John Madden passed away on December 28th at the age of 85 leaving behind of the most memorable and lasting impacts on football in American history. Although he stopped coaching in the NFL (1978) before I was born, retired from the television booth well over 10 years ago, and hadn't been in the spotlight much [...]
You can't keep your boy down. After mulling over taking the week off to let the Fiesta Bowl loss simmer before coming back to writing I'm here to offer some brief thoughts on the 2022 depth chart. Typically, this would be one of if not the longest articles of the year. This time around, I'm [...]
When the score reached 14-0 in favor of Notre Dame I quite literally bounded to the bathroom past the rest of my family working on a jigsaw puzzle in the nearby room. My instinct was to announce how awesome Notre Dame looked under Marcus Freeman when, as I worked my way toward them, I checked [...]
If Notre Dame couldn't get this one, against this team, with the momentum they had coming in, then it's easy to self-flagellate and think the Irish are just never going to win one of these things. Notre Dame lost the Fiesta Bowl to Oklahoma State 37-35, not scoring the entire second half until it was [...]
This Saturday afternoon Notre Dame will be playing in its 26th major bowl game (including the 2012 BCS National Championship Game) and is making its 6th appearance in the Fiesta Bowl. After winning their first Fiesta Bowl game back in 1988 to clinch the school's last National Championship, the Irish have lost their last 4 [...]
I started the bones of this article back in November a few days after Lincoln Riley packed his bags for USC and then Brian Kelly decided Baton Rouge needed to be his new home so this news with the Trojans fell off the map for a while. Before we get started, dear USC, are you [...]
Welcome back to America's greatest question and answer segment Five Wide Fullbacks. This week we'll tackle those silly kids opting out of bowl games, plus the possible return of a curmudgeon-y assistant coach, Marcus Freeman's sense of style, a trade-off at wide receiver, and breaking NCAA passing records. 1) More and more players are deciding [...]
This off-season will provide a lot of opinions and content regarding quarterback Tyler Buchner and his future as the No. 1 quarterback for the Irish in 2022. Since the mobile Californian has already established he's a big threat as a runner (7.30 yards per carry on 336 yards as a true freshman) a lot of [...]
The week of numbers continues! Earlier, we published our primer on the Early Signing Period that began this Wednesday and should just about sew up Notre Dame's 2022 recruiting class. Next, we jumped into the overall scholarship situation for Fighting Irish football as Marcus Freeