Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
Top News
Notre Dame held its Pro Day on campus last Friday. The school had a lot of content about the workouts that you can watch HERE.
Senators Marsha Blackburn (R., Tennessee) and Corey Booker (D., New Jersey) are introducing the NCAA Accountability Act of 2021 that “establishes strict requirements of the long-maligned NCAA infractions process, overhauling the operation by involving the Department of Justice and the U.S. attorney general.” The bill will include provisions such as wrapping up investigations within 8 months, moving the statute of limitations from 4 years to 2 years, revamping the appeals process, not allowing confidential sources from the NCAA, and reporting directly to the U.S. Attorney General.
Marshall, Old Dominion, and Southern Miss avoided a court battle and have officially left Conference USA for the Sun Belt Conference.
Pitt has extended Pat Narduzzi’s contract through the 2030 season. Best of luck!
Oklahoma State added $1 million per year to Mike Gundy’s perpetual 5-year rolling contract with the Cowboys. The school also announced a $40 million renovation plan for Boone Pickens Stadium.
USC assistant coach Dave Nichol–who came to Los Angeles with the newly hired Lincoln Riley–passed away recently after a battle with cancer.
Uniform of the Week
To those who will listen, even the smallest detail on a football uniform can make a big difference. Traditionally, Stanford’s uniforms have been pretty similar to Nebraska with an equal balance of red and white. Then in 2002, the school started using black trim all over the place. This look will always remind me of those Trent Edwards quarterback years for the Cardinal. You know the teams that lost 31 games in 4 years, Edwards couldn’t stay healthy, and the Bills were like, “this is our guy!”
In 2008, Stanford reverted back to their more classic look. From their 2014 bowl game onwards they’ve been using the helmet logo with the tree (although I think the tree should be colored green). For whatever reason, the school started putting black outline on their numbers again in recent years and it looks terrible. They’ve literally been in the dump as a program again with this black on their uniforms and it’s a very weird choice. If only there was more than one fan angry enough to make them change.
Recruiting
Detroit quarterback Dante Moore (0.9970) completed a 2-day visit to Notre Dame this week.
Mississippi quarterback Mack Howard (0.9147) committed to Utah. That’s a weird geographic pull for the Utes.
Texas A&M tight end Baylor Cupp is transferring. He was the No. 53 overall player in the 2019 class.
Quarterback Luke Anthony started at Louisiana Tech in 2020 and is now in the Transfer Portal.
Defensive back Quinton “Pig” Cage is leaving LSU after 1 season in Baton Rouge since transferring in from Nichols State.
San Diego State receiver Elijah Kothe is leaving the Aztecs after being their 2nd leading receiver last year.
Troubled A&M wideout Demond Demas is officially transferring out of College Station.
YouTube Channel
I’ll try not to get too existential on everyone in this section. Allow Pete Holmes’ routine from a few years ago to kick things off: “You think you’re in America? Zoom out. You’re on a space rock floating in nothingness, infinite nothingness, and the nothingness is expanding. That means endlessness is getting bigger. That makes no f*@#ing sense! We all just act like it’s normal.” I mean, right??? Here are some stats from the video below:
- Traveling from Earth to the moon going 62 mph takes 160 days.
- The Voyager 1 space probe is traveling at 39,600 mph and will take 30,000 years to reach the edge of the Oort Cloud at the end of our solar system.
- Traveling from Earth to the Alpha Centurion star just outside our solar system while going 62 mph would take roughly 83 billion years and the star would no longer exist by the time you arrived.
- The Local Group of galaxies is 58,786,253,731,836,080,000 miles across.
- The Virgo Supercluster is 646,648,791,050,196,900,000 miles across.
- The Laniakea Supercluster is 3,056,885,194,000,000,000,000 miles across and we’re starting to break our brains with numbers this large.
- The observable universe is 93 billion light years across (5.88 trillion x 93 billion, you guys) and according to Cosmic Inflation theory the entire universe is possibly 150,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times larger than the observable universe.
