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

Top News

Benjamin Morrison was named the Jim Thorpe Award Player of the Week for his 3-interception performance against Boston College.

Brian Mason was not among the semifinalists named for the Broyles Award given to the top assistant in the country.

The Virginia-Virginia Tech regular season finale will not be played this weekend following the shooting and killing of 3 Virginia football players.

Seven players from Michigan State have been charged in the tunnel violence against Michigan.

Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker tore his ACL in the Volunteers lost at South Carolina last weekend.

Ohio quarterback Kurtis Rourke is out for the rest of the season with a knee injury.

Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops has signed a contract extension through 2030.

Kansas head coach Lance Leipold was given a new contract through the 2029 season.

Washington head coach Kalen DeBoer has received his own contract extension through 2028.

Trey Sanders was the top running back from the 2018 recruiting class and after 528 career rushing yards at Alabama he’s entering the transfer portal.

EA Sports has announced the return of the college football video game will be delayed until 2024. It was previously set to be released in July 2023. I am in tears.

Uniform of the Week

I’ve talked in the past how Florida State has among the worst uniforms in college football. They’ve worn these white helmets this year to add another terrible look to their collection. This past week, they wore their black jerseys in a win over Louisiana. Man, I go back and forth on the way these look.

I wish the numbers were white, or that there was more white overall. Following their National Championship and unveiling of this new uniform template, remember their home garnet jerseys had gold numbers. They switched them back to white and it looks so much better. I kind of like this black, though. Since they’ve made such drastic changes overall I wouldn’t mind this being their standard home jersey.

Recruiting

As expected, Notre Dame was able to successfully flip quarterback Kenny Minchey (0.9123) from Pittsburgh. Commit post is HERE.

Quarterback Brock Glenn (0.8937) decommitted from Ohio State and committed to Florida State.

Defensive lineman Tomarrion Parker (0.9576) committed to Clemson.

Defensive lineman Markis Deal (0.9477) committed to TCU.

YouTube Channel

There is a lot of money out there in YouTube. I first started looking into this when my kids were watching CoComelon and other assorted children videos. These companies are absolutely raking in cash at obscene levels. I recently saw something on Instagram where MrBeast (video below) was recently offered $850 million for his YouTube companies, and he turned it all down without hesitating.

It’s wild that someone who is 24 years old could be worth this much money. Across all of his channels, MrBeast has 190 million subscribers and is approaching 30 billion total page views. No one in the United States makes more money from YouTube. I read a recent article where he’s trying to raise money for his business and values everything at $1.5 billion. It’s crazy stuff.

Tunes

Yes, Pearl Jam’s “Yellow Ledbetter” has been the source of so many memes in recent years. An outtake from their first album in 1991, the song never made it on the full LP and was released as the B-side to “Jeremy” before making its way into the radio play rotation that year. I always thought this song was Pearl Jam’s version of DMB’s “Ants Marching” where everyone parodied the band for signing all of their songs this way. It’s partially true.

We can all agree this is utter ridiculous lyrics and singing from Eddie Vedder. I included a YouTube video of the lyrics just to showcase this. However, I will say Vedder has always had a unique way of delivering words in a off-beat style that’s very difficult to imitate. Mick Jagger was a lot like that, especially later in the Rolling Stones’ career. Anyone care to sign “Yellow Ledbetter” during karaoke night?

Trivia

Isaiah Foskey leads Notre Dame in tackles for loss in 2022, who is second on the team?

The Other Football

The World Cup is in full swing! Our scores so far:

Group A
Ecuador 2-0 Qatar
Netherlands 2-0 Senegal

No surprises here.

Group B
England 6-2 Iran
USA 1-1 Wales

 

The Americans came out flying with a ton of energy against Wales taking a 1-0 lead. However, the 2nd half saw the Welsh start to turn the tide quite a bit before a Gareth Bale penalty tied things up. Not a terrible result, but the journey gets much more difficult with England coming up tomorrow.

Group C
Saudi Arabia 2-1 Argentina
Poland 0-0 Mexico

Saudi Arabia stuns Argentina! It’s one of the biggest upsets in World Cup history.

Group D
Denmark 0-0 Tunisia
France 4 – 1 Australia

France has a lot of injuries, and it’s even worse with starting center back Lucas Hernandez suffering a ruptured ACL.

Group E
Japan 2-1 Germany
Spain 7-0 Costa Rica

An 83rd minute goal for Japan stunned Germany while Spain absolutely destroyed Costa Rica.

