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

Top News

The College Football Playoff will be expanding to 12 teams but most do not expect it to happen before the current contract runs out after the 2025 season. The new media deal for the future 12-team College Football Playoff is expected to fetch in the neighborhood of $2.2 billion annually.

10.5 million people watched the Saturday night primetime opener between our beloved Irish and Ohio State.

Wake Forest quarterback Sam Hartman had surgery to remove a blood clot and could be back in the lineup this weekend against Vanderbilt.

LSU defensive lineman Maason Smith tore his ACL and is out for the season after celebrating a tackle against Florida State on Sunday.

Liberty quarterback Charlie Brewer is out 6-8 weeks with a broken hand.

Syracuse lost 2 starters last week in linebacker Stefon Thompson and tight end Chris Elmore who are done for 2022.

Cincinnati is getting out of its 2023/2029 series with NC State.

Pat McAfee is joining ESPN College GameDay in a full-time role beginning this weekend in Austin for Texas-Alabama.

Not only did Virginia Tech lose to Old Dominion on Saturday, they had several items missing from their locker room afterward.

Oklahoma will be building a new $175 million practice facility in the future.

Uniform of the Week

Clark Lea is DGT™ and has the Commodores 2-0 while scoring 105 points so far in 2022. Will it last? Probably not at all! This past Saturday they wore all-black uniforms which included a black helmet with a black logo outlined in gold. It wasn’t that great. However, this all-white outfit from their opener at Hawaii are super fresh. I wasn’t a big fan of the new Vanderbilt logo they unveiled this off-season. I liked their old star logo on the helmet but definitely hated the skinner “V” that Lea went with last year.

I can’t speak enough about solid color numbers and how nice they look. I wish Notre Dame would wear simple white numbers at home and blue on the road–no outline. There’s just enough gold on these Vanderbilt uniforms and I now like the way their fatter “V” logo looks on the helmet. I would still bring the stars back, though.

Recruiting

Texas A&M picked up one of the nation’s top corners in Bravion Rogers (0.9822) on Tuesday.

Defensive lineman A’mauri Washington (0.9331) committed to Oregon. The Ducks also picked up linebacker Blake Purchase (0.9070).

Offensive tackle Zalance Heard (0.9756) committed to LSU.

Interior offensive lineman TJ Shanahan (0.9371) has committed to Texas A&M.

In the 2024 cycle, LSU picked up a commitment from corner Zion Ferguson (0.9324) and Texas gained a verbal from athlete Hunter Moddon (0.9426).

YouTube Channel

I love talking about which hand is the strongest for people and how it differs in things they do in life. For me, I write with my right hand but I throw with my left hand. I play golf and hockey left-handed, but tennis right-handed but with a sick two-handed backhand. I wear my watch on my right wrist (which people think means I write left-handed) but I’ve always done that because it felt more natural and it always felt weird to throw something with a watch on that arm. I started wearing a watch daily in 1997 and at the time the cool thing to do was to wear it slightly loose and trust me it’s not fun trying to throw a football around with a watch flapping all about.

Also, I play guitar right-handed, but I have more dexterity in my right hand for the fret board, only to feel like strumming with my left hand is impossibly unnatural. I’m similar with drums. Playing right-handed feels normal but going left-handed isn’t that unfamiliar.

I always say that I’m not really left-handed except for throwing a ball. I even bowl with my right hand. Sports like hockey and golf it’s your upper right hand that brings all the power and finesse and that’s what I’ve always thought should be considered the dominant hand. I also look at how people open a door. If both of my hands are free, I’m turning a door knob with my right hand. I’m cutting meat with the knife in my right hand. Scissors, again right hand. Tell me about your handness, readers.

Tunes

Last week I talked about a bright guitar tone. This is the wheelhouse for rock band Vampire Weekend who exploded on to the music scene in 2008 with some of the most high-tone mixed bright hollow body guitar sound this century. A couple years later, they came back with a very similar sound before dropping the 2013 album Modern Vampires of the City which was a much more mature and experimental sound that moved away from the guitar-driven tracks in the past. A few years ago, VW released Father of the Bride and it struck a perfect balance between their former and newer sounds.

The 7th track “Unbearably White” has grown on me so much that it may be my favorite song on the album. Immediately, there is a classic bright tone guitar and a sound that is pretty familiar for the band. But, it’s not a real happy song or reminiscent of their more pop-flavored work. There’s a sudden scream at 0:50 in the song which everyone should experience at full-volume with headphones on. What a song.

Trivia

Who are the 2 quarterbacks in Notre Dame history to throw for 500 or more yards in a single game?

