Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
Top News
Former Notre Dame tackle Liam Eichenberg tore his MCL last weekend and was placed on Injured Reserve by the Dolphins.
The Pittsburgh Steelers traded wideout Chase Claypool to the Chicago Bears on Tuesday. In exchange, the Bears are sending a 2nd round pick to Pittsburgh that they obtained in a trade sending linebacker Roquan Smith to Baltimore.
The first College Football Playoff rankings came out on Tuesday evening:
#1 Tennessee (1 spot higher than AP)
#2 Ohio State (1 spot higher than AP)
#3 Georgia (2 spots lower than AP)
#4 Clemson (1 spot higher than AP)
#5 Michigan (1 spot lower than AP)
#6 Alabama (same as AP)
#7 TCU (same as AP)
#8 Oregon (same as AP)
#9 USC (same as AP)
#10 LSU (5 spots higher than AP)
Bryan Harsin was fired by Auburn on Monday and will be paid a $15.5 million buyout. Cadillac Williams will be the interim coach. Mississippi State AD John Cohen has resigned to become the new Auburn athletic director. Both these teams play each other in football this weekend, too!
Liberty head coach Huge Freeze received a new 8-year contract averaging just under $5 million per year that runs through the 2030 season.
The Big 12 new television deal is reportedly done and ESPN along with Fox will pay the conference $380 million per year.
After being fired by Arizona State earlier this year, Herm Edwards will be back on ESPN for NFL and college football coverage.
Police will be investigating the violent tunnel encounter between Michigan and Michigan State players from Saturday night’s game. So far, Michigan State has suspended 4 players in connection with the scrap.
Uniform of the Week
No other school has messed up black uniforms more than Tennessee. Until now! On the weekend before Halloween, the Volunteers finally put together a clean black look that can’t be criticized. Long ago, the Vols tried their normal home white helmets with orange pants and black jerseys. Later, they’d try all-black jerseys and pants but with a white helmet. I don’t know why they stuck with their white helmet for so long.
That white helmet (with black trim) is actually pretty nice and would look good on the road if they ever went back to the Peyton Manning-era black trim on their white jerseys. Switching to a black helmet was a no-brainer for this uniform set worn against Kentucky, though. If you squint, you can see a lot of Oregon State and Oklahoma State in there too.
Recruiting
We’ll start off with some 2024 news where elite quarterback Julian Sayin (0.9918) committed to Alabama on Wednesday. Also, Oregon added tight end AJ Pugliano (0.9194), Tennessee added corner Kaleb Beasley (0.9318), and Ohio State picked up one of Indiana’s top players in IOL Ian Moore (0.9592) in recent days.
Now back to the current 2023 cycle. In a surprise decision, the nation’s no. 1 cornerback Cormani McClain (0.9978) committed to Miami this past Thursday. This edit from On3’s Hayes Fawcett is a real doozy:
Fitting for someone nicknamed “Money McClain” to have cash all over the edit. Plus, a captain’s patch(!), 2 turnover chains, the ACC Championship trophy, Jim Thorpe Award trophy, National Championship trophy, but sadly no Heisman.
Ohio State picked up a commit from Georgia defensive lineman Kayden McDonald (0.9053).
Texas safety Warren Roberson (0.9171) is a big pick up for TCU.
YouTube Channel
We’re back with Secret Base and their video “The Bush push demands a deep rewind” which, debatable. But I’m going to share it in this week’s Rambler anyway. The video largely speaks to USC’s dominance but how they were a little wobbly coming into the game as Matt Leinart was in a bit of a slump as Reggie Bush was going OFF. Check out young goateed Lane Kiffin in there!
I have problems with the uniform history presented for Notre Dame, and the team definitely wasn’t wearing kelly green in 2005 against USC. Anyway, interesting decision from the video not to discuss the mechanics of the actual Bush Push! As usual when talking about this game, the 4th down conversion by USC stings so, so bad. Even though I thought Notre Dame won eventually after Leinart was destroyed at the goal line, looking back that long catch seems so cruel. The 17-inch long grass still cracks me up, too. That was some real Northwestern stuff.
Tunes
Seals and Crofts meets Busta Rhymes. You wouldn’t think it could happen, but it did. I began this week’s section ready to comment on the breathtaking imagination and overall hip-hop style of Busta Rhymes–without a doubt one of my top 5 favorite rappers of all-time. You know what, probably top 3 for me personally. His first 3 albums from 1996-98 just blew people’s minds and added so much flavor to the rap scene in that decade. Particularly, the video that accompanied “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See” was so memorable and felt like a shockwave through the MTV and radio world.