It literally boggles the mind how fascinating, amazing, and scary the universe is and how we’ve found ourselves a place within it. Maybe even more fascinating is that we humans figured all of this out (so far!) in an incredibly short amount of time, cosmically speaking of course. Using the analogy in the end of the video, we’re inside a light bulb (our observable universe) but the actual universe is Pluto (and expanding!?) and it would take a trillion life times to move a trillionth of a millimeter inside our light bulb. Space is and forever will be the OG absolute unit.
Tunes
RIP Taylor Hawkins. I feel terrible about the Foo Fighter drummer’s death but also that I had always believed Hawkins played drums on their 1997 release “Everlong.” While doing some research, I was wrong! Dave Grohl recorded the drums in the studio for the song but Hawkins joined the band shortly thereafter and obviously appears in the music video, too.
Look how young everyone looks, especially with the shorter hair! I would imagine for the time period from ~1994 until today it will go down as a battle between Foo Fighters and Green Day as the best American rock bands. I absolutely adored Dookie but quickly felt like Green Day slid into a weird dad-rock punk band group and respected the Foo Fighters a lot more, especially in the early 2000’s.
Trivia
Who are the 3 linebackers to lead Notre Dame in tackles for at least 2 seasons during the Brian Kelly era?
The Other Football
Since our update last week Canada, Cameroon, Tunisia, Morocco, Poland, Portugal, Senegal, Ghana, Mexico, and your United States of America have all punched their ticket to the World Cup.
A reminder the World Cup kicks off on November 21st this year in Qatar. Will I have to do an in-college football season WC preview!??
Utter filth.
The Americans 5-1 victory over Panama on Sunday essentially sealed the deal as even a 2-0 loss to Costa Rica on Wednesday wasn’t enough to leave the U.S. out this time.
The draw for the 4-team groups in the World Cup happens today.
The Barcelona women won their Champions League tie 8-3 over Real Madrid and in doing so set a modern record with 91,553 fans in attendance at Camp Nou on Wednesday. The Barca women have won their last 41 games and are +188 in goal differential in that time period.
Streaming
Much like space, I’m fascinated and horrified by the water when it comes to its size and being stuck on a tiny boat amongst crashing waves and god knows what else underneath. But damn it if Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World from 2003 doesn’t make me want to jump on board and fight Napoleon’s Navy! This video is super excited about the movie, too:
Have you ever taken the tour of the USS Constitution in Boston Harbor? I visited when I was a teenager in between Hockey Night in Boston events and the cramped quarters and general smallness of the entire ship was jarring. My theory is that most people before the Industrial Revolution and into the 1900’s were so bored with life that any hint of adventure in this terribly uncomfortable and frightening theater of war was preferable. Also, I learned a Master and Commander prequal is coming, LFG.
A Look Back
The 2019 trip to Athens, Georgia was special. The lead up reminds me, sadly, how I’ve made the strategic decision (yes, let’s call it this) to miss out on all of the college football preview shows on Saturday mornings, including the ESPN GameDay event for this game. I have absolutely no recollection of the show for this game. People will tell you that GameDay sucks now (and I’ve written in the past that the internet has made us too knowledgeable for a show like this) but I think a lot of it is so many of us are growing older, having kids, and skipping the non-essential preview shows. That, and we’re watching Formula One instead.
As I sit here and watch this Georgia produced video I am torn up inside. Not that Notre Dame lost a close and hotly contested game. It’s not that Notre Dame couldn’t run the ball and gave up trying anything on the ground with the running backs. It’s the painful sting of knowing defeat would come following this pep talk from Georgia kicker Rodrigo Blankenship. Ouch.
18S Paddock Club
It was a wild weekend for F1 that saw a Houthi missile attack just 5 miles away at the Jeddah Aramco facility on Friday evening during the first free practice session threaten to cancel the race as the drivers needed to be convinced to stay in Saudi Arabia. During qualifying Yuki Tsunoda’s car couldn’t get out due to engine trouble (he missed the race too) and Saturday was dominated by an hour-long delay after a nasty crash from Mick Schumacher in Q2 which held him out of the race. In the end, Sergio Perez in the Red Bull put in an amazing lap to take his first career pole while Lewis Hamilton, struggling in his Mercedes, had a poor set up and shockingly qualified 16th.