Group F
Croatia 0-0 Morocco
Begium 1-0 Canada

The Canadians played so well but couldn’t find the net, very frustrating so far for the CONCACAF teams.

We have one heck of a news dump during the World Cup as Cristiano Ronaldo and Manchester United have agreed to a mutual termination of the forward’s contract. More news out of Manchester as the Glazer family is reportedly open to selling the Red Devils, too.

Streaming

The 5th season of The Crown dropped recently and is set to tackle the 1990’s drama of Princess Diana and Prince Charles’ fractured relationship. I noticed in my Twitter timeline (through a lot of British soccer follows) during the death of Queen Elizabeth II how many people loathe the monarchy in England–something that isn’t necessarily voiced a whole lot in the United States. I’m a couple episodes into the current season and I feel that uneasiness.

Watching the royal family back in the 1950’s and 1960’s before I was alive, how stately! Tradition! Look at these beautiful homes and boats! Now that we’re watching events that I remember, even as a small kid, it’s a super weird feeling. Especially knowing the deadly event that is bound to come for Diana. It’s no wonder the show lays it on thick with the contrast of  the family worries about fixing the HMY Brittania.

A Look Back

Notre Dame opens up next season in Ireland against Navy. Start mentally preparing yourselves now. When the Irish come back from Dublin next year they will be facing Tennessee Tech and breaking the modern era streak of never facing a FCS school. The Golden Eagles just finished up their season going 4-7 and I’m assuming it’ll be a very easy day for Notre Dame. Let’s hope. It got me thinking about the 2012 game after coming back from Dublin.

This should be the most talked about throw of the Kelly era. Fully deserving of its own 30 for 30 episode. I must have brought it up at least a couple other times in the Rambler, too. It’s just the biggest dumb prayer of a throw that ended up saving an undefeated regular season. All from a quarterback who was booed as loudly as any player in recent Notre Dame history in this very game–and caught by a receiver more well known for his fair catches on punt returns. Plus, the play clock expired!

18S Paddock Club

The final race of the 2022 F1 season was a triumphant finish for Max Verstappen and Red Bull. Immediately from practice they looked like the strongest cars and in qualifying Verstappen and Perez grabbed the team’s first 1-2 front row lockout since the 2018 Mexican Grand Prix.

The start of the race saw a scrap between Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton, with the latter eventually suffering a DNF much later in the race possibly due to the damage from that contact on the sausage curbs. Amazingly, it would be the only mechanical DNF of the season for Mercedes.

Sergio Perez wasn’t able to handle his tires as well and went with a 2-stop strategy while Verstappen stuck to a 1-stop strategy and was cruising in P1 for most of the race.

Ultimately, Perez wasn’t able to chase down Charles Leclerc for 2nd place, although another lap or 2 would’ve done it. Verstappen capped off his championship season extending his record amount of wins to 15, truly amazing.

The end saw Sebastian Vettel grab a point in P10 for his final race as he heads into retirement. The Yas Marina circuit allowed the podium finishers the chance to do doughnuts and followed it up with Vettel doing his own celebratory burn out for the crowd.

Danke Seb.

With the season complete, the standings finished like this:

Drivers Standings:

Max Verstappen, Red Bull – 454
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari – 308
Sergio Perez, Red Bull – 305
George Russell, Mercedes – 275
Carlos Sainz, Ferrari – 246
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes – 240
Lando Norris, McLaren – 122
Esteban Ocon, Alpine – 92
Fernando Alonso, Alpine – 81
Valtteri Bottas, Alfa Romeo – 49
Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren – 37
Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin – 37
Kevin Magnussen, Haas – 25
Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri – 23
Lance Stroll, Aston Martin – 18
Mick Schumacher, Haas – 12
Yuki Tsunoda, AlphaTauri – 12
Zhou Guanyu, Alfa Romeo – 6
Alex Albon, Williams – 4
Nicholas Latifi, Williams – 2

Constructor’s Standings:

Red Bull – 759
Ferrari – 554
Mercedes – 515
Alpine – 173
McLaren – 159
Alfa Romeo – 55
Aston Martin – 55
Haas – 37
AlphaTauri – 35
Williams – 8

Now, we’ll wait for pre-season testing to begin in early March. We’ll keep coming with the Formula 1 content in the meantime, previewing next season and covering any breaking news.

Trivia Answer:

JD Bertrand, 6.5