Stanford Game Preview: Fulfilling Our Contractual Obligations

No one wanted to pick up this game preview during the off-season, and with good reason! Fine, I'll do it. There are still whispers of aspirational peers. West Coast return games to Palo Alto to finish the regular season for "recruiting purposes" and definitely not hobnobbing with the academia of Leland Stanford Junior University. One [...]

By |2026-10-07T13:05:07-04:00October 8th, 2026|Football|11 Comments

2026 College Football Week 6 Picks: A Hopeful for the Crown

We have quality games on tap this weekend, but not a whole lot of them. A bunch are on the periphery of could-be-decent matchups for week 6 but didn't make the cut for my weekly picks. I'm looking at Iowa State (+10.5) at BYU, USC (+1.5) at Penn State, and Boise State (-6.5) at Fresno [...]

By |2026-10-06T14:16:07-04:00October 7th, 2026|Football|2 Comments

Taking a Punch: North Carolina Instant Reaction

Notre Dame has an elite defense. North Carolina's best unit is its defense. So naturally, Saturday's game went into the shootout realm for a bit before the Irish calmed things down and finished off a 37-26 win that narrowly kept their daunting double-digit win streak alive at 15 games It was a game that looked [...]

By |2026-10-03T20:58:47-04:00October 3rd, 2026|18S Reads, Football|9 Comments

North Carolina Preview: Bill’s Heel Turn

Fresh off a 49-10 dismantling of Purdue, which was a nation-leading fourteenth straight double-digit win for Notre Dame, the third-ranked Irish head to Chapel Hill to face a North Carolina program that has spent the last two months generating far more headlines off the field than on it. Bill Belichick's second year was supposed to [...]

By |2026-09-29T10:29:50-04:00October 2nd, 2026|Football|11 Comments

2026 College Football Week 5 Picks: Get to Starkville!

Last week was pretty awesome for college football. Loads of fun games and interesting results. Plus, we got the special treat of Michigan and USC both losing embarrassingly which should fill the hearts of Notre Dame fans across the globe. What's in store for week 5? 2026 Betting Record Against the Spread: 14-20 Straight Up: [...]

By |2026-09-30T10:58:42-04:00September 30th, 2026|Football|8 Comments

The 18 Stripes Top 20 Ranking: Can They Get Out of Scheduling Oregon?

Indiana survives a scare, Texas remains #1 despite looking blah, Oklahoma and A&M hit the eject button, Florida has announced itself, a furious Badgers comeback, USC loses another big game, Michigan loses at the final whistle, and Louisville is foiled at home within the ACC. All this and more coming out of week 4 in [...]

By |2026-09-27T16:14:05-04:00September 28th, 2026|Football|8 Comments

Notre Dame Football 2026 Q1 Report: Levels of Worry

A bunch of thoughts about Notre Dame football after the first 3 games of the season... It's hard not to be focused almost exclusively with some of the issues with the offense. I'll start with the play-calling where the offense seems to be needlessly trying to ManBall their way out of running game problems--both in [...]

By |2026-09-21T20:35:17-04:00September 22nd, 2026|Football|11 Comments

The 18 Stripes Top 20 Ranking: That’s Quite the Way to Lose

A thriller in Oxford, a road win by Kentucky, Alabama's slow start, a USC pillow fight, weather delays everywhere, West Virginia securing Duke's Mayo, and one of the worst ways to lose a football game you'll ever see were highlights of week 3 in college football. 18 Stripes Top 20 Ranking RANK TEAM RECORD [...]

By |2026-09-20T18:46:21-04:00September 21st, 2026|Football|2 Comments

Not Yet Hitting on All Cylinders: Michigan State Instant Reaction

When I was a kid, Notre Dame pretty much sucked. I turned 11 during Bob Davie's first season, also the first season for me back in Indiana after over six years in South Carolina. So I was well into adulthood before I witnessed a truly very good Notre Dame football team, and well into my [...]

By |2026-09-19T23:51:28-04:00September 19th, 2026|18S Reads, Football|11 Comments

The 18 Stripes Top 20 Ranking: Winning is Still Hard Sometimes

The state of Oklahoma giveth and the the state of Oklahoma taketh away. The downtrodden boys from Stillwater gave us the biggest upset of the season so far and yet the Sooners vomited away a win at Michigan to fall out of our rankings. Elsewhere, Ohio State coughs up an opportunity to win at Texas [...]

By |2026-09-14T08:13:59-04:00September 14th, 2026|Football|3 Comments
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