The story for this song goes that Busta Rhymes producer Darroll “Shamello” Durant asked upcoming new producer “Buddha” to listen to the this Seals and Crofts album and on his first song ever created the beat from “Sweet Green Fields.” Busta has said he was in the studio with P Diddy around this time and was told to try being less loud and aggressive on a record. Take the unforgettable sample with his new way of delivering lyrics and we got this gem.
Trivia
Who is currently 2nd on Notre Dame in touchdown receptions?
The Other Football
Tottenham Hotspur leave it late against Bournemouth with a Bentancur winner 3-2 in EPL action over the weekend and follow that up with an extra time piss rocket winner by Hojbjerg to win their Champions League group on Tuesday. However, star winger Son Heung-min took a huge knock to his face and is scheduled for facial surgery this week, putting his World Cup status in doubt.
We’ll take it.Â
The draw for the UCL round of 16 is coming up on November 7th. The teams to advance include: Napoli, Porto, Bayern Munich, Spurs, Chelsea, Real Madrid, City, Benfica, Liverpool, Club Brugge, Inter, Frankfurt, AC Milan, Leipzig, Dortmund, and PSG.
Manager Graham Potter made his return to Brighton this weekend and lost 4-1 with Chelsea, whoops!
In super awesome World Cup news, Qatar is paying for fans to come from other countries and spread positive information about the country and event throughout social media. Yay, sportswashing!
French midfielder Paul Pogba is officially out of the World Cup due to injury.
Luis Suarez clinched the Uruguayan title with boyhood club Nacional and is rumored to be heading to LA Galaxy in MLS.
Nashville’s Hany Mukhtar was named MLS MVP for 2022 after scoring 23 goals with 11 assists. I know we haven’t been keeping up much with MLS lately, they are in the MLS Cup Finals set to kick off on Saturday between LAFC and the Philadelphia Union.
Streaming
Who doesn’t love Abraham Lincoln? Knowing how many incredibly difficult decisions the former president had to make in an insane pressure-cooker that was the Civil War, are there people out there who really zag hard when it comes to Abe? Last year, I finally finished the US Grant biography over 1,100 pages long and it made me want to deep dive into either Team of Rivals or Ronald C. White’s biography of Lincoln. Either are such a huge time commitment.
I was skeptical when the Lincoln movie project was announced. It was Daniel Day-Lewis and Steven Spielberg and I knew nothing could live up to the hype of such a deep and rich historical figure. It was kind of always like the Beatles and trying to make a movie about them–it’s damn near impossible. Sure enough, Lincoln was just fine and a worthy movie but I was disappointed anyway. It makes me want to read Team of Rivals even more, just to compare.
A Look Back
I asked in the patrician Slack chat whether Tennessee could win the National Championship. It…doesn’t seem that ridiculous, does it? However, it wasn’t that long ago where it seemed impossible that the Vols could get it turned around this quickly. But maybe we didn’t want to look more closely? Four out of their 6 losses came to top 13 teams in 2021, plus a bad loss to unranked Florida. Then, heading into this weekend with a massive game against Georgia we look back at the last time Tennessee has lost a football game.
It’s December 30, 2021 and we’re in Nashville for the Music City Bowl. Both teams went over 600 yards, hell yeah it’s true. Both quarterbacks threw 5 touchdowns apiece. Fifty-seven first downs combined between these schools. Purdue averaged 7.7 yards per play! Tennessee missed a long field goal as time expired to win it, then were stuffed at the goal line on 4th down in overtime. Ouch.
18S Paddock Club
People talk about altitude sickness in Mexico City (7,350 feet above sea level) and it affects Formula 1 power units, too. It struck fear into Ferrari who turned down their engines for the weekend in order to protect their turbochargers from blowing up. As such, they were not in the fight for a win while settling in a distant third behind Red Bull and Mercedes.
During qualifying, Mercedes looked truly strong for the first time in 2022 (the thin air really helping their draggy car) but engine issues and driver mistakes allowed Verstappen to take pole with a healthy 0.304 second advantage.
During the race on Sunday, Pirelli were advocating for a 2-stop strategy as the fastest and both Red Bull and Ferrari started on soft tires, seemingly ready to do just that. Mercedes started on medium tires, maybe willing to go with a 1-stop. Tire strategy games!
