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Texas A&M Football
ESPN's Adam Rittenberg details A&M-Notre Dame matchup in Week 1
In just 26 days, Mike Elko's Aggies will take the field to play against his former quarterback, Riley Leonard and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. ESPN senior writer Adam Rittenberg joined TexAgs Radio to discuss the non-conference clash along with the lastest Michigan news.
Key notes from Adam Rittenberg interview
- Like any refraction case, Michigan is on the verge of receiving notice of allegations from the NCAA. A draft got put out over the weekend, and a lot of the stuff reported is what occurred last year in terms of Connor Stalions on the sidelines and the number of games he allegedly stole signs from.
- You mentioned Sherrone Moore. Everyone else that was named in this draft is no longer with Michigan, including Jim Harbaugh.
- Moore is in there for text messages that he tried to delete and then later on turned over to the NCAA. It's worth noting that it appears that those text messages are not overly damning, or else he would have been charged with a Level 1 violation. We do know that he was also involved in another investigation, so technically, he could be a repeat violator. That would be the concern from Michigan. I don’t think this will result in vacations of wins or the national championship.
- I think it is important to remember that Michigan has been through a lot of distractions over the last couple of years, and it hasn’t seemed to deter them. Their offensive coordinator was investigated by police, and they went on to win a national title.
- As far as their team, they had a team-record 13 players selected in the NFL Draft. That’s obviously a big loss, but Michigan returns a lot of star power. You can argue that they have the best players at three different positions in the country this year. They do have to figure out the quarterback, but they’ll have one of the best defenses in the nation. It is a really interesting team.
- Last year too, we didn’t talk about Michigan for the first half of the season because the first half of their season was soft. Now, they have Texas and USC coming in. They are going to be a much more relevant team. They are definitely going to be a front-and-center big news team this season.
- I went to Notre Dame on Friday and saw a little bit of practice. It was good to see Riley Leonard healthy and throwing around. I asked Marcus Freeman if he thought he would be opening a game facing a coach who was your quarterback’s coach last year. They have a lot of respect for Texas A&M, and they know it is going to be tough.
- Riley Leonard needs to be healthy. I know they are very high on him, and Mike Denbrock says that his arm talent is super underrated. Notre Dame hasn’t had many NFL-caliber guys, but I know that they are bullish on what is going on this year. I think their defensive line will be one of the better ones out there, and their secondary might be the best in the country.
- Texas A&M is such an interesting team. They have a coaching staff that I certainly have a lot of confidence in because of who is leading it. Conner Weigman, when healthy, was able to do some great things.
- How does Texas A&M matchup with a team like Notre Dame? Going forward, having this personality in their coaches, I’m excited to see how much progress they can make in year one.
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