Perez got a clean start and led the race while early laps were highlighted by the Alpine’s of Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon fighting back and forth for 6th place. At the end of lap 15, Perez was baited into an early pit stop which would end up ruining his day. Just a lap later, the Williams of Latifi crashed in the last corner providing cheap pit stops for Leclerc, Verstappen, and Sainz. We saw Perez sneak in front of Sainz coming out of the pits but later gave the place back as the latter crossed the safety car line first.
Saudi Arabia GIF recap.
The race settled in with Leclerc leading but on laps 36 and 37 a trio of retirements from Bottas, Alonso, and Ricciardo, the latter 2 combining to close the pit lane and prevent Lewis Hamilton (doing a long stint on hard tires) from getting fresh tires. The remaining laps brought us an epic 1-on-1 battle between Leclerc and Verstappen for the second straight week to open 2022.
At the end of lap 42, Verstappen took the lead only for Leclerc to grab it right back down the main straight. On the next lap, both drivers locked up into the final corner, neither wanting to take the lead into the DRS zone before Leclerc zoomed away. Verstappen remained patient and waited until the main straight on lap 47 to make his final charge to pass Leclerc and would eventually hold on for his first victory of 2022.
With only 13 cars finishing, we saw Lando Norris pick up McLaren’s first points of the season while Kevin Magunessen scored points for Haas yet again. Mercedes–continuing to get piled on for their poor start–picked up 11 points and remain in 2nd place 1 point above Red Bull.
Fantasy – Patrick B. wins this week with 215 points thanks to a turbocharged Leclerc and Verstappen, plus Ferrari as his constructor.
F1 is off this weekend and we’ll come back next week with a preview of the Australian Grand Prix. However, the big news this week came on Wednesday night as Formula 1 officially announced a 3-year deal to hold the Grand Prix of Las Vegas.
Hold on to your titties down the 1.9 km full beans straight down the Strip.
According to multiple sources, this is shaping up to be *the* American race on the calendar and will likely have a long-term and/or permanent slot in the F1 calendar. The 50-lap race is set to begin on next year’s 2023 schedule and will start on a Saturday night 10 PM local time so they’ll race in the Vegas lights and catch the morning European television crowd.
Trivia Answer:
Manti Te’o, Jaylon Smith, and Te’von Coney
In a time of war, economic uncertainties, waning pandemic, (somehow still) civil rights issues, environmental crises, it’s really so refreshing to see a group of bipartisan Senators get together on the things that really matter.
It’s Foo Figthers™ and it’s not even close.
In regards to the absolutely disgusting CP10 goal above, what is the split on skill/luck involved in a goal like that? Seems like good players always happen to get a bit more luck than the rest of the competitors. The first bounce after he turned had to be absolutely perfect to bounce under a defender and not too high so that he could still kick it accurately. Doesn’t seem possible that he would be able to accurately control the ball, notice where the defenders were, continue his spin towards goal, process his next move and get the ball past the defender all in a nano-second. Do we just forget all the near-misses when something spectacular like the above happens and then just marvel at how lucky he was?
The more I read about space, the more I think being an astrophysicist should have been my career choice. The information they spit out is absolutely boggling and incomprehensible. They could 1,000,000% be making shit up at this point and everyone would be like, “yeah, space, man, it’s big”
Here’s a thought regarding the luck/skill, and it’ll probably be a rambler (pun intended)
I give more precedence to the skill aspect, but not for the discrete “lucky moment” itself, but for all the events leading up to it that make thay moment impactful. I know nothing about pro soccer, but my hypothesis, is that player making that goal at that moment in that game was a big deal? To the point, the skill of elite players leave them with more opportunities to create those impactful moments, because elite players will more often than not: keep their team in most games, creating higher stakes on average, and further, they are just ever slightly that much better than those around them, so they are just that much more likely to make the amazing play when it does arise. In short, I view it from a probability standpoint; they create more memorable moment possibilities (n), and in those moments, their skills leave higher chances for memorable outcomes (p), thus, the total number of “how did they do it?” Occurences = n*p is a higher number.