At lights out, Verstappen got away to stay in 1st with Hamilton passing teammate Russell who was then also passed by Perez in the other Red Bull. Even on mediums, Hamilton was able to stay relatively close to Verstappen and when Pirelli thought the first pit stop should come, it was only a 2 second lead. However, Verstappen stretched the soft tire out to lap 25 and led by 1.5 seconds before bolting on a set of medium tires.
VER survives the long straight after lights out, goes long on both tires, plus RIC yeets TSU.Â
The grid found out that with the lower temperatures on Sunday, the tires simply were not degrading all that much. But, Mercedes still made a strategic mistake. Hamilton came in to change to hard tires on only lap 29 with the belief the medium tires on Verstappen would fall apart late.
They would be…wrong.
Verstappen went 45 laps on those mediums pumping in consistently good times and Hamilton ended up a distant 2nd place by 15.1 seconds. Russell (with enough of a gap to the 2 Ferrari’s in 5th and 6th place) too to the pit lane late for soft tires and picked up the fastest lap. But, we got the same exact podium as last year: Verstappen, Hamilton, and Perez. With 2 races remaining, Perez now has a 5-point lead over Leclerc for 2nd place.
That’s Verstappen’s record-breaking 14th win of the season, unbelievable!
Elsewhere in the midfield, Danny Ricciardo yeeted Yuki Tsunoda out of the race, picked up a 10-second time penalty, but was flying on the soft tires and ended up finishing 7th–his best finish of the season since the 3rd race in Australia this season.
F1 is off this week as the team’s prepare for the penultimate race in Sao Paulo, Brazil next weekend.
Trivia Answer:
Jayden Thomas (2).
Last I read MSU has suspended 8 players for roles in the Michigan scuffle.
Has James Franklin commented, yet?
Yup, I am looking now and it was 4 *more* players. Yikes.
The 17-inch grass always bothered me. A funny idea, but I question its impact.
Maybe we should have dug up patches of grass everywhere to discourage east to west running?
Potholes dug every few feet.
It’s an interesting sliding scale for the grass length. Leinart was 16 of 31 for 240 yards, no touchdowns, and 2 INT before his final pass to Jarrett. Did the longer grass stifle their passing game? Did it stifle the ND passing game too much?
Cut it shorter and does Bush go even more crazy than his 195 yards from scrimmage on just 19 touches?
I mean longer grass probably slows runners down, but it also slowed our defenders trying to tackle Bush, right? I’m not sure there’s a net gain to be had.
Presumably, if it slows people down, it’s more by a % than an absolute mph.
That way, assuming they were all faster than us, and it reduced speed by 10%, then would then be less faster than us. (if it was an absolute thing, then you would want to increase everyone’s speed by as much as possible to create a relatively smaller difference)
Say their WRs run 11mph and our DBs run 10mph on a track. So they are 1mph faster than us on a track. But our 17″ grass slows everyone down by 10%. Now their WRs run 9.9mph and our DBs run 9mph, so we are only .9mph slower! If we could slow everyone down by 90%, then we’d only be .1pmh slower and with a good dive might be able to catch them (assuming the trajectory of the dive was higher than the grass, despite possibly needing 4ft high grass to achieve this level of slowdown).
This is obviously a ridiculous simplification and may not even really be the case. But I love math, so couldn’t resist.
I always thought worse conditions (longer grass, rain, wind) favored the defense.
I thought rain & snow helped the offense, because they know when they’re cutting & where they’re going, the defense is only reacting. (Excludes throwing and catching)
I used to think so but I feel like we see offensive players slipping, more frustrated, and go slower (thus easier to cover) more than issues with defenders.
https://boardroom.tv/how-does-cold-weather-affect-nfl-games/#:~:text=As%20John%20Paulsen%20of%204For4,in%20games%20below%2020%20degrees
this is an NFL article, but some highlights:
Between 1994 and 2016
There is maybe a slight advantage to the home team, but they only look at the 5 coldest NFL games ever for that stat.
These stats would suggest that growing out the grass could slow down a pass heavy offense but isn’t really a viable strategy to slow down Reggie Bush.
These stats are only looking at temperature, however. Nothing to do with grass length (or precipitation)
Ah. I thought it was a snow thing.
I harp on this point only because playing tackle football in the snow convinced me that while everyone is slower, no one gains an advantage, haha. However, the percentage argument above is making me rethink that.
Well, guys who don’t wear long sleeves when it’s under 20 degrees naturally play better.
Black and Orange, baby.
Tyree
RIP, Sonny
Surgery moved up to hopefully have him ready for the opening match against Uruguay!
