Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
Top News
New York State has passed a law that does not allow the NCAA to investigate any NIL issues for a school that resides in the state.
Auburn has sold 63,500 season tickets, their most in school history.
Kansas quarterback Jalon Daniels has been named the Big 12 pre-season offensive player of the year. Linebacker Jaylan Ford from Texas has been named the pre-season defensive player of the year.
Todd McShay, Gene Wojciechowski, and David Pollack are some of the college football talent who are gone after ESPN announced a massive round of layoffs.
Writer Andy Staples has moved to On3. In other media news, Ross Dellenger is leaving Sports Illustrated.
Florida is looking to complete a $400 million renovation of The Swamp.
Uniform of the Week
We won’t get to it this off-season so it’ll have to wait until next year. However, part of a future series will incorporate, among other things, the best college football uniforms and I think Penn State would make a top 10 list in this sport for most people. Or, maybe not! The biggest issue to debate in my mind is whether their home blue jerseys or white road jerseys are their best look.
I’m on the all-white side. I think it’s by far the better look. The blue jersey are nice but I’ve never put them in the iconic status in college football. Plus, Happy Valley does the white-out games in the crowd. There’s a case to be made that Penn State, more than any other program, should be wearing white at home. Let the Nittany Lions wear white at home and LSU switch to purple in Death Valley.
Recruiting
Notre Dame lost the verbal from wide receiver Isiah Canion (0.9131) on Saturday and the Georgia native committed to Georgia Tech on Monday.
Irish defensive line target Justin Scott (0.9939) committed to Ohio State.
Edge rusher Marquise Lightfoot (0.9629) gave a verbal to Miami.
Five-star wide receiver Cameron Coleman (0.9952) is headed to Texas A&M.
Cornerback Jameer Grimsley (0.9205) committed to Alabama.
UCF picked up the commitment of interior offensive lineman Waltclaire Flynn, Jr. (0.9102) this past Saturday.
Offensive tackle JacQawn McRoy (0.9316) committed to Oregon.
Offensive tackle Daniel Calhoun (0.9538) committed to Georgia.
Safety Tyshun White (0.9041) gave a verbal to North Carolina.
Arkansas has added safety Ashton Bethel-Roman (0.9449).
Athlete Kylan Fox (0.9184) has committed to UCF.
Edge rusher Dakyus Brinkley (0.9114) committed to Kansas.
YouTube Channel
I’ve been using Reddit increasingly more every year since 2018 when I very slowly started to lurk around and mostly used it as a decent news source for soccer. Then, I began branching out and finding it works really well as a way to get caught up on news from a specific topic or sport. Recently, many communities went black (and some haven’t come back, although not any that I follow to my knowledge) in protest of the API rules that Reddit has enforced which is killing 3rd party apps. And many of the community moderators use the 3rd party apps. It’s all very tech nerdy for me but when the sites went dark it really changed the way I use my phone or consume media news.
It even made me make my first Twitter List. And of course now, Elon Musk is determined to destroy Twitter and who knows how long that website is going to be around for in the near future. It made me think, what communities would I miss most if they completed shut down? Here’s a list of what I follow:
AdvancedRunning
ArtisianVideos
BeAmazed
beatles
CarMechanicSimulator
CFB
CollegeBasketball
coys
damnthatsinteresting
electricvehicles
evcharging
F1FeederSeries
F1Technical
facepalm
Ferrari
formuladank
formulaone
formulaE
funny
MapPorn
MechanicAdvice
NBA
News
Nike
nikerunclub
nottheonion
peloton
politics
PremierLeague
running
RunningShoeGeeks
science
soccer
sports
Strava
todayilearned
WhitePeopleTwitter
worldnews
Share your communities in the comment section, or the ones you really enjoy the most. Does anyone experience the r/notredame or r/notredamefootball communities?
Tunes
Olivia Rodrigo is releasing new music. More than 2 years after her Grammy-award winning debut album Sour was released the 20-year singer is set to give us her follow up Guts in September. A week ago, Rodrigo released the first single from the album called “vampire” which shares some similarities to her familiar hits from the past but also looks like it signals a shift to a little more serious tone on this upcoming album.
