After a banner day for the ACC in which undefeated Florida State got snubbed from the playoffs and the league scrambled for several hours to fill their bowl slots, the Fighting Irish finally landed in El Paso for the post-season. It’ll be Notre Dame vs. Oregon State in the legendary Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl.
The game will be played on Friday, December 29th at 2:00 PM ET inside the Sun Bowl stadium on the campus of UTEP. If you recall from the 2010 Sun Bowl, the game will be televised on CBS. So we should be getting Brad Nessler on the call with Gary Danielson doing the color commentary.
This will be the 3rd meeting between Notre Dame and Oregon State with the Beavers winning the 2000 Fiesta Bowl and 2004 Insight Bowl by a combined 79-30 score.
Head coach Jonathan Smith was coming off a 18-7 run with Oregon State over the last 2 seasons but left for the Michigan State job a week ago. The bulk of Smith’s staff have left for East Lansing with him with the school promoting defensive coordinator Trent Bray to the head coaching position recently.
It’s official! @BeaverFootball vs @NDFootball on Friday, Dec. 29, 2023! pic.twitter.com/5eFBLcRBxS
— Tony The Tiger Sun Bowl (@TonyTheTigerSB) December 3, 2023
Bray is set to hire Ryan Gunderson as the team’s new offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Gunderson has never been an offensive coordinator before and was the quarterbacks coach at UCLA since 2021.
However, the Beavers have appointed interim head coach Kefense Hynson (wide receiver coach and passing game coordinator under Jonathan Smith) for the bowl game so I’m not sure which coach’s will be working and heading to El Paso.
College football post-season, it’s the best!
Oregon State hasn’t suffered many transfers out so far this off-season. The exception would be quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei who is on the move again after 1 year in Corvallis. In his place, the Beavers are likely to turn to true freshman Aidan Chiles who was a big-time recruit and the 6th highest rated prospect to come to Oregon State since 2000.
In other roster news, right tackle Taliese Fuaga is expected to declare for the NFL Draft but the bulk of their roster is likely to suit up against Notre Dame later this month.
REVENGE TOUR! WIN ONE FOR, uh….interim coach Kent Baer?
What a mess this postseason is.
ACC screwed us out of an edible mascot. This conference cannot implode soon enough.
FSux, Clemson, L’Ville, NC, and NC St picked ahead of us. How many of those want to leave the conference and voted against expansion which ND advocated? Whatever
Why are we playing these bowls again? The extra practice is nice, but why should any kid be giving more than a Pro Bowl level of effort out there?
Just give teams the extra practice, let AI run a Monte Carlo simulation, and generate the video of the game using CGI. Put it on the stadium screen.
Fans get to go somewhere warm and watch a game with all the actual players from the season with no opt outs, and no one gets hurt.
So we can see Miami and Michigan lose.
From your lips to God’s ears.
Thank you to ESPN and the playoff for ruining one of the best parts of the sport, weird out of conference games in late December.
They seem somewhat meaningless now. ND can now use the T formation with two TEs.
What was the point of any game after the Louisville loss?
For me it’s the opt-outs and the weird gap of over a month. Also regular season games are different for the vast majority of FBS teams, since obviously most of them are in conferences and all the games need to be played to determine the champs (or at least the two top teams).
Hey man, we were only 13 starting QB injuries away from making the playoffs.
Also, we’re hiring Wisconsin’s WR coach apparently? Oof
You won’t believe this but he’s apparently friendly with Marcus Freeman.
He was the Associate Head Coach and Wide Receivers Coach at UW, which typically is awarded to pay a guy you really want more. The Badgers fans don’t seem too pleased to have lost him, here’s a succinct summary:
Yeah I certainly have no idea if it will work out or not. It’s more that its part and parcel of Freeman not really striding too far outside of a comfort zone to find coaches – other than the Golden hire, which, perhaps not coincidentally, looks like his best hire as of right now.
Really I think the message board angst around this hire (Loy’s announcement post got downvoted significantly) really would disappear if we replaced Parker in the coming weeks, as that would show a willingness to get outside the comfort zone to do what needs to be done. Doesn’t seem likely at this point, but I’m holding out hope.
