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Michigan vs. Alabama at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas.
It sounds like a BCS classic or a matchup in the new college football Final Four rather than a Sept. 1 season opener. Brady Hoke, though, is making sure that his team knows the difference.
"This isn't a bowl game by any stretch of the imagination," the second-year Michigan coach said. "This is a regular-season game at the beginning of the year. This is business."
Hoke's number-one goal every season is the Big Ten championship, and it isn't hard to figure out the next priorities on the list. There isn't a clock in Schembechler Hall counting down to the Alabama game - those are for Michigan State and "Ohio."
Still, Hoke can't deny that Michigan-Alabama is going to be a marquee matchup - the Wolverines' return to power against the defending national champions in America's most gaudy stadium. It also features a "Michigan Man" in Hoke against Nick Saban, who used to coach an hour away at Spartan Stadium.
"We're going down to play a team with a lot of great players," Hoke said. "Coach Saban has done a great job down there, and it is going to be a great challenge. They have a storied program, just like we do, but we're not just representing the University of Michigan in this game - we're representing the entire Big Ten conference."
It's an unusual opener for the Wolverines. The last time they started the season with the defending national champions was in 1989, when Raghib Ismail returned two second-half kickoffs for touchdowns as No. 1 Notre Dame ended No. 2 Michigan's 10-game winning streak with a rainy 24-19 win at the Big House.
How long ago was that? The coaching matchup was Bo Schembechler against Lou Holtz, the Rocket was a little-known sophomore and Elvis Grbac came off the bench to make his Michigan debut when Michael Taylor got hurt. Late in the game, Grbac missed on a two-point conversion pass to a freshman that was also making his Maize-and-Blue debut - Desmond Howard.
Oh, and the Wolverines had just won the NCAA basketball title.
The names have changed in the last 23 years - the only one of those people connected to this year's game is Howard, who has been backing Denard Robinson's claims of 40-yard sprint superiority over Usain Bolt. Roy Roundtree will wear Howard's legacy number No. 21 against the Crimson Tide, assuming he has recovered from arthroscopic knee surgery.
No, it isn't the Buckeyes or the Spartans, and at the end of the season, it won't determine whether Michigan heads to Indianapolis for the Big Ten championship game. But the Michigan players still understand that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
"How many college players ever get the chance to play a team like Alabama, the national champions, at a place like Cowboys Stadium?" asked defensive tackle Taylor Lewan. "The chance to play in games like this is why players come to Michigan. I know it is why I'm here. Alabama probably has the best offensive line in college football, and I'm going to get the opportunity to test myself against them. That's what this is all about."
Even Hoke knows that after last year's rise from the ashes, the nation will see the Alabama game as a test of how far back the Wolverines have actually come.
"You don't get a second chance to make a first impression," he said. "The first impression of Team 133 is going to be Sept. 1 against Alabama."
