Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
Top News
Georgia Tech head coach Geoff Collins and athletic director Todd Stansbury have both been fired. Offensive line coach Brent Key will step up as the interim head coach.
Stanford leading rusher EJ Smith will be out for the season due to injury.
Nebraska AD Trev Alberts has made the big announcement that the school will be updating and modernizing their Herbie the Husker mascot.
Georgia nickel corner Javon Bullard was recently arrested on a DUI charge.
Boise State fired OC Tim Plough after their loss on Saturday. A couple days later, quarterback Hank Bachmeier announced he was transferring.
The ACC suspended the side judge who made the offsides call against California when they visited Notre Dame.
Northwestern is planning on demolishing Ryan Field after the 2023 season and intends to build a new $800 million privately-funded stadium while the program will have to find a new home for games in 2024-25 before the facility opens in 2026.
The College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock says all first round playoff games in the new 12-team model are unlikely to be played on Saturday, in other words expect some weekday games.
The NFL is scrapping the Pro Bowl and going to a week long skills competition called the “Pro Bowl Games.”
Uniform of the Week
East Carolina is 2-2 this year with losses to NC State and Navy by a combined 4 points. That has to be tough to handle, especially losing to Navy. You don’t ever want to lose to Navy. To make themelves feel better, the Pirates have unveiled this dope throwbacks to be worn later in the season when they host Memphis. ECU has made the Rambler in the past, I’ve never been shy about my love for their uniforms.
To those that came before, these are for you! Mark your calendars for homecoming weekend! 10.15.22 🏴☠️ pic.twitter.com/mLmPoHOGX3
— ECU Football (@ECUPiratesFB) September 25, 2022
These are so, so clean. Although, from the looks of things these are fauxbacks stitching together several different eras of their school’s uniforms (I wouldn’t mind Notre Dame giving this a try for a Shamrock Series game). They used to have the Pirates script on their helmets in the 1970’s and 1980’s as you can see in their tweet. But, that was on a purple helmet. I know it’s tradition but the balance the white helmet brings is beautiful. The video is one of the best I’ve seen for a uniform release, well done ECU!
Recruiting
Shortly after last week’s Rambler was published, offensive tackle Elijah Page (0.8971) left the Notre Dame recruiting class. He is believed to be headed to USC, take your self to Los Angeles then, bye.
Top ranked defensive lineman David Hicks (0.9951) has committed to Texas A&M.
One of the nation’s top wide receivers Hykeem Williams (0.9874) committed to Florida State.
Georgia added blue-chip wide receiver Tyler Williams (0.9435) on Tuesday.
YouTube Channel
I’m pretty vocal about not watching or caring about baseball except when I get feelings of nostalgia. One thing baseball has always done well is bring that out in people through the stadiums old and new. I’d argue that one big drawback for football is that the character of each stadium (with a few exceptions) can be really difficult to absorb through television. Baseball has always been great at this, I never visited the Astro Dome but I feel like I’ve been there 20 times via television osmosis.
I love the ballparks jammed into the cities. This video does a good job of showing how sad things looked once baseball stadiums started moving away from the centers of activity. Candlestick Park looks so sad in this video, and that’s really hard to pull off in California right on the water! Who doesn’t love Camden Yards, by the way? Wasn’t there talk of the Orioles building a new stadium or did I dream that?
Tunes
Pink Floyd just released a new remix in stereo plus 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound of their January 1977 release Animals and it’s definitely worth a listen with headphones. As a kid, I wasn’t a big fan of this album. I used to go to a trainer (working on recovering from a broken arm which turned into tons of off-ice work) and he always had this album among a rotation of like 6 or 7 CD’s in this huge stereo system. It’s not really that type of music to be jamming out to while doing lat pulldown. And, we typically never got through the whole album before someone changed it up.
I know at the time of release this felt like a large-ish change of direction for the band but with hindsight you could see it coming. Still, this was when Pink Floyd became Very Serious™ and entered a new phase and it definitely feels like a mini version of The Wall. The new surround sound mix is fantastic, I’d highly recommend listening to it. The band were always known for their sweeping stereophonic noise and this new mix really highlights the array of sounds they pack into 41 minutes on just 5 tracks.
Trivia
Against which opponent did Notre Dame have their last interception on defense?
The Other Football
We are inching closer to the World Cup in Qatar which kicks off in roughly 7 weeks.
The United States played their last 2 friendlies of the year before embarking on their trip overseas in their World Cup group with England, Wales, and Iran. Last Friday, things did not go very well in a 2-0 loss to Japan which had a -2.77 xG result for the Americans. This past Tuesday saw the American draw Saudi Arabia 0-0, not great momentum!
In Europe, the league phase of the UEFA Nations League wrapped up on Tuesday with Croatia, Spain, Italy, and Netherlands topping their groups for the competition that runs through next summer.
Argentina beat Jamaica 3-0 in their final tune-up game. The Messi-led squad has not lost in their last 35 matches stretching over 3 years.
Strengthening the ties between America and the Premier League, both Tottenham and Liverpool announced long-term deals with Coca-Cola on Thursday morning.