Hire someone who’s work your familiar with. Seems logical. Yes, Golden looks like a good, as do a few others.
I think the message board angst is more likely caused by the fact that we have a history of doing this (hiring an old buddy) with Brian Kelly, and it didn’t always go well. I would be interested to see how this sort of thing has worked out for other programs with younger head coaches recently.
This is really just the myopia of Irish fans. ALL coaches do this. It’s hardly a Brian Kelly thing. Connected coaches work out sometimes, and sometimes not. Same as the rest.
Aidan Chiles, any relation to Jackie?
Who told you to put on the balm?
Hopefully this will be a very public humiliation for him.
Let’s beat the fuck out of Oregon State.
If the new OC of OSU was the new DC, he would be Defense Kefense.
At first I was shocked and felt offended for FSU.
Then I remembered 1993 and also the sketchy OPI call in 2014 and now I’m at peace with karma being a b****.
Exactly, plus there would be a 12 team playoff this year, except for the ACC campaigning against expansion and getting it delayed under the mistaken impression that they’d be able to leverage ND into joining their stupid conference.
The karma is a certain comfort.
I made the mistake of watching the first 30 mins of the selection show.
Between ESPN explaining why Bama is #4, the committee head basically using Travis’ injury as the reason they dropped, and Harbaugh invoking Jesus and the need to pay players more when asked about their scandals…I see the PR firms were busy this week! Just a mess.
Aidan Chiles to the portal lololololololol
Welp, this somewhat negates my comment below
Minute by minute updates!
lol beat me to it. This sport has become absurd. I mean, always was, but teetering more and more towards tragic absurd than funny absurd. But this is still funny
I think the free transfer should go away until you’ve used two years of eligibility, BUT with exceptions if your HC or OC/DC leaves.
Coaches have ditched programs for years without a second thought. Don’t see why a kid should be penalized and stuck somewhere he doesn’t want to be because he believed a coach who promised him a lot of stuff and then left town.
Let the Jonathan Smith era of poaching from his alma mater continue. Gulbranson completed the only pass he attempted this year for six yards and ran a run heavy offense last year.
Longtime reader/creeper, first time poster – not sure how I stumbled upon this blog but glad I did! I’m a former frequenter of OFD under a different screen name, and it seems harsh to say the quality of writing, analysis, and discourse here is definitively superior, so I’ll be kind and just say it seems more to my liking.
Anywho, I feel like this is a dangerous matchup for ND. It’s a game we could easily lose, especially given the surfeit of transfers and inevitable opt-outs, and yet one we’d get absolutely no credit for winning. If we lose, it of course means ND sucks and is overrated, while OSU simultaneously gets to claim it as a historic, program-defining win. The cognitive dissonance is strong in the college football community, so I’d prefer either a risk-free creampuff opponent, or one with more historical cachet.
Welcome aboard! If you’re wondering where to send your dues for your premium 18S lifetime subscription with the after-dark add-on, just DM me 😉
Last time I engaged in after-dark premium content, I did indeed walk away with an eyerash
It’s a lot like the Iowa State bowl a few years back and I think it’ll go similarly, but I also am bad at guessing lines, so we’ll see.
Eh. It’s a lot better than playing a good team with their coach, QB, LT, and RB.
All you want out of a bowl is a win and for no reason other than it isn’t a loss. No one gives anyone credit for beating anyone outside of maybe NY6, and even that is a bunch of teams who just missed the playoffs and probably have a lot more opt-outs, so who cares. Basically, if someone already likes ND, they will give us credit and if they already don’t, they won’t.
I personally think it’s the best case scenario. I just want to play the easiest possible team and OSU seems to be that given other possible opponents being thrown around.
Plus, we do have a minor revenge factor at play here. I don’t care about the second bowl loss to them but that first one (against a Bob Davie team) stung, and I seem to remember them rubbing it in.
This game is getting more cream-puffy by the minute, but I agree with your overall point, the only possible positive to this game is racking up a win. So let’s do that, get to 10 on the season, and land our whole signing class.
