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

In the News

Notre Dame has only played Florida once in football. That will change next decade as the school’s agreed to a home-and-home deal this week.

Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell signed a new deal that added 3 more years on his previous contract. He’s now signed with the Cyclones through the 2028 season.

The Packers tried to hire Wisconsin DC Jim Leonard and he said no thank you.

Bill Connelly already has his SP+ Pre-Season rankings. Notre Dame is ranked behind several of its 2021 opponents.

CBS released its 5-year recruiting rankings where Notre Dame places 12th in the nation.

EA Sports is expecting to add up to 300 new jobs at its Orlando studio where the recently announced college football video game will begin to be developed (Madden is developed at this Florida studio too).

Throwback Article

Last May, I looked at the best skill position seasons in Notre Dame history. Would you add Kyren Williams’ 2020 to that list?

The Portal

Long thought to be moving on, Irish receiver Micah Jones officially entered the transfer market this week. The former low 4-star recruit out of Illinois leaves Notre Dame without making a catch over 3 seasons in South Bend.

Jack Lamb left Notre Dame recently and has decided to transfer to Colorado.

Former Clemson linebacker Mike Jones has decided to join LSU. That’s a good pick up for the Tigers.

Helmet Talk

Akron football doesn’t get a lot of publicity. They’ve never finished ranked, ever. They’ve only won 10 games once and that was before I was born. Can I just say that I think this helmet is really sharp?

As a Notre Dame fan of course I’m partial to the colors. There’s something really unique about the “Z” logo which isn’t used much in sports and the white really pops outlined by the blue. If Akron was a better program I think this helmet would be talked about as one of the best in the country. It just has zero history attached it which is too bad.

Recruiting

Notre Dame dipped into the Fairfax, Virginia area to gain the commitment of lanky defensive end Aiden Gobaira (0.883) and you can read our commit post HERE. The Irish continue to liberally pour out offers in recent days, too.

One of the top running backs in the country Raleek Brown (0.987) from Mater Dei committed to Oklahoma. Georgia picked up defensive tackle Bear Alexander (0.942) out of Texas. Elsewhere, Texas A&M snatched up quarterback Conner Weigman (0.960) while Michigan picked up a pair of commitments from athlete Kody Jones (0.902) and safety Taylor Groves (0.912). Also, Florida dipped into the Miami market and have a verbal from defensive end Francois Nolton (0.920).

House of the Week

Our first 2 homes in the Rambler kept us in California, now we head across the coast to the Bridgehampton neighborhood of the Hamptons on Long Island, New York.

The real estate company also has a tremendous magazine for this home HERE.

12 acres of land, with its own baseball field! Field of Dreams! This is a big rental property for celebs for a cool $300,000 per week. Sure, why not?

I’m not a big foyer, guy. Or a guy into big foyers as it were. Lots of wasted space.

The ATM machine cracks me up. You can’t beat the basement in this house, for kids or adults.

I love how the guy is like, “Yeah, we built an additional kitchen right over there so our chef doesn’t have to be around us.”

“When you live in a house this big, your legs get tired from walking so much.” I think we’re done here.

Tunes

One thing I don’t like about the Rolling Stones is how they largely ignore their 2 albums from 1967. Granted, the music from this period doesn’t reproduce itself terribly well on stage and it wasn’t a super happy time for the band as they were slowly losing Brian Jones.

Still, I stan for Their Satanic Majesties Request and especially their preceding album Between the Buttons. This is the album used in The Royal Tenenbaums from the emotional tent scene. The 8th track of the US edition version of that album “My Obsession” is one of my favorite baroque pop songs from the 1960’s.

Ugly Apparel

Here’s my question. How many Irish fans out there went out, with the Alabama matchup looming, and decided to buy any 2021 College Football Playoff apparel? I can maybe see a tee-shirt or something if you can get it on the cheap. Or, a small pin.

Not these:

 

I refuse to believe there’s a single Notre Dame fan that owns these socks. If you’re reading this and you bought these, take a lesson from KG, and you burn them.

On This Day in Sports

In 1909, American James Clark sets the world record running the Brooklyn Marathon with a time of 2:46:52. The current world record was set by Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge back in 2016 in Berlin with a time of 2:01:39 while he also ran an unofficial 1:59:40 in October 2019 during the Ineos 1:59 Challenge in Vienna.

At the Cinema

Remember when we could go to movie theaters? What’s your experience with falling asleep at the movie theater? It has happened to me twice:

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest – This was the second edition from this franchise and I recall it being really slow and boring with very little light on screen.

Dick – The reimagined story of Watergate released in August 2009 starring Kirsten Dunst. I went to see it late that summer with a buddy and completely missed the last 45 minutes after dozing off.

Hot Take

You’re a psychopath if you drive with your windows down A) When there’s precipitation B) You’re not smoking or C) On the highway. As someone who has a long commute to work I’ve picked up on all the worst driving behaviors and I will never, ever understand driving with a window down, or multiple windows down, under these conditions.

Why do people do it? If it’s a temperature thing you have controls within your car to deal with that issue. If you like the noise factor on the highway you’re a sick person. There’s nothing worse on a road trip than someone trying to put a window down at 75 mph on a highway.

Trivia

Back in his playing career, Tommy Rees threw 3 interceptions in a single game on 3 separate occasions. Can you name those games? Hint: The Irish did win one of the games.