Streaming
In the land of network shows my last consistent watch was the first couple seasons of How To Get Away with Murder back in 2014-15. That held my attention for a while before descending into some really imaginative writing and flashback usage that forced me to hit the eject button. Recently, I’ve watched a lot of episodes of Abbott Elementary with my other half and this show is really wholesome with plenty of funny moments.
Season 2 of the show debuted last Wednesday and continued its success–I popped on and saw that Rotten Tomatoes gave episode one a 100% rating from the critics. I was most surprised by a visit from Philadelphia Flyers mascot Gritty who showed up late in the episode. my dude is everywhere these days!
A Look Back
A lot of people remember Notre Dame going down to Ole Miss and losing 20-13 in a bit of a shocker early in the 1977 season. The next week at Purdue (part of a 3-game road stand to start ’77 great scheduling!) was a bit of a scary one, too. Dan Devine had shaken off the old Ara Parseghian ghosts of Purdue beating the Boilermakers by a combined 40-0 in his first 2 seasons. But, in 1977, the Irish trailed 24-14 in the 3rd quarter.
Some guy named Joe Montana rallied the Irish. After benching starter Rusty Lisch, the backup Gary Forystek got absolutely demolished on a tackle and Montana came in to save the day. It’s weird seeing this ’77 team in the normal uniforms before they made the switch to green later in the season. Also, Purdue should bring back the Purdue Pete end zone. Just in general, teams should be bringing back mascots in their end zones.
18S Paddock Club
Round 17 of 22 sees Formula 1 back in the tiny island nation of Singapore (5.4 million people on 283 square miles folks it is crowded up in there!) for the first race here since the pandemic hit. This will be the last challenge of 2022 where cars have a ton of difficulty overtaking on the tight street circuit filled with a lot of 90-degree or very sharp turns.
Plenty of drivers lack experience on this track, as well. This will be the first F1 Singapore race for Zhou, Tsunoda, Schumacher, and Latifi while Norris, Russell, and Albon only have 1 weekend under their belts in a Formula 1 cockpit at this circuit.
Singapore Grand Prix
Marina Bay Street Circuit
FP1 9/30 6:00 AM ET
FP2 9/30 9:00 AM ET
FP3 10/1 6:00 AM ET
Qualifying 10/1 9:00 AM ET
Race 10/2 8:00 AM ET
Despite being a night race, it’s expected to be very hot with temperatures into the mid-80’s with the humidity making it feel like it’s in the 90’s. As someone who has trouble acclimating to heat in a short period of time this sounds truly awful. As always, engine cooling will become critically important in a race like this.
We are blessed in the United States for this to be a night race with Lights Out™ coming at 8 PM local time giving us a nice cozy 8 AM Eastern start. We shall not be so lucky with next week’s race in Japan set for 1 AM Eastern, yeesh. I’ll catch that on replay in the morning.
3 Questions for Singapore:
1) Can Verstappen wrap up the championship with 5(!) races remaining?
If we consider Verstappen’s teammate Perez is not winning the title ahead of Red Bull’s No. 1 driver than the focus remains on Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. It’s still a longshot for Verstappen to take home the title this early but it’s mathematically possible:
This year’s Ferrari is far too strong to finish so low on the grid (even accounting for strategic errors) so we’re looking at a DNF needed to secure glory. It’s much more likely Max will become champion next week in Japan, or even more likely, in Austin when F1 visits the United States again.
2) Shouldn’t Williams just let de Vries take Latifi’s seat the rest of the year?
Reports on Wednesday suggest Alex Albon will be returning to race this weekend so Nyck de Vries’ opportunity for another 2022 job opportunity with Williams isn’t happening. Still, Nicky Latifi announced this week that he’ll be leaving the team and, contracts aside, Williams would really benefit from de Vries taking over that second car.
Then again, de Vries’ performance at Monza very likely cannot be topped. Especially at this difficult street circuit where the Williams car is likely to be pretty bad. Best to sit this one out.
3) Is this the last chance for a Mercedes win?
Word around the paddock is that Mercedes feels very confident in their car this week and have been looking really impressive in the simulator over this mini-break. Sure, this is approximately the 8th time word has spread about Mercedes feeling like they can contend for a win but maybe it’s true this time!
If the win doesn’t come this Sunday it may be the first season since 2011 where the Silver Arrows can’t pick up at least one victory in a season.
Trivia Answer:
Georgia Tech on 11/20/21.
When I was in my early 20s a lot of bars started having those digital jukeboxes, which meant I’d get drunk and decide “time to play Sheep or Dogs!” This frequently resulted in bartenders turning the whole system off and rebooting it. Fair enough!
They weren’t cool.
I was in Doha last week and it is getting difficult. In advance of the World Cup – Doha is already completely shutting down for normal business and they are restricting regular business movement in the city center.
Doha has something on the order of 50k hotel rooms available and they are expecting 1.5M visitors. People living in the city are being encouraged to avoid the city, go elsewhere and rent out their apartments.
Sounds like a disaster.
Could get interesting, especially since Qatar is still the reigning Emir of COVID restrictions.
There is a town in KSA just across the border that is sold out, but I can imagine the traffic at that border crossing is going to have epic traffic. They Qataris dont put their best out there.
I have friends who are making the trip, and I hope they have their hotel stuff all together. Although, I bet none of that is ever shown on TV.
I told the guys that work for me to stay away unless they are actually hitting the game.