A simple piano opens the song followed up by Rodrigo’s ‘close sounding’ vocals and plenty of minor chords. The next thing that jumps out is how many words she’s fitting into very small spaces. After the first chorus the song picks up considerably–and then even more during the middle of the second verse. It’s a weird song, from starting very somber to finishing with a quick tempo, drums, and the pounding ending. This doesn’t seem like a mega-hit but if there are no other singles coming soon it’ll be a deep burn in the coming weeks.
Trivia
Notre Dame has twice scored 60 or more points in a single game in only a single season throughout the AP Poll era. Can you name the season?
The Other Football
According to reports, Christian Pulisic has agreed to personal terms with AC Milan and the club has submitted a $21.8 million bid to Chelsea.
Mason Mount is headed from Chelsea to Manchester United on a $76 million deal.
Marco Asensio is moving from Real Madrid to PSG on a free transfer.
The USMNT topped group A in the Gold Cup and will face Canada this Saturday in the knockout stages. They would face either Panama or Qatar should they advance to the semi-finals.
England will face Spain on July 8th for the U-21 European Championship.
TV & Movies
Is Pixar in a slump? That’s what some people are saying these days. We’ve seen 6 releases since Toy Story 4 came out back in the summer of 2019 and some would argue the studio has lost a step or two. The first 4 movies after TS4 lost nearly $350 million combined–Covid surely didn’t help matters. Lightyear made a little bit of money but was panned by fans and critics. Recently, Elemental came out and looks like it’ll earn back it’s hefty $200 million budget and make a profit.
The Murtaugh clan went to our local Regal theater to watch the new Pixar film and we generally enjoyed it. I doubt the movie will have a lasting legacy for kids (mine have already started to move on after a brief callback with Happy Meal toys) and the story is pretty deep and discusses some pretty mature themes. However, the visuals and concept for the movie are all top notch and I think Pixar hit that part of things out of the park.
A Look Back
It’s insane to me that Notre Dame hasn’t played Iowa since 1968. It’ll be 55 straight seasons without a matchup following 2023–unless the programs face each other during the post-season. I would think with the bowl scenarios it’s unlikely to happen, and a playoff bid for Iowa, perhaps even less likely. In 1968, Notre Dame opened up with one of its toughest starts in school history beating no. 5 Oklahoma by 24 points in South Bend but falling to no. 1 Purdue by 15 points the next week at home.
The Irish would thrash Iowa in Iowa City by 23 points in response. Check out the throw at 5:40 on Iowa’s opening drive. The quarterback had the receiver wide open for an easy touchdown and absolutely throws a lame duck. The video is at a weird speed and it looks like the quarterback either anticipates being hit or is clipped just barely on the throw. Either way, the receiver has to come way back to the ball, makes the catch, and Notre Dame hilariously doesn’t tackle to fall behind 7-0. It’s a good reminder that even during this dominant era of Irish football there are always things in football to drive fans bonkers.
18S Paddock Club
Last Sunday we witnessed maybe the worst Track Limits Grand Prix in recent memory as drivers could not (or would not) stay inside the white lines coming out of turn 9 and leaving the final turn 10. It led to a whole slew of penalties during the race, and even more following the conclusion.
Of course, Max Verstappen won. There was a sprint race and he won that too. His consecutive laps led streak ended but he’s won 5 races in a row, 7 overall in 2023, and 16 out of the last 20 grand prix stretching back to round 12 of last year.
Ferrari had a great weekend. Leclerc nearly grabbed pole and finished P2. Sainz had a little more trouble but started P3 and was demoted to P6 thanks to track limits penalties and a poorly timed double-stack on their first pit stop.
Perez missed his 4th straight(!) Q3 but was able to recover during the race for P3.
McLaren brought new upgrades but only for Lando Norris and it seemed to work really well in Austria. Norris qualified P4, finished P5 during the race, but due to penalties was bumped up to P4.
It was a pretty boring weekend for the rest of the grid, including Mercedes and Aston Martin whose cars didn’t handle the Red Bull Ring track very well.
