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

3 News Stories

#1 Early this week there were rumors swirling around that Deion Sanders would be stepping down as the head coach at Colorado. However, during a press conference in Boulder the news was released that Coach Prime had his bladder removed due to cancer and that’s the reason why he’s largely been out of the public eye this off-season. Sanders’ doctor was present throughout and said that he is cancer free.

The medical staff were able to create a new bladder from Sanders’ small intestine, isn’t that amazing? Although the struggle isn’t over (Prime joked about the struggles to go to the bathroom) he will remain the head coach in 2025 with the Buffaloes.

#2 Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua spoke with Pete Sampson at the Athletic this week and made his thoughts clear on the Big Ten vs. SEC feud–and if I do say so myself his opinion gives us a good indicator of who is going to win this battle. The key quote:

“I happen to think that there should be automatic qualifiers for the Power 4 conference champions, and there should an automatic qualifier for the highest-rated G5 champion. But then, whether it’s 12, 14, or 16 (teams), I think you have to earn it on the field. And those should be at-large berths.

“I think that’s the best way, the most repeatable way, to get the very best teams to compete for a national championship year-in and year-out. And I think most people agree with that. Both the decision makers, the general public, football fans, I think that’s what people want to see.”

There was a time not too long ago where it looked like maybe Notre Dame just might do the unthinkable and join the Big Ten. Right now, that talk is nearly silent. The Irish are super well positioned and have every reason to align with the SEC on the 5+11 playoff model.

#3 Another new athletic director has been hired with no collegiate sports experience as Stanford is set to bring in John Donahoe for their vacant position. The 65 year old with a Stanford business degree was the CEO of Nike from 2020 until 2024. It wasn’t a great time for Nike during his reign, as he dealt with the Covid struggles shortly after coming on board, but let’s hope things go similarly poorly in his time as Stanford’s new AD.

Recruiting

Tight end Evan Jacobson (0.9163) has committed to Texas A&M.

Athlete Joel Wyatt (0.9790) stays in-state and verbals to Tennessee. The Vols also added athlete Salesi Moa (0.9850) all the way from Utah.

Oregon picked up a huge verbal in edge rusher Anthony Jones (0.9897).

With a light week in the 2026 recruiting class (there aren’t many blue chips still uncommitted now) here’s a brief look at some recent top commitments from the 2027 cycle:

Defensive lineman Jamarkus Pittman (0.9594) committed to Ole Miss.

Safety Jaylyn Jones (0.9114) committed to Miami.

Cornerback Donte Wright (0.9678) gave a verbal to Georgia.

Wide receiver Kesean Bowman (0.9847) is headed to Oregon.

Uniform of the Week

Hawaii had been an Adidas school in recent seasons but just signed a 7-year deal with Nike. As expected, that means new football uniforms. The last season with Nike uniforms the school went to the Sugar Bowl so they’re hoping for some good vibes. On the surface, the new uniforms don’t look very different from 2024. The Hawaii script across the chest is in a slightly different font and has been switched to green with gray outline instead of white in green outline.

The sleeves in recent years were really basic, just TV numbers. Now, the jagged tribal design is on the sleeves just like the pants. That’s about it for the changes. The helmets look to be the same as last year, the primary lid being black with the Hawaii “H” logo on one side and a map of the Hawaiian islands on the other. It’s not exactly a return to their Rainbow Warrior days but these changes to move the program back to a more familiar look.

TV & Movies

Alert! New Wes Anderson has dropped. At the end of May, Anderson’s latest film The Phoenician Scheme was released and I found it on Peacock this week. I struggled with Benicio del Toro in the main role of “Zsa Zsa” Korda. He does a great job in the role, alternating being ruthless and very funny in the way Wes Anderson knows how to juggle well. I think it’s just I see del Toro as a bad guy and I couldn’t suspend disbelief. I mean, he kind of is a bad guy but in the fun Wes Anderson way.

Looking at the filmography, I’ve missed Anderson’s last 4 releases from The Grand Budapest Hotel until The Phoenician Scheme. The latest film was okay, far from his best. I saw a brief review that called TPS a piece of “shallow meandering eye candy” and that seems entirely accurate. As always, a lovely film to watch and look at the sets and camera angles. Not really very entertaining, funny, or thrilling of a story.

Tunes

I heard “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” on my way home from work recently and I have many thoughts:

The genesis of the song came after the band saw a girl with wild puffy blonde hair at a bar and it turned out to be Mötley Crüe lead singer Vince Neil. At the time, probably a bummer for Neil but with hindsight maybe a long-term win? He’s a part of a great rock song from another band!

The song and video came out in late 1987 and it’s definitely an early MTV memory for me. This was the era where bands would perform songs on big stages like this (in the dark with weird lighting was so the rage) with a handful of taped shots. And this was a weird video for a little kid like me! They sneak Steven Tyler in drag about 1 minute and 30 seconds into the video and it continues to be pretty weird.

The bridge in this song is elite. It leads into a pretty great guitar solo (although I’ve never loved the tone of the guitar in the song) which brings the song back to yet another awesome bridge. It’s complete with the first “yowwwww yick-ick-ick-ick owww!” of the song.

The second “yick-ick-ick-ick-ick-ick-oww!” at 4:01 is one of the best vocal moments in rock history.

It’s weird how the fame of a band can hit you differently. Aerosmith had been struggling for the 1980’s and I bet there were 20-somethings who had given up on them. Then, their 1987 record Permanent Vacation put the band back in the limelight before they really had a massive bounce of fame into the 1990’s. Little me thought they were cool as hell but Steven Tyler is 39 years old in this music video–not exactly young for rock standards!