Which reinforces this for me is growing up in michigan, and vaguely subjecting myself to the misery of the Detroit lions for decades. They have very little stakes in most of their games, so a low (n) since they suck. Futher, since on average, the players for them arent nearly as good as the competitors, their probability of amazing outcomes is lower too, so a lower (p). Therefore I can count probably on one hand the number of memorable lions “lucky” occurences” over the last 20 years, and almost all of them involve matt Stafford to Calvin johnson, the only 2 shining beacons of the franchise.
In summary, great players keep their teams in more games via their skill, making each game more meaningful, and their skills also give them the edge in the make-or-break moments to where they create memorable outcomes.
And most of those instances were against the Bears.
I’d say 50/50 bears and cowboys; the 2011 lions cowboys game was absolutely wild, and no one in the world cares. Detroit comes from 21 down, has a pick 6, megatron catches a TD in pentuple coverage, and matt stafford runs the fake spike QB sneak over the top for the game winner.
It’s easy to sit and analyze from a keyboard, but I think Pulisic’s first touch was a little lucky/fortunate in that it wasn’t totally crisp, but that also ended up working to his advantage in this case. The second touch to put the ball through the second defender’s legs was all class though, and even more impressive to instantly be able and settle it so quickly, like you said.
Of course from 91′ until today, it’s Pearl Jam.
This absolutely needs to be re-litigated
Since 1991, it’s Pearl Jam.
I feel like there’s a cultural break from 1991 to 1994, though.
Well things, music wise, certainly changed in 91′.
And again in a post-Nirvana world.
Fun fact: watching Master & Commander was the first time I made out with my wife!
Memories!
Asked my wife if she remembered the movie, her response was “No, never heard of it.” Pretty vicious of her.
This comment killed me. Not much of a romantic movie. 😄
I wouldn’t know! Got the job done for me.
Anytime I see any reference to master and commander I can’t help but think of one of the deleted scenes from knocked up. If you still think knocked up, super bad and 40 year old virgin are funny it’s worth a search to find that deleted scene. Definitely not suitable for work or really suitable for post 2020 but hey
Well, the marriage bed is being sexualized by the media. I’ll bet you aren’t the only one who made out with his wife while watching this filth.
The band you may be forgetting because, like me, you might be a little too old for them to fully resonate: Fall Out Boy. It’s hard to argue that they weren’t as or more influential than either Green Day or Foo Fighters, and for basically anyone born after 1993 they’re clearly the most important rock band of their music-listening lifetime (seeing as they would have missed peak Green Day/Foo Fighters, and while bands like Nickelback or Imagine Dragons are arguably bigger I don’t think anybody in their right mind would call them more important).
Fall Out Boy is a good one for the younger crowd, they’re in a different generation than most here but the audience/popularity is there with 18 million monthly streams on Spotify. Blink 182 deserves a spot in that conversation too for 1994-present. Though a more pop punkish genre, still a big footprint and probably about as big an influence as Green Day in the same realm.
My initial reaction was, “What, no way.” I don’t know about influential compared to some others but Fall Out Boy is clearly up there in terms of sales and popularity. It probably says a lot about the rock genre since 2000, to be honest.
I could never get over how incredibly dorky Patrick Stump was as a front man and how tiny the band is physically. Just negative trillion rock swag. It’s like a bunch of middle schoolers magically woke up and became a world famous band. This, plus Stump’s voice being an acquired taste and their emo-punk sound being very dated to a very specific period…they’ve always been a no for me, personally.