***
The summer F1 calendar is picking up steam as we’re back in England for the British Grand Prix. The big topic this week will be a new specification of tires for all teams from Pirelli. They’ve been tested recently and there’s supposed to be a little more front end bite which a team like Ferrari, with a lot of understeer in 2023, are hoping will give them an extra boost.
As always, Red Bull should flourish and I’m expecting Mercedes to look strong on the high-speed corners of the Silverstone circuit–plus they are bringing an updated front wing.
Round 10 of 22
British Grand Prix
Date: July 9th
Race: 10:00 AM ET
Location: Silverstone, England
Circuit: Silverstone Circuit
Laps: 52
Tire Compounds: C1, C2, C3
Track Evolution: 2 out of 5
Asphalt Abrasion: 3 out of 5
As usual, the trip back to England for most teams means a lot of new looks on the cars and elsewhere.
Aston Martin will be running a one-off livery commemorating the return of Valvoline as a sponsor in F1. Williams be running a British-themed livery commemorating their 800th grand prix. Lastly, McLaren is giving a nod to their 2006-15 liveries by adding a bunch of silver chrome to their car this weekend–which just so happens to dovetail well with their main sponsor Google.
It’s worth noting that one of the few grand prix that Max Verstappen hasn’t won is at Silverstone. Last year, he picked up massive damage to his floor when a piece of an AlphaTauri got stuck underneath and many remember his scary crash with Lewis Hamilton during the 2021 season.
Carlos Sainz was on pole here last year and picked up his first career F1 victory. I am sure Ferrari would love a repeat this weekend.
Trivia Answer:
1996 (60-6 vs. Pitt & 62-0 vs. Rutgers)
The state legislatures of Texas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana have passed laws protecting schools in their states from NCAA authority and any penalties over NILs. These went into affect on July 1. They assert state laws supersede NCAA authority. The NCAA has responded based on the fact the NCAA is a voluntary entity over state rights.
“The state law is going to govern how we do business. …in terms of this, the state law will will reign. And that’s how we’ll move forward,” Texas A&M Ross Bjork recently told ESPN. Translate “Take us to court”. See how long that takes.
The Missouri law lets high schoolers to begin collecting NIL money should they commit to in-state schools. Arkansas ties players’ NIL checks to appearances for the Hogs fund raising foundation.
Beyond other states competing with passing similar laws (such as other SEC teams’ states) and the recruiting implications, why wouldn’t many coaches be attracted to schools in those states over those that do not.
The only federal intervention at this point is the IRS limiting 501c3 collectives. Obstacles may be blockage of any federal legislation and a SCOTUS that favors states rights.
One suggestion: Hayes: The NCAA needs to drastically cut back the tampering … er, transfer … window
I was expecting to read “New York State has passed a law that does not allow the NCAA to investigate any NIL issues for a school that resides in the state.
Auburn has announced they are relocating to New York State.”
No need. Voices are pressuring the Alabama state legislature to pass a law similar to five other SEC schools mentioned. One can speculate how a certain Alabama Senator sponsoring federal legislation would respond. Florida’s updated NIL law is similar to the others and, of course, will protect Florida’s ACC teams. It also removes the distinction between amateurs and professionals and any limitations previously set.
Pre-emptive strikes by the Texas and Oklahoma legislatures to protect their recruiting territories prior to joining the SEC? I imagine should California act similarly protecting their soon-to-be Big teams, the Midwest state legislatures will take notice.
ND had a mini-rivalry with Iowa in the 1950s that actually got pretty heated. The 1953 game ended in a 14-14 tie and much controversy as ND was accused of faking injuries to stop the clock in order to score the tying touchdown. Frank Leahy was actually reprimanded by the NCAA for it.
That said, I have no interest in seeing any more of Iowa’s 8 a.m. kickoffs played in blinding sunlight.
Won’t miss McShay or Pollack, not that I’ve watched ESPN in like 5-10 years anyway.
Penn State’s blue jerseys are so boring. They are ND minus the amazing gold. Their white ones, however, ELITE.
Olivia Rodrigo is the PSU blue jersey of music. This song at least picks up at the end, but I had to fast forward because it was putting me to sleep. Also, I hate breakup songs that are depressing and slow, which as far as I can tell is all that OR writes/sings.
