Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
Top News
The Cheez-It Bowl is no more as this exhibition game is now called the Pop-Tarts Bowl. I will note that both foods are made by Kellogg so perhaps we will see a product rotation through this bowl game in the coming years? Perhaps the Pringles Bowl or Froot Loops Bowl are in our future?
Notre Dame’s September 9th game at NC State is set to kickoff at Noon eastern, just like the 2016 game! I’m sure it’ll be fine no need to worry about anything.
We have more Big Ten on NBC games scheduled in primetime:
West Virginia at Penn State, Sept. 2, 7:30 p.m. ET
Charlotte at Maryland, Sept. 9, 7:30 p.m. ET
Syracuse at Purdue, Sept. 16, 7:30 p.m. ET
CBS has announced their SEC game windows (and you know Alabama vs. LSU is coming in primetime on November 4th):
CBS is reporting that Colorado is having extensive talks to leave the Pac-12 and return to the Big 12. There are also reports that the Big 12 is interested in adding Memphis, as well.
Texas is hiring former Wisconsin head coach Paul Chryst as a special assistant to Steve Sarkisian.
2022 UCLA defensive coordinator Bill McGovern died this week following a battle with cancer.
A federal judge has ruled that former Washington State head coach Nick Rolovich can’t sue his former employer over his Covid vaccine termination.
Oregon AD Rob Mullens said that with other conferences becoming gun shy about scheduling games the Pac-12 may explore 10-league game schedules in order for teams to have 7 home games per year.
Uniform of the Week
As I was thinking about which college uniform to feature this week I wondered, “What is the last FBS program you’d want to play for?” Aside from Michigan, of course. I’m thinking more in terms of a school that your average fan would be the least impressed by if you told them you played football at this level. I’d include teams like UMass, Georgia State, Louisiana-Monroe, Texas State, or maybe UTEP. My first choice would probably be a school close to UTEP in New Mexico State.
Is there a single interesting thing about this school or football program? They have boring colors, a generic nickname, and they are swallowed up by a much more high achieving and compelling school in-state in the New Mexico Lobos. Although, the Aggies did win this past year’s Rio Grande Rivalry! I’m not sure a cowboy in an American flag bandana is bringing much to the table on this NMSU helmet.
Recruiting
Tennessee picked up a commitment from running back Peyton Lewis (0.9208).
Jumping over to the 2025 class, USC received a verbal from 5-star safety Anquon Fegans (0.9857) and Oklahoma got a commitment from wideout Grace Harris (0.9370).
YouTube Channel
I was re-watching an episode of The Last Dance recently and I think the whole program is getting better with age, or at least it’s just as fun to watch now as it was during the lockdown Covid days when hype for this documentary was unreal. Will anyone ever bring in neutral fans to a team sport again like Michael Jordan did? It’d be fascinating to run his career through the social media era because there would’ve been some absolutely wild times for him to navigate. Think of how brutal things would’ve been when the Bulls couldn’t get past the Pistons or when he left to play baseball.
It was reported this spring that Jordan is considering selling his majority ownership of the Charlotte Hornets. A few years ago he sold a portion of his stake to Gabe Plotkin (founder of the hedge fund Melvin Capital, more notoriously known as one of the places that got absolutely hammered with losses during the GameStop short squeeze) and he’s rumored to be selling more to this same guy, as well. Jordan is reported to keep a small minority share, but at 60 years old I wonder what the future holds for His Airness?
Tunes
Once upon a time, Mumford and Sons might have been the biggest band in the world. Maybe not the biggest musical act but in terms of a band they were way, way, way up there in the stratosphere several years ago. Now, it’s been 15 years since they released their first album and we’re about 4.5 years since their latest album graced the world. I’m not too familiar with their history but it appears they had a falling out with one of their band members over some political leanings which is a big yikes.
I caught a song on the Spectrum Channel from lead singer Marcus Mumford called “Better Angels” from his debut solo record Self-Titled that was released back in September. I think the song is alright, it’s not too bad and a little memorable. I’m always fascinated when someone from a big band tries to move toward a solo career. This album made it all the way to 4th in the UK but peaked at 53rd on the Billboard 200 in the United States. For a rock/folk/alternative record that’s not that bad these days but only 4.4 million plays on Spotify isn’t exactly success.
Trivia
Name the opponent and year for the team who last beat Notre Dame in South Bend by 14 or more points.
The Other Football
The final weekend for most big European leagues brought us a ton of drama.
In the EPL, an Abdoulaye Doucoure strike in the 57th minute proved the winner for Everton 1-0 over Bournemouth to keep the Toffee’s unbroken 69-year stay in the English top-flight alive. Heading down to the Championship included Leicester City, Leeds United, and Southampton.
Down in the Championship, Luton Town won the playoff in penalties to secure their first promotion to the Premier League and their first season in the top flight since 1995-96 (the last season before the creation of the Premier League). They’ll be joined by Burnley and Sheffield United coming right back up to the EPL after one year back in the Championship.
Sheffield Wednesday scored a last-second header in the League One Final to secure promotion to the Championship. They will join Plymouth Argyle and Ipswich Town.