I’d prefer he not play again until Boxing Day, but then again, I don’t necessarily root for (or against) the South Korean football team.
I very much enjoyed Lincoln, but it doesn’t do justice to the source material. The book is much more in depth and covers a broader time scale than just the battle to pass the 13th amendment. I listened to it on Audible and although it took quite a while to get through, it was definitely worth it.
Ahhhh, that in audio book sounds amazing.
You would hope that the eight MSU players would take advantage of their educational opportunities for success in later life should they escape jail time.
If the SEC wants to pay these coaches, bow to the wishes of wealthy alumni and guarantee it, expect the lucrative buyouts including all the assistant coaches. Auburn is reportedly spending $73 million to make their recent coaching changes. https://fansided.com/2021/03/15/auburn-football-firing-gus-malzahn-cost/
Count on any new hire to hold out for the same.
The ex-Auburn and current Oregon OC, Kenny Dillingham, and Bo Nix have indicated the atmosphere and expectations at Auburn as intense, constant approaching toxic.
Brian Harsin said at SEC media days about the recent investigation there:
I enjoyed Lincoln simply for the acting by Daniel Day Lewis. It was superb. He became Lincoln and I feel like it was a great presentation of what he may have been like.
Team of Rivals is on my list, but it’s so big that I’m not sure when I’ll get to it.
I thought “Lincoln” was a fantastic movie. Of course, it couldn’t cover everything in the book because you can’t do that in a movie. But, to capture Lincoln and his quiet dignity and sheer strength of will, you can’t beat Daniel Day Lewis’ performance.
I have seen the movie multiple times and I always cry at the end.
By the way, the first time I saw it in the theater was November 17, 2012. It was a significant day in Notre Dame football history. Can you guess what happened on that day?
First undefeated home season in a long time?
By the end of the day, we knew we were going to be ranked No. 1 in football. First time in a long time.
I remember coming out of the theater that night after watching “Lincoln” and checking the score (I forgot who lost to bump us up) but I jumped when I realized that the sign on top of Grace Hall was going to light up again.
#1 Kansas St (NR Baylor) AND #2 Oregon (#12 Stanford) both lost
Yes, that’s it. I knew it was some weird confluence of events.
If K State hadn’t choked, we’d have likely played them in the NC game.
Week 12 and Kansas State still no. 1 in the country still blows my mind.
I live about 2 hours from Notre Dame but have family that live in South Bend. The weekend after we got ranked #1 I drove down to ND just to get a picture of the #1 sign on the top of Grace Hall.
What a great feeling!
The Rewinder video gets full marks from me for actually discussing and showing the 2 things that actually still make me mad to this day: the lack of replay (which would have correctly spotted the ball at the 2-3 where it went out of bounds) and the one USC coach trying to call a timeout, which I believe should have been a penalty because USC did not have any but, alas…
Busta Rhymes is such an anomaly. Back in the early ’90’s, if you had asked who of the Leaders of the New School would have been the most likely to get a successful solo career, it would have been Charlie Brown without a doubt. Busta Rhymes at the time was just too weird compared to what else was being done. A few years later, no one was as good as Busta Rhymes. He was everywhere. Flash forward 10 years from then and he’s almost forgotten. My kids have never heard any of his stuff beyond what I’ve played them. He had a period in the mid to late ’90’s where he became the zeitgeist of that era. As soon as that era was over, I feel like people didn’t want to hear anything else by him. Extinction Level Event was a great album at the time, but I played it a couple of years ago, and it’s so dated that it doesn’t sound nearly as good. The only stuff Busta Rhymes has done that is still good is what he did with A Tribe Called Quest and the first LONS album. Classic, timeless. “Scenario” may be the best hip hop has ever done because it’s still a great song. His solo career was too in tune with the times…it made him more influential, but I think he’s also less popular now because all his stuff sounds like it’s 25 years old.
That said, I had to go to a Halloween concert last year where one of the pieces was from the soundtrack to Psycho. I got overly excited listening to it because I had no idea that was the sample he took for “Gimme Some More.” Terrible video but one of his few songs that still work.
Yup, you could argue Busta’s rapping style, beats, and production were of such an era that he was always going to struggle coming out of that 1990’s bubble. I didn’t really listen to him after E.L.E. and I played the crap out of that CD.
He just looks weird to me in the more gangster rap (giant white tee-shirts, baseball hats, huge jeans, enormous chains) era that took over in the 2000’s. I wish he leaned into his weirdness and imagination more.
I, for one, appreciate the reference to the patrician Slack