Hard disagree on Olivia Rodrigo, Sour is a great album and many of the songs slap/are not slow. IMO Good 4 u is the best pop punk song in a decade-plus!
I was reading an article yesterday about Rodrigo’s upcoming album being similar in tone to the first and how the culture of “MAKE EVERY ALBUM A DIFFERENT AND NEW STATEMENT” is kind of limiting and not something people who are 20(!) should be trying to achieve in music.
Had to look up Good 4 u, did not realize that was her, or even which song that was. Not boring at all, would not change the radio station. I only knew of Drivers License, Traitor, and Deja Vu (only knew the name of Drivers License, which is unlistenable for many reasons).
Also, after going through and trying to figure out which songs I had heard, Deja Vu really picks up halfway through and becomes rather fun. I had just never made it that far because the first 1:00 or so is so slow.
I still consider her fairly boring, but she has some merit. I withdraw my prior statement comparing her to the PSU blue jerseys.
Brutal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGUy2UmRxJ0
The lead song from her 1st album was another hit (and was featured in a major commercial) if you’re sticking to the tempo = not boring formula.
Yeah, I almost mentioned Brutal in my prior comment, and I may like that song more than Good 4 u – thought it’s harder to categorize beyond “teenage angsty”. But, given that we’ve all been there, teenage angsty is good! Particularly when done well by a (then-)actual teenager!
Certainly not boring.
I’d still say good 4 u is the only one that makes me want to jump around on a dance floor. Which is basically how I judge pop.
I admittedly have a really hard time relating to break up and teenage angsty songs. I wasn’t an angsty teen (at least I didn’t personally identify that way, my parents might say otherwise) and never had bad breakups. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My tastes in pop trend real hard to the 90s, especially later 90s (born in ’85), and a few of the truly great singers like Whitney, Frank, etc.
World news and news for me on Reddit. Antiwork is fun too. Don’t spend too much time except to skim headlines.
Pulisic staying in Europe, no surprise. Wondering if the Messi deal is a one off or if more MLS teams will look into selling ownership stakes to bring in monster talent?
Lots of antiwork on my feed, as well. Horrible bosses out there…
Rude of him to do it after the Rambler but saw that Eljah Rushing verballed to…..Arizona?!?!
Choose the end game:
1) decommits and signs somewhere else in December
2) portal within 2 years
3) graduates from Arizona
(That said, I do think it’s cool when 5-stars stay home and branch out a little. Doesn’t hurt that bad since it didn’t seem like Notre Dame truly had a shot to end up with his commitment)
He’s going to get to play at Arizona and it has the reputation for being a fun school to attend. Plus being his home school it seems like a recipe for sticking around if he signs with them. I’m not up to predict how late NIL bags will impact the days leading up to signing day though.
I agree with this. Seems like a great area – a place people really would want to be and as long as he progresses relatively normally and gets a lot of snaps, I think he’ll stick.
His position, at DE, is helpful too in this regard since he’s not dependent on other players like on offense for him to have success (if he were on offense and the players around him let him down I could see that as motivating him to transfer).
Could well be. Just seemed odd, no crystal balls and outwardly didn’t seem to be trending there, just kinda popped out of the blue to commit (to me at least, my read could be wrong). I feel like that’s the emotional pull to stay home and, while very very valid, something in the next 5 months will make him change his mind.
Arizona has had six top-300 players in the last 3 classes combined. Last year they had one top-500 player. Rushing makes just their second top-500 commit for 2024. Fun to stay home at this point, but we’ll see if it’s fun to be in the desert (pun intended) if they go like 3-9, 4-8. I know there’s high hopes for Fisch there, but color me skeptical.
As gambit alluded to, his finalists included Oregon, Tennessee, UCLA and Notre Dame. Take out ND and those are some heavy NIL hitters who aren’t going to go away or quit trying. I could be too cynical, but I’m not sure he even makes it there in the first place. But, I do hope he does stick to it because that would be a nice change for once.
The force of the hometown/regional draw is strong. As one indicator, almost fifty percent (79) of the total offers (165) for the 2023 class were to recruits from four states – Florida, Texas, Georgia and California.