Hit Parade did a really great series about pop punk over the years, and the two key bands they center around for the post-Nirvana era are Green Day and Fall Out Boy: https://slate.com/podcasts/hit-parade/2021/10/hit-parade-takes-on-pop-punk-and-emo-from-green-day-to-fall-out-boy-and-panic-at-the-disco
If you want to argue that Green Day was more influential than Fall Out Boy because you can draw a through-line between the bands (as the podcasts do), ok and fair enough, but I think it’d be hard to argue that Fall Out Boy are less influential than the Foo Fighters. What are the associated acts/sound with Foo Fighters who came after them? Whereas there was a five-year period after Fall Out Boy came out where it felt like all the rock music on top-40 radio was either Fall Out Boy or bands that sounded like Fall Out Boy.
But I can mumble one Fall Out Boy song and lots of Foo and Blink songs
“Tell me you’re older than 30 without telling me you’re older than 30”
(To be clear, I, too, am older than 30)
I guess my biggest contention is whether or not FOB is even rock? Seem more like glam-pop-punk (which I suppose is a sub-sub-sub category of rock, so I guess I’m wrong). Looking at their discography, I know more than 1 of their songs, just didn’t know who sang those songs before looking. I’d have a hard time picking their songs from Panic! At The Disco and All American Rejects.
Looking at albums that came out in 06/07/08, separated by non-FOB sounding and FOB sounding:
Get Behind Me Satan – The White Stripes
In Your Honour – Foo Fighters
Z – My Morning Jacket
Employment – Kaiser Chiefs
Broken Boy Soldiers – The Raconteurs
In Rainbows – Radiohead
Neon Bible – Arcade Fire
Sam’s Town – The Killers
We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank – Modest Mouse
Icky Thump – The White Stripes
For Emma, Forever Ago – Bon Iver
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace – Foo Fighters
Boxer – The National
Because of the Times – Kings of Leon
Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend
Only by the Night – Kings of Leon
Attack & Release – The Black Keys
Consolers of the Lonely – The Raconteurs
Cage the Elephant – Cage the Elephant
Evil Urges – My Morning Jacket
Day & Age – The Killers
Infinity on High – Fall Out Boy
Riot! – Paramore
Folie à deux – Fall Out Boy
Pretty. Odd. – Panic at the Disco
The Black Parade – My Chemical Romance
Decemberunderground – AFI
Louder Now – Taking Back Sunday
We Don’t Need to Whisper – Angels & Airwaves
Carnavas – Silversun Pickups
I don’t really have a point here – maybe just that “rock” becomes more and more fractured the more current it gets. The FOB list, to my ears, is it’s own category, which is not “rock”. The non-FOB list seems more “rock” by it’s more general definition.
The FOB wikipedia page is a bit split on whether they’re technically a rock group, it lists their genres as: pop punk, pop rock, pop, alternative rock, emo, emo pop.
But this is coming from someone who was glad the Allman Bros made Eric’s list of top rock bands and a bit disappointed Kansas didn’t, so I’m probably not the perfect FOB target.
I think they were nominated for/won a Grammy in the rock category, so that should be a good indicator that we’re out of touch.
FOB might be a influential band for 12-15 year old boys of the 2000’s and that’s not really a knock. I used to think Uriah Heep were the nads at that age.
I don’t disagree with basically any of that, but to the point I was making: which of those groups got more top-40 radio airplay? It’s assuredly the latter, and would be a massively overwhelming disparity if it weren’t for Kings of Leon and The Black Keys.
But, yeah, personally I’d rather listen to the first group than the second. But to my other point: I am an old.
I’d counter and say the former got more rock radio airplay, which is (I think) part of the point I’m making. I don’t consider FOB, or the previously mentioned Imagine Dragons, to be “rock”
That makes sense. My initial reaction was that FOB’s sound was more restricted to a very specific time period that hasn’t lasted, hence not being that influential. Although you could say the same about Green Day too. Both groups did change their sound as they grew though, although like Drick I feel like Green Day has always been more “rock” even as they aged and FOB has been something…different.
This is also the first FOB conversation I’ve ever had, although, I am getting old too.