The Other Football

The transfer window shut this past weekend as striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang moves from Barcelona to Chelsea for $13 million.

New American owner Todd Boehly has wasted no time pumping money into Chelsea, including spending a Premier League-high $290 million in this summer transfer window. On Wednesday morning, Chelsea sacked manager Thomas Tuchel and they are now rumored to be speaking with Brighton manager Graham Potter. In total, Chelsea could pay $30 million for the pair of buyouts.

We won’t get round 2 later this year 🙁

American fullback Sergino Dest was moved to AC Milan on loan from Barcelona until next summer.

UEFA fined PSG 10 million Euros for Financial Fair Play misdeeds. A quote from a club spokesman said, “Oh no, now what will we ever do with these harsh penalties?”

Manchester United have come alive with a 3-1 win over Arsenal on Sunday. The only remaining unbeaten teams in the EPL are Manchester City and mighty Tottenham.

Brighton trounced Leicester 5-2 and manager Brendan Rogers (1 point from 6 games) may not stay much longer with the Foxes.

The group stage of the Champion’s League kicked off this week with Dinamo Zagreb beating Chelsea 1-0 (hence Tuchel’s firing), and PSG 2-1 over Juventus as the key matches in the Tuesday’s games. On Wednesday night Liverpool lost 4-1 to Napoli (what is going on at Anfield this year!?), Spurs beat Marseille 2-0, and Sporting beat last year’s Europa League champions Frankfurt 3-0.

Streaming

I was terrified of the Wicked Witch of the West until about 8 or 9 years old. There’s no denying that Margaret Hamilton in this role with the the black robes, pointy hat, green skin, and broom is one of the top 10 most important costumes in movie history. The decision to deviate in most ways from the original children’s book released in 1900 for this outfit has provided us with the entire modern conception of what a witch looks like. For me, it’s those soulless, dark black eyes that sent a shiver down my spine as a kid.

I finally got my girls to sit down and watch the movie in one sitting. Well, we had to fast forward through the black and white beginning after a couple minutes.–other than that we got through it all! We were watching on HBO Max and I noticed this movie was digitally remastered impeccably. We weren’t even watching on our good TV! This was on our smaller TV that the kids touch with their grubby hands and I’ve given up trying to clean. Somehow, with all that clarity the wicked witch became so less scarier and so much more human. Something about being little with a grainy 1987 broadcast on ABC hit differently to a small boy.

A Look Back

I will never forget the 2010 Notre Dame vs. Army game played at Yankee Stadium due to the interview in the 1st half with Notre Dame legend Johnny Lujack. This was just under 7 years before the university would unveil a jumbotron inside Notre Dame Stadium. And this night, the school made a concerted effort to use the video board for a lot of stuff with the NBC cameras panning to it several times during the broadcast. Back then, the anti-jumbotron folks were just livid. Oh man, remember the years of fear-mongering that once a video board goes in then the advertising will come and blah, blah, blah.

My favorite conspiracy theory from the loons was that Lujack was rolled out to the sidelines specifically to support the jumbotron. He’s speaking at 40:16 of this video and you’ll notice he doesn’t even bring it up. Alex Flanagan simply states, “And you like the jumbotron, too” as she starts another question. Lujack said nothing about it. How could Notre Dame ever do something so terrible?? Also, I miss Alex Flanagan.

18S Paddock Club

Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto was asked about his team strategy against Red Bull prior to the Dutch Grand Prix and immediately brought up Mercedes. During practice Verstappen had a gearbox problem and didn’t really get a good run on the Zandvoort track until FP3. During qualifying, a tight battle ensued with Vertsappen taking poll by 0.021 seconds over Leclerc in the Ferrari.

At the start of the race, Verstappen used soft tires like Leclerc and kept the lead through the first corner. On a circuit expected to provide decent strategy for a one-stop that would prove to be futile on Sunday. By lap 15, over half the grid had already made their first pit stops. When Leclerc came in on lap 17, Verstappen’s lead was nearly 5 seconds.

Crucially, both Verstappen and Leclerc would choose medium tires while the Mercedes’ cars of Hamilton and Russell opted for hard tires trying for a sneaky one-stop. Half way through the race, Verstappen’s lead over Leclerc hovered around 8.5 seconds but the hard tire for Mercedes was looking strong. On lap 46, Verstappen’s lead was 12.1 seconds when AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda briefly brought a Virtual Safety Car but he got the car back on track and into the pit lane. Ferrari, made the blunder of bringing in Leclerc for hard tires right after the green flag only for Tsunoda to stop again on track to bring out another VSC.

