Notes from Pat Fitzgerald's press conference: Notre Dame

Notes from Pat Fitzgerald's weekly press conference:

-Fitz also broke the news that linebacker Collin Ellis is retiring from football."It's tough to say that, but he'll be great here this last month helping his teammates." Fitz said Ellis would make a great coach, but has brighter future working in a Fortune 500 company.

-Fitz said: "Kyle Prater had maybe his best game of his career."

-"Nobody warranted being named special teams player of the week." Then he named Tom Hruby the special teams player of the week.

-"We moved the ball well on Saturday. Just self-inflicted wounds and some choices we'd like to have back offensively." When probed further about those poor choices Fitz said: "We need to score when we're on the 15-yard line."

-Fitz said Michigan thought they knew the 2-point conversion play. But they really didn't. They were expecting the throw out in the flat, not the pass to Vitale on the other side of the field. "We've run that play for a month and we worked out pretty much every scenario." The blocking just wasn't good enough.

-On Notre Dame: "This game feels like a conference game because of the time and the calendar. This is going to be a great challenge for us, no doubt."

-"I was proud of the way the guys responded a week ago. We had to adjust our plan after the Iowa game offensively and defensively."

-The most disappointing aspect of the game: "the offensive line play."

-"We have a ton of good, young talent" at the O-line position. But Fitz said they need to mature and compete better in practice.

-On Matt Alviti: "We had some things packaged for him and we'll continue to add more for him. He adds another element to the offense."