In the Bundesliga, pure heart break for Dortmund as they bottle the season following a 2-2 draw against Mainz which allowed Bayern Munich (2-1 over Cologne thanks to a 89th minute Musiala winner) to win their absurd 11th consecutive league championship.
Sevilla beat Roma 1-1 in penalties to win the Europa League. It’s Sevilla’s 7th Europa title since 2005-06, amazing!
Leon took a 2-1 lead in the 1st leg of the CONCACAF Champions League Final against LAFC. The 2nd and final leg is coming up this Sunday night in Los Angeles.
B.J. Callaghan has moved up from an assistant and is now the 2nd interim head manager for the USMNT as they continue to search for a full-time manager.
According to ESPN, Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema is set to leave the club after 14 seasons and will join Saudi club Al Ittihad on a 2-year, $400 million Euro deal.
TV & Movies
My first time back in the theaters since pre-Covid days was for the Super Mario Bros. film a couple months ago. That’s when I saw a preview for the upcoming Barbie movie. Yes, the preview was very weird but it didn’t really get into the plot at all. All it showed was that Barbie and Ken like to hang out while there was some sort of larger existential crisis going on that wasn’t shown that much. Well, Warner Brothers released a more thorough trailer explaining things:
Of course, it’s Barbie and my daughters (almost 6 and almost 4) want to see the movie. It is rated PG-13 but that doesn’t bother me as much as the fact that this movie looks insanely weird!?? It’s quite possible my little kids think it’s hilarious and I’m sitting back really struggling to get into it, or maybe it’ll be entertaining for adults and extremely wide of the mark for little kids. The latter seems far more likely, but in general I don’t know which crowd the movie is aiming for? I’m assuming it’ll score well with the 20-something Barbiecore folks who will be the main audience.
A Look Back
I keep forgetting we still have that other Wisconsin game to be played thanks to the Covid season. Unless the Irish jam in a Week 0 game (which the trend in the sport says that’s possible, maybe even likely) they will open the 2026 season at Lambeau Field against the Badgers in a “home” game. Remember when Under Armour kept Notre Dame in totally-not-Green Bay Packers-esque uniforms (wink, wink) for the 2021 game at Soldier Field?
This 2021 box score is one of the funniest in recent memory. Notre Dame didn’t score in either the 1st or 3rd quarters. I wonder how many games in Irish history that has happened but the team still scored 40+ points? Did we ever figure out where 31 points in a quarter stood in ND history? Finishing the game with back-to-back pick sixes surely had to be a record of some kind.
18S Paddock Club
They say the real race at Monaco comes on Saturday during qualifying and this year the track did not disappoint. Sergio Perez crashed at turn 1 during Q1 and ended up starting in last place–a huge blow to his dwindling championship odds. In a hectic Q3, Esteban Ocon briefly grabbed provisional pole but was pipped by Charles Leclerc who was then overtaken by Fernando Alonso by 0.022 seconds.
With less than a minute remaining, Max Verstappen was beginning sector 2 and he’d leave that sector just over two-tenths off Alonso’s pace. Surely, it would be a glorious pole for Alonso!?
Nope. A mind-boggling performance in sector 3 saw Verstappen take pole by 0.084 seconds. In this great video, you can see Max a full car-length behind going into the swimming pool chicane (0:55 seconds) and dominates the final 4 corners to take pole by half a car length.
The race on Sunday gave us the typical Monaco procession, until the rain came in the last third of the grand prix. For a few laps, rain was only penetrating sector 2 and only a smaller part of that sector, as well. Unfortunately, Alonso and Aston Martin decided on a bold strategy hoping the rain would clear up and moved to medium tires. Within 1 lap they realized their mistake and switched to intermediate wet tires. In the end, Alonso would finish nearly 28 seconds behind Verstappen.
Other notes from Monaco:
*This was Verstappen’s first career Monaco pole, 2nd career Monaco win, and he’s now won 13 out of the last 17 races going back to last year. With Perez finishing 16th, Max is now 39 points up in 1st place for the championship. He also passed Sebastian Vettel for the most wins as a Red Bull driver.
*Ocon’s 3rd place finish capped off an excellent weekend. Will we see anymore midfield podiums this year? There was only 1 midfield podium last year (Norris, Imola) and only 1 over the final 7 races (Alonso, Qatar) of the 2021 season.
*Lance Stroll took a DNF after crashing out of the race and hasn’t scored points in the last 2 races. He’s now 56 points behind teammate Alonso in arguably the 2nd best car on the grid.
*We’ll see if the Mercedes upgrades work fully this weekend but a 4th and 5th place finish is solid.
*Ferrari are still spinning their wheels. Leclerc’s P3 in qualifying came with a 3-spot grid penalty for blocking Lando Norris and Sainz had a far too scruffy race. The team only collected 12 points and trail Mercedes by 39 points.