Nice first post, welcome aboard!
Tanona to the portal as well, so maybe we need two tackles?
He medically retired back in August 2022, so he’s been off the roster for a while.
Oh yeah, totally forgot about that. Interesting
Good for him if he’s getting back to playing health!
For sure!
How we ended up in the Sun Bowl:
When FSU was not in the CFP, they dropped to the Orange, the ACC got the BIG’s slot, knocking out Ohio State, reshuffling the BIG’s bowl lineup.When the BIG team was in the Orange, the ACC had the slot in the Reliaquest Bowl. Ohio State and Penn St got New Year’s Day bowls. Iowa as the next ranked BIG goes to the Cheez-it Citrus. Wisconsin goes to the Reliaquest. No matchup for ND against Kelly’s LSU.
What caused the delay in announcing matchups was the ACC, probably still simmering because they felt FSU got screwed. The ACC wanted their conference teams in the PopTarts, Gator, and Holiday who reportedly were prevented from taking ND. PopTarts next in line to choose took NC St (?), passing on Louisville and ND. Both had beaten NC St.
The PopTarts, Gator, and Holiday were next in line in that order. Louisville and Clemson had beaten ND so could arguably be picked before the Irish. The slots went to Louisville, Clemson, and North Carolina respectively. The NC schools before ND?
The Sun, Pinstripe and Duke’s Mayo selections would be drawn from a hat. The Sun won the ND raffle. In their selection process, the next highest Pac team – Oregon State – went to the Sun. That matchup should be a lot more compelling than those bowls with Iowa, Wisconsin, North Carolina State and North Carolina. The Sun is the only game not broadcast by ESPN. It’s on CBS. El Paso loves ND and is delighted.
I am choosing to believe you’ve been up since 7pm last night working on this post.
🙂 Took about half an hour and fifteen minutes to post for your reading pleasure.
Interestingly, in the post-selection interview with the Sun Bowl representative, he announced that the Pinstripe Bowl caused part of the delay deciding if there was a problem with ND playing at Yankee Stadium both now and in their game there early* next season.
You know… the unannounced game 12 for next year. Funny that the most public announcement about it yet came from the Sun Bowl representative.
*Early next season seems like a bit of overstatement since the open weeks are October 5th, November 2nd, and November 23rd.
I meant to ask the other day what was up with only still having 11 games scheduled for next season. Do games get announced months out anymore? I assumed most games were locked in, at a minimum, a year or two in advance.
Miami pulled out of their game with us four months ago leaving us with 11, they had accidentally scheduled 13 games because they were lazy and didn’t take their socks off when counting past ten.
ND was under the impression for the last three months that we’d play Army in Yankee Stadium as our 12th game, but never got them to sign the paperwork and now that Army has announced they’re joining the AAC and Jeff Monken is campaigning internally at Army to blow off the ND game to avoid making their schedule too difficult.
I still think we should get Auburn to play at a neutral site instead, but it seems like ND is pressuring the athletic department at Army to follow through instead. We’ll see if/when it gets signed.
Thanks
Right now we have six home games and four away games plus Navy in East Rutherford. Five ACC games, two BIG games, one SEC game, two MAC games and Navy (AAC).
“Early next season” might also have been an overstatement considering Yankee Stadium’s namesake team has to, you know, USE the stadium at least until the end of September and then it takes time to turn the field into a football field.
I think part of the disconnect comes from realizing that the ACC was actually a better conference this season than the B1G. For instance, Wisconsin is awful and worse than any of the ACC teams mentioned. I wasn’t even sure they were bowl-eligible.
Also, Penn State continuing to earn NY6 invites for getting dogwalked by OSU and Michigan AGAIN has gotten very very stale. Watching them getting busted back in that suckhole conference is one of the only benefits from their looming expansion to 37 teams.
Can we go get Julian Fleming in the portal? That would be neat.
lol
I just saw this as well. Hope he does well, seemed like a good kid.
Also just saw that Beaux Collins is visiting ND this week 👀
That is not a joke?
It gets even funnier.
Time is a flat circle.