None of those offers to recruits from Florida (28) or Georgia (12) committed to ND. ND did get four commits out of the twenty-eight offers to Texas recruits. Two commits of the eleven offers came from California. In total, six commits out of 79 offers came from those four states.
Yeah, I mean, offers are one thing but the majority weren’t strongly recruited either.
I wasn’t intending to focus on ND losing out on Rushing so much as the shock that Arizona is a terrible program for a 5-star player to go to right now, regardless of where they’re from. He totally committed because it’s the local option, but that almost never happens.
More power to him if he wants to stay home, decline surely great opportunities for NIL and/or a football factory program that would offer more on field and perhaps future pro potential. Just very strange in 2023 for THAT type of player to commit to that unglamorous of a school.
I got that. Both the Oregon and Tennessee boards said it was down to them and Arizona with no mention of ND or UCLA as finalists. Here’s an article on why Tennessee may have lost out including that Arizona gave a scholarship to his brother, Cruz, who was a PWO as a Safety to Florida last year. Their father, George, played in Gainesville. As you may know, George is director of football operations at Salpointe
We have had a few recruits this year from Florida/Georgia, but the pool is limited as you noted. For us, the path forward is sign 21-22 recruits per year, expanding past the Deep South and then signing 6-8 grad transfers per year. We’ll have some attrition, though that seems to happen earlier with skill position players (Diggs, Styles, Buchner) than our Big Guys. If we overrecruit, we can concentrate on those areas. But in this day and age, recruiting has to also expand through the Portal even more so.
It looks like Isaiah Robertson, who transferred to Arizona, is in the Portal again. FWIW, the Arizona depth chart is full of transfers, and with the appeal of early PT in addition to family that may have attracted Rushing who felt they were building something there.
Yea if 5 stars are not coming to ND, it’s way better if they get spread around more than the typical Bama, OSU, Georgia triumvirate and especially when they go to a school that’s not even a typical top 10 team (or pushing to be a top 10 team).
Threads, baby
Looks like Northwestern’s student paper caught the administration red-handed trying to cover up this hazing scandal. The allegations are bad. I think they’re gonna have to fire Fitz.
I can’t speak to any cover up or the responsibility/control the adults/leadership should have had — which probably is most relevant at this point — but I didn’t think the allegations themselves (at least what I saw) were that terrible. Maybe that’s not the way you can act anymore, even in the rowdy confines of a locker room in this day and age though.
Not saying it’s wrong to hold him accountable, it is a very slippery slope to some other team hazing incidents that went waaay over the line and instilled a terrible culture (look up OHL hazing on buses, if unfamiliar) so that’s also part of what I’m basing it on and coming from.
Pointing fingers to say something else is/was worse is a take.
Fair enough, but it’s reasonable to me to compare incidents to other team-based hazing incidents and ascertain what was a higher level.
No, because then you start putting different weight on different abuse. It’s all bad, full stop.
Different crimes have different punishments depending on their severity, even though they are all bad.
It’s your hill, man.
And yet here you are, after the full stop! Gotta respect a full stop, dude.
Have you seen the Northwestern student newspaper article that describes the hazing? It goes far beyond “rowdy locker room” and describes serious sexual and physical abuse.
This morning, the “entire team” (without names) issued a nonsensical letter saying, essentially (1) we don’t tolerate hazing; (2) the hazing that occurred wasn’t that bad; (3) Fitz knew nothing about the hazing that either did or did not occur.
Yeah, I’ll walk it back because I wasn’t there and obviously no hazing is tolerated these days.
More to the point was Fitzgerald’s inactivity (depending on what he knew and didn’t stop it) and or being in the dark to allow conditions to get that far is a bad look. Coverup is worse than the crime type of thing.
The student newspaper alleges that Fitz not only knew about it, but actively encouraged it from the sidelines during practices and games. In my opinion, the “coverup is worse that the crime” is not the case here. The head coach actively encouraging players to haze other players because of mistakes on the field is pretty darn bad all by itself!
Agreed, worse than a cover up by leadership would be knowing and encouraging hazing incidents. If true, it’s hard to see how he survives with his job. The tolerance for that kind of stuff is super low these days.
Reddit’s like Britney – Toxic.