Notre Dame requests a schedule adjustment from its colleagues at Brigham Young University, shifting an Oct. 30 game to Sept. 4 so the Fighting Irish can get some real live combat under its belt going into the season's first game-of-the-century, Michigan, this past Saturday.

And of course, the strongly favored Irish lose. So naturally, intimate media gathering of 100 or so in Joyce Center's Monogram Room tried to probe inside the inscrutable psyche of embattled Irish coach Tyrone Willingham.

Now it was Michigan Week and the then No. 8 Wolverines were coming off an impressive rout of last year's Mid American Conference champion Miami (Ohio).

And memories of a 38-0 embarrassment in Michigan's "Big House" this time last fall were still fresh.

The emotional roller-coaster that is Notre Dame football has built in more peaks and valleys than a Six Flags loop-the-loop. When Las Vegas came out with a 13 1/2 point Irish underdog status last week, it seemed to confirm disrespect for Notre Dame football extended from the mountains to the prairies and the oceans white with foam.

But late Saturday afternoon, lo and behold, it was the few thousand Wolverines interlopers at Notre Dame Stadium who were green with envy.

In a game not nearly that close, Notre Dame took U-M's proud legions onto the storied field below and administered a 28-20 upset that confounded just about everyone who doesn't genuflect to "Touchdown Jesus"

Many of the Faithful were stunned as well.

Which brought a rare Willingham smile or two as he hugged several of his players, smiled at his sudden grandstand allies and exhaled.

"Let me comment on that," WIllingham said to Chicago Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti in a stuffed makeshift press facility after Notre Dame for 313 yards, including 115 by freshman tailback Darius Walker, who turned the game around with fourth-quarter touchdown runs of 6 and 5 yards.

"Unfortunately with modern-day television, they have to cover so much out there," Willingham assessed. "I do have some relative quickness. I think they may have missed most of my celebrations."

The former Michigan State second team All-Big Ten defensive back was pulling a few chains, but the Irish football team, which forced the Wolverines to settle for four field goals when touchdowns seemed inevitable, managed to make it to the fourth quarter only down 12-7.

Brady Quinn had hit Matt Shelton for a 46-yard T.D. bomb early in the third quarter to keep the crowd of 80,795 involved.

But without a feature back like Chris Perry and with freshman quarterback Chad Henne, this Wolverine offense played into the hands of an aggressive Notre Dame defense.

The only speculation inside the storied confines centered around when Notre Dame would finally take the lead.

Sites like FireTyWillingham.com were light years away and suddenly Irish football fans allowed themselves to think big again.

"We made better plays and we made them at the right time," said Willingham, who clearly enjoyed the huge coming-out party for Walker, a heralded Georgian who picked up most of his yardage in the game's final 11 minutes.

Within an eight-minute stretch, Walker's two T.D.s and an 8-yard Quinn-to-Rashon Powers-Neal pass added yet another heroic tale to this concrete outdoor library of lore.

Willingham will be the first to tell you he is no Knute, Ara or even Lou. But he certainly had little difficulty motivating his team this week.

"I probably mentioned (the circling speculation)," he told Mariotti. "Just a little." He'd dropped his guard -- just a little -- and said he'd been disappointed in his first two years' coaching at Notre Dame. "That is the present-day climate that we live in. What have you done for me today?

"...I understood the mind-set of those outside the program, but as always in life, you have to set your own sails."

The course will no doubt include some more 20-foot waves -- visits to places like Tennessee and Southern California and a home game against Purdue, which jumped to #18 in the coaches' poll this week, will do that to you.

But, for now at least, Tyrone Willingham and Irish hearts are happy.

Noteworthy: In No. 7 Ohio State's 24-21 victory over feisty, but 0-2 Marshall, the Buckeyes won with a 54-year field goal from Mike Nugent at the final gun..."Every time I hit a solid ball, it goes back and forth a little bit," said Nugent, whose previous long field goal was 53..."It kind of scared me at first," he told The Associated Press. "It was going dead center and then it started going back in. I was just telling it to go in and that last second, it made it by about two inches." ... The Buckeyes also discovered a tremendous prospect, Santonio Holmes, who caught two long Justin Zwick bombs to put Ohio State ahead early...Indiana (2-0) has been the league's most pleasant surprise, jumping to a 23-0 lead at big favorite Oregon, then holding off the Ducks, 30-24 as former Notre Dame quarterback Matt LoVecchio guided a strong Hoosiers offense...Illinois fell behind visiting U.C.L.A. 14-0, then saw Q.B. Jon Beutjer knocked out en route to a 35-17 loss to the Bruins...Northwestern never could find itself in a 30-21 home loss to Arizona State, giving the Big Ten a 1-2 record vs. the Pac-10 this weekend.