Ferrari forgets a wheel and Verstappen zooms past Hamilton. 

This allowed Verstappen to come in for hard tires, and with such a big gap, remain in the lead. When the VSC ended on lap 50 his lead was 12.5 seconds over Hamilton who switched to medium tires. Five laps later, Hamilton cut that lead to 11.1 seconds and it looked like maybe a wild charge could happen over the final 17 laps. However, Bottas’ Alfa Romeo stopped on the main straight bringing out a full Safety Car. Verstappen would stop yet again for soft tires, Mercedes kept Hamilton out on his mediums, while Russell stopped for softs on the 2nd lap as the Safety Care drove through the pit lane.

Hamilton led the grand prix when the Safety Car came in on lap 61 but Verstappen on the better tires immediately overtook him down the main straight into turn 1. Hamilton’s teammate and Leclerc would also pass him to complete the podium places. Four straight wins for Verstappen and his 10th in 2022. Sheesh.

Sainz started 3rd and finished 8th with a terrible pit stop (his mechanics forgot a tire on a late call to pit) which also bought a 5-second time penalty for an unsafe release. Perez was off the pace all weekend finishing 5th, the Alpine boys finished 6th and 9th, Norris in 7th, with Stroll grabbing the final point.

Monza Preview: To the Temple of Speed we go and the return to the 72nd running of the Italian Grand Prix in Monza just to the northeast of Milan. No rain is in the forecast and the weather should be beautiful for the last race before a mini-September break.

The high speed track has Red Bull watering at the mouth looking for another dominant victory. Although, this can be a notoriously tricky circuit to overtake on and can bring in setups that can confuse drivers as engineers try to bolt on the least amount of downforce at the rear wing as possible.

Italian Grand Prix
The Monza Circuit
FP1 9/9 8:00 AM ET
FP2 9/9 11:00 AM ET
FP3 9/10 7:00 AM ET
Qualifying 9/10 10:00 AM ET
Race 9/11 9:00 AM ET

We’ll also be without the Sprint race this year which spiced things up at Monza last year. As always, at this time of year we can expect some power unit penalties and other things, such as Tsunoda picking up a 10-place grid penalty for his 5th reprimand after loosening his seatbelt after the debacle at Zandvoort.

3 Questions for Monza:

1) Yellow-clad Ferrari is going to win celebrating 75 years of their team and 100 years of Monza, right? RIGHT!?

This is a big weekend for Ferrari. It’s the first race at Monza after the pandemic rules have been relaxed and the team is juggling dual anniversaries on their home track. To celebrate, they’ve debuted a special livery, black fire suits, yellow race suits, and yellow helmets in their Giallo Modena hue.

Rumors of an all-yellow livery were false. 

The team is reportedly bringing a new low downforce rear wing and set to crank their engines all the way up in a bid to win the race. There won’t be as much hype for Carlos Sainz who is bringing an ERS upgrade and power unit penalties. However, all eyes will be on Charles Leclerc to bring it home for the Tifosi. What could go wrong?

2) Are there any surprise podium member this year?

Last year, both Mercedes cars led qualifying but the McLaren’s were good early on finishing 4th and 5th. Hamilton had a poor start from 2nd and never recovered which allowed Danny Ricciardo to finish 3rd in the sprint race. On Sunday, Bottas took an engine penalty and the crash (see below) from the top 2 fastest cars in the championship fight opened the door to Ricciardo’s jubilant victory.

Now, Ricciardo is being kicked out at McLaren after this year and his teammate Lando Norris (finished 2nd at Monza last year) is the only non-Red Bull/Ferrari/Mercedes driver to pick up a podium in 2022. We need some random and fun podiums this year, come on!

3) After Verstappen landed on top of Hamilton here last year, is the rivalry back on again?

People around F1 believe a combination of poor upgrades and the new Technical Directive banning the flexi-floor planks have really stunted Ferrari’s race pace. Over the last 2 races, Mercedes has truly shown they can chase down the Prancing Horses even if the latter can put together strong qualifying laps. It’s possible Mercedes has their eyes set on Red Bull just like 2021.

Last time out at Monza. 

However, this probably isn’t the best track for Mercedes who experience too much drag on straights, but still. They’ve quietly improved their car in 2022 and we seem to be inching closer to a win from Hamilton or Russell. That is, if Verstappen ever stops winning.

Trivia Answer:

Joe Theismann, 526, USC, 1970
Jack Coan, 509, Oklahoma State, 2021