About Brendan R

People who know me best say that I'm sociable, have a dry sense of humor, a predilection for useless trivia, and can obsess about meaningless details. I'm happily married to a woman who thankfully still hasn't figured out that I married up, and we have three great kids, all boys who are trying to destroy our house in stages. They're quite efficient at it, too. In what time I have left over after the various cleanup efforts, I'm a sports nut, a science geek, an unabashed Shakespeare lover, and an aspiring 50-state marathoner.

Getting a New Band Together

With news breaking today that Notre Dame will soon name Al Golden as its new defensive coordinator, Marcus Freeman has finished putting his stamp on his first staff as a head coach. There was more churn than anyone expected given a major buzzword of the transition to the Freeman era was "continuity," particularly on the [...]

By |2022-02-15T17:02:51-05:00February 15th, 2022|Football|32 Comments

2023 Football Recruiting: LB Preston Zinter Is Irish

Notre Dame's 2023 class jumped into the #1 spot in the 247 Composite on Friday when four-star linebacker Preston Zinter announced his commitment to the Irish. Avid Irish recruiting fans may recognize the 6'3", 221-pound Bay Staters' surname; his older brother Zak is a former Irish target at offensive guard and incumbent starter for Michigan. [...]

By |2022-02-14T11:45:33-05:00February 14th, 2022|Football, Recruiting|3 Comments

2022 Football Recruiting Grades: Linebackers

Hopefully you enjoyed our overview of the 2022 Notre Dame recruiting class with recruit grades and some thoughts on the class. We started a deeper dive into position groups with a look at the offensive skill positions, then moved on to the offensive line, then the defensive line (plus the punter, because he has to [...]

By |2022-02-08T10:10:01-05:00February 14th, 2022|Football, Recruiting|9 Comments

2022 Football Recruiting Grades: Defensive Line and Special Teams

Hopefully you enjoyed our overview of the 2022 Notre Dame recruiting class with recruit grades and some thoughts on the class. We started a deeper dive into the class by position group with a look at the offensive skill positions, then moved on to the offensive line. Today we're going to look at the defensive [...]

By |2022-02-08T11:10:06-05:00February 12th, 2022|Football, Recruiting|11 Comments

2022 Football Recruiting Grades: Offensive Line

Hopefully you enjoyed our overview of the 2022 Notre Dame recruiting class with recruit grades and some thoughts on the class. We're in the midst of a deeper dive on each position group, which started Tuesday with the offensive skill positions. Today we're looking in the trenches on offense, where Notre Dame has put together [...]

By |2022-02-08T11:11:51-05:00February 10th, 2022|Football, Recruiting|9 Comments

2022 Football Recruiting Grades: Offensive Skill

Hopefully you enjoyed our overview of the 2022 Notre Dame recruiting class with recruit grades and some thoughts on the class. Over the next several days we'll go into a deeper dive on each position group, starting today with the offensive skill positions (which, sadly, we can condense into a single post). As a reminder, [...]

By |2022-02-08T09:05:58-05:00February 8th, 2022|Football, Recruiting|22 Comments

2022 National Signing Day Review: All Quiet on the Western Front

A Shift in the Landscape Well, all quiet on all fronts, really... Once again, as has been the case since the early signing period was instituted a few cycles ago, Notre Dame's recruiting class was all but wrapped up in December. In fact everyone's recruiting class was more or less wrapped up in December; of the [...]

By |2022-02-02T13:23:18-05:00February 2nd, 2022|Football, Recruiting|33 Comments

Closing the Book: Final Look at 2021 Preseason Predictions

What a year. There was a whole lot of weirdness, preseason top ten teams falling on their faces repeatedly, lots of the elite suddenly looking vulnerable, the SEC starting bowl season 1-5... Did you know that this is the first playoff with none of Ohio State, Clemson, or Oklahoma? It's been running since 2014 and [...]

By |2022-01-06T10:59:19-05:00January 6th, 2022|Football|30 Comments

2023 Football Recruiting: Elite Safety Peyton Bowen is Irish

Notre Dame's 2023 class kept rolling, and in unprecedented fashion, when elite safety Peyton Bowen announced his commitment to the Irish at his high school today. Bowen is currently the #59 overall recruit in the 247 Composite rankings, and based on his junior film could well end up as a five star. He's the fourth [...]

By |2022-01-01T12:58:06-05:00January 1st, 2022|Recruiting|3 Comments

2023 Football Recruiting: Blue Chip CB Justyn Rhett Commits to Notre Dame

Notre Dame continued its hot start in the 2023 class today when top 100 corner Justyn Rhett announced for the Irish. Based on a sterling June visit, Notre Dame and Marcus Freeman took a commanding lead for the 6’1”, 192 pound Nevadan and never relinquished it. Rhett did make the rounds a bit over the [...]

By |2021-12-11T22:00:17-05:00December 11th, 2021|Football, Recruiting|44 Comments

2022 Football Recruiting: OL Billy Schrauth (Finally!) Commits to Notre Dame

Possibly the most on-again/off-again recruitment of the 2022 cycle finally ended today when blue-chip offensive lineman Billy Schrauth announced his commitment to Notre Dame. The tea leaves very strongly suggested that the 6'5", 300 pound Wisconsinite would commit or had silently committed to Notre Dame all the way back in April - so much so, [...]

By |2021-12-10T13:49:59-05:00December 10th, 2021|Football, Recruiting|10 Comments

Marc(us) the Day: ND Football Names New Head Coach

Thanks to Marcus Freeman, our long (48 hour) national nightmare is over. Brian Kelly sent shockwaves through the Notre Dame fan base and raised eyebrows around the country when he bolted South Bend for Baton Rouge on Monday. Once upon a time, the school known for glacially-paced background checks may have run a search for [...]

By |2021-12-01T21:03:17-05:00December 1st, 2021|Football|302 Comments

Georgia Tech Preview: Jekyll and Hyde, or Maybe Just Hyde

Let's step into the Wayback Machine to revisit the waning minutes of September 25th of this year. It's a short jaunt, no need to pack a lunch... Georgia Tech had just embarrassed then-#21 North Carolina 45-22 in a prime time matchup at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, a week after very nearly knocking off then-#6 Clemson. The season-opening [...]

By |2021-11-19T12:32:48-05:00November 19th, 2021|Football|28 Comments
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