings by Notre Dame (36-17 in '05, 38-3 in '04)

Notes From the 2007 Season: Your typical Ty season for the Huskies, with a 4-9 finish that included winning a game or two they shouldn't (defeated Boise State) competing in games they probably shouldn't have (respectable losses to Ohio State and USC) and then spectacular collapses to make things interesting (blew a 41-26 fourth quarter lead against Arizona).  My favorite was the Hawaii game at the end of the season, where the Huskies ran out to a 28-7 lead by doing nothing but running the football and blitzing.  After establishing that lead, they did the absolute opposite for the rest of the game, although to Coach Willingham's credit, he did give Mark Richt an absolutely perfect blueprint for Georgia's Sugar Bowl romp.

Key Returnees, or Lack Thereof: 13 returning starters (7 on offense, 6 on defense). . . JAKE LOCKER JAKE LOCKER JAKE LOCKER. . .lose their top running back by a mile and seven of their eight most productive receivers. . .return 7 of their top 9 tacklers, including junior end Daniel Te'o-Nesheim, who had 8.5 sacks in '07.

Rough Estimate of the Expected Difficulty of Game: 6 (potential road difficulties), because as uninspiring as Washington has been under Ty, there are a lot of factors that could make this tough for the Irish.  It's a road game in a hostile atmosphere with a young team, going against Tim Tebow West in Jake Locker, and even though this is new talent with new coordinators, mobile quarterbacks have given the Irish fits in recent years.  Also, don't think Weis doesn't realize that if the 2008 results end up being average, whether he won or lost against the guy he replaced will weigh heavily on his future as Irish head coach.

2008 Summer Movie Comparison: The Happening, because much like the way M. Night Shyamalan had early success (The Sixth Sense, and depending on your opinion, Unbreakable and/or Signs), so did Ty (Rose Bowl at Stanford, 2002 season with Notre Dame).  Things have spiraled downhill for them in recent years, and while they have strapping leading men (Mark Wahlberg, Jake Locker), there's still the potential for big-time failure.  Perhaps if each man focused on what they were really good at (Shyamalan on directing instead of writing, Willingham on golfing instead of trying to coach), they'd have more success.  Also, if you wanted a way to describe what it's like for a fan base to watch a Tyrone Willingham-coached team for an entire season, mass suicide seems like the best possible comparison.