Round 7 of 22
Spanish Grand Prix
Date: June 4th
Race: 9:00 AM ET
TV: ESPN/F1TV
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Circuit: Circuit de Catalunya
Laps: 66
Tire Compounds: C1, C2, C3
Track Evolution: 3 out of 5
Asphalt Abrasion: 4 out of 5
Double-header week!
F1 returns to Barcelona where so many pre-season tests have taken place. This weekend, big car upgrades are expected from Ferrari, Aston Martin, and Red Bull as we enter the core of the European racing season. Can anyone close the gap to champions Red Bull?
The biggest news for this weekend is the removal of the final chicane at the Circuit de Catalunya. Since 2007, the painfully slow left-right chicane was a lowlight on the F1 calendar and really prevented a lot of overtaking on an otherwise exciting track.
Now, the chicane is gone and as the drivers come through the long right hand turn in the start of the 3rd sector they will keep looping around on to the main straight.
This should help with overtaking but it will definitely stress the front left tires on these cars. Each end of the track now has an extremely long and fast right hand turn and that tire is going to be scraping hard on the pavement. Pirelli is bringing the new C1 hard tire (it’s supposed to be grippier than last year) this weekend and teams will be testing new tires on Friday practice for all compounds that are set to be used from the British Grand Prix next month.
Trivia Answer:
Oklahoma, 2013, 35-21 Loss
TRIVIA: I think it’s Oklahoma 2013. I was at that game and it was very dumb. However, waking up the following morning to learn that Lane Kiffin had been fired on an airport tarmac made up for it.
…also I did not realize that the answer to the trivia question is at the bottom of the post.
Johnny Cash foreshadowing Mumford and Sons in his song ‘The one on the right is on the left”
NM State is moving to CUSA in 2023. I’d have to go UMASS. Also NM State’s current uniforms are a bit of a darker red (almost burgundy) with a more metallic looking helmet, with ‘State’ on the side.
At ZooMass at least you will at least have a great time off the field. Not really sure what the draw is to going to college in Las Cruces.
NM State jerseys are cooler though, I’ll give you that.
But if you played at UMass, you are probably from the Northeast, where very few people go on to play CFB, especially D1. So even playing at UMass is pretty cool up here. And no one cares about CFB, so despite UMass being arguably the worst FBS team in the history of FBS, I’d probably rather tell my friends I played there than NM State.
I’ve never been a sweet cereal person, so I only learned in the first paragraph today about this spelling, but I guess it makes enough sense with the all the loops.
In order of effectiveness and without researching growth rates I’d say that Tiger did as much for golf as Jordan did for basketball. The Feds had to pass the UIGEA to try to kill poker after Chris Moneymaker had the game booming. Phelps and Bolt both brought huge numbers of casuals to their sports, but both were bigger than their sport so their effect waned rapidly when they retired. Those are the ones that come immediately to mind, but obviously none are really team sports.
Poor old Tommy. Threw a pick-six and then another INT in the first 70 seconds of that Oklahoma game. A family friend was using my ticket to that game and I was sitting by myself on the other side of the stadium, don’t know if that made it better or worse, but it sure sucked the energy out of the building that day.
We’ve never had a charismatic American be the best in the world at the Other Football. A larger than life, dominant American would draw in lots of American casuals at least.
Worldwide, having one singular dominant American tennis star could bring in a lot of people. Combine Sampras’ dominance with Agassi’s charisma kind of thing, except raise the dominance to Jordan/Tiger levels.
I was thinking Tommy had thrown back to back pick sixes, after the reference to that in the UW game. But it was a pick six, and another pick on the 15 or so yard line, that was run in like two plays later. Down 14-0 with 13 minutes left in the 1st quarter.
Fun fact: that was my last time in ND stadium.
He shows up often as Nascar races, where he owns 2 teams that have been on the upswing lately. You should check it out, it’s kind of like your F1 but they actually have racing in their racing for evenly matched cars that pass (overtake) each other frequently!
I’ll eff with Nascar a bit sometimes!
After starting out 0-4 in a historically Aggie fashion, Jerry Kill’s team in his first year won seven out of the next nine games. They were 7-29 in the three prior seasons.
NM State was 47th (T) in Scoring Defense, 30th in Total Defense in 2022.
A twenty-four point underdog, they pummeled Liberty 49-14. A few weeks before, Liberty was ranked 19th nationally after they beat Arkansas. The Ags’ QB, Diego Pavia, was named the Manning QB of the week as he accounted for six TDs against the Flames.
The Aggies went to a bowl game for only the second time in sixty-two years (the other in 2017) with the previous one in 1960. They beat Bowling Green 24-19 in the Quick Lane Bowl.
Kill signed his contract more than a year after he was hired which commits the University to improvements in infrastructure. “The contract calls for the installation of a new video board, new home locker room and an artificial grass practice field prior to the first home game of 2024.”
NMSU DGT FTW!
Here is a link that explains the split up with Mumford and Sons
https://www.nme.com/news/music/marcus-mumford-says-he-actually-really-begged-winston-marshall-not-to-leave-mumford-sons-3288188#:~:text=Because%20he%20felt%20like%20his,to%20do%20a%20different%20thing.