Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.

In the News

Notre Dame has announced their new safeties coach in Chris O’Leary. The former Indiana State receiver has been in coaching since 2015 and was in a graduate assistant role for the Irish over the past 3 seasons.

In the best news of the week, and perhaps the whole year, EA Sports has announced it will be re-booting its college football video game franchise. No word yet on when it will drop (confirmed it won’t happen for 2021) but we await the news with literally the most anticipation possible in our bones.

Yahoo! Sports takes a look at the Senior Bowl winners and losers from last Saturday’s game, featuring a nice blurb on Notre Dame’s departed quarterback.

Two former college legends are heading back to their campuses as Vince Young (Texas) and Tedy Bruschi (Arizona) are now special assistants at their respective schools.

Clark Lea has hired Arizona Cardinals wide receivers coach David Raih to be Vanderbilt’s offensive coordinator. It’ll be the 40 year-old’s first job calling plays at any level.

Will Muschamp is headed to Georgia to be an analyst this season.

Aloha Stadium can’t be used anymore due to structural issues which is a bit of a problem for Hawaii football. They unveiled a plan to spend $6 million to renovate their on-campus Ching Complex to use as a home and boost seating from 3,500 to 10,000 capacity. A deafening crowd!

Clemson OC Tony Elliott was rumored for several head coaching gigs this off-season but just received a raise to $2 million per year to stay with the Tigers.

Throwback Article

Take a step into the 18S time machine and re-read the day–over 4 years ago now–that Tommy Rees came back to Notre Dame to join the Irish staff. Thanks to the NCAA allowing a 10th assistant, Rees became quarterbacks coach which led to the former signal caller becoming Notre Dame’s offensive coordinator prior to 2020.

The Portal

The most recent high-profile transfer has been tight Arik Gilbert who left LSU after one season and will join the Florida Gators. He was the top tight end in the 2020 recruiting class and No. 5 overall player nationally while catching 35 passes as a true freshman.

Former 5-star defensive back Brendan Radley-Hiles is leaving Oklahoma after 3 seasons with the Sooners. The IMG product (and Inglewood, California native) won a starting safety job as a freshman and played nickel for OU over the past 2 seasons. Worth kicking the tires to see if he wants Marcus Freeman in his life?

Also, former Michigan running back Zach Charbonnet is headed back to California and will join the UCLA Bruins. One of the top backs from the 2019 class, Charbonnet had a big freshman season with the Wolverines but fell back to just 19 carries in 5 games this past year.

Helmet Talk

Minnesota has worn a whole lot of alternate uniforms and helmets in recent years so this may not be the last time we highlight the Golden Gophers. Here’s their yellow “Goldy” offering that debuted in 2017:

Normally, I’m not a fan of the over-sized logos on helmets because it seems to be the only tool used for designers. Don’t believe me? Go and Google Image Search ‘football helmet designs’ and see how many jumbo logos you see. It’s out of control, but I do love the Goldy Gopher logo and this helmet overall.

Recruiting

National Signing Day 2021 came and went this past Wednesday (our player grades are coming soon, I promise!) and these were the top recruits to select schools:

  • running back LJ Johnson (0.978) to Texas A&M
  • outside linebacker Raesjon Davis (0.974) to USC
  • safety Terrion Arnold (.974) to Alabama
  • defensive tackle Tywone Malone (0.970) to Ole Miss
  • wide receiver Destyn Hill (0.948) to Florida State
  • corner Avante Dickerson (0.944) to Oregon
  • linebacker Trevin Wallace (0.938) to Kentucky

Alabama clinched the No. 1 recruiting class (again) and did so by breaking the all-time 247 Composite Rankings points record. They broke Rivals’ record, too. Good times.

In the 2022 class, quarterback Nicco Marchiol (0.918) recently committed to Florida State and offensive tackle Will Campbell (0.976) committed to LSU.

House of the Week

Last week we took a trip to Bel Air, California and this week we’ll stay in the same state except move to San Francisco for today’s Architectural Digest home tour.

In common with last week, this home has a massive lot (nearly 0.4 acres) in the dense Russian Hill neighborhood in northeast San Francisco with a park-like atmosphere.  The video says the house is $40.5 million but it reportedly sold in December for $27 million. Seems like a bargain!

The curvy section of Lombard Street is just a block away from this home which seems cool until you realize 2 million people visit it per year which is way less cool.

The sustainability of the property water flow feels like a project I couldn’t even begin to understand. I wasn’t feeling the yard (how many people are comfortably sitting at super long outdoor table to watch a big screen?) although that’s a nice outdoor kitchen.

The pool is worth half the price of this property, my goodness. The look through the window with the pool and bay merged together is fantastic.

As one would expect, the house and interior decoration is a little too precious for my tastes. It’s hard to warm up to a place when there’s nothing filling it out in the closets or bathrooms. I don’t think anyone will be surprised to see Jackson Pollock or Pollock-type paintings in this art gallery.

I thought there’d be more to the bat cave garage but the spinning floor is an excellent idea.

Tunes

This one takes me back to my senior year of college. I’m pretty sure this song was featured on some X Games promos in this 2004-05 range and the band The Music caught my attention. So, I ended up buying their album that year.

That decision was largely a mistake, although now that I think about it this might’ve been my final CD purchase in my life. The drummer’s 16th notes on the hit-hat always reel me on and were a big reason to explore the rest of this album, only to find out, that this dude uses that hi-hat style on pretty much every song. The singer also looks like the son of Geddy Lee.

Ugly Apparel

I had to do a double take on this week’s featured ugly apparel. This one comes directly from our friends at Under Armour and can be found on the Hammes Bookstore site.

What is this?

Cut the sash at the seam by the armpit and you have a fine shirt. But, I don’t understand the wrap-around down the left sleeve. Why? Who knows, I almost wish to see both sleeves part of the wrapping.

On This Day in Sports

In 1989, Kareem Abdul-Jabar became the first NBA player to score 38,000 points. He’d score 387 more points in his career finishing his 20-year run in the league as the top scorer in NBA history. Since he shows no signs of slowing down, LeBron James is averaging 25 per night this year and at this pace would pass Abdul-Jabar for the all-time record likely sometime in the first month of the 2022-23 season as a 38 year-old.

Book Nook

Who among us has read War and Peace? I tackled it somewhere in the 2009 range and tried banging out 20 to 30 pages a day. I think it took me about 2.5 months with a handful of days skipped thrown in there. My recollections are as follows:

I had a small paperback edition that was about 8 inches thick. It took sneaky finger strength to keep the book open for hours and hours.

Last week, I talked about quitting All the King’s Men and I felt that urge with War and Peace too. But, I soldiered on and actually ended up enjoying most of it.

I watched the 1956 movie starring Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda after reading the book. I couldn’t get into it because watching it is so confusing dealing with all the various families in a way that’s easier to digest with a book.

Hot Take

Local media and beat writers should absolutely be allowed to view 3 or 4 spring practices this year. Of course, I understand the desire to keep things 100% safe from outside media, but at the same time, there’s real progress being made with vaccines and I don’t see why Notre Dame can’t accommodate 15 to 20 socially distanced reporters to view some practices when they allowed 10,000 fans into football games this past fall when the pandemic was far worse.

It’s even more puzzling if they move ahead with no media when they have the option of practice inside Notre Dame Stadium or inside the brand new indoor practice field. Both options offer more than enough space to safely bring in a small amount of media.

Trivia

Which year and opponent did DeShone Kizer set the Notre Dame school record for passing yards in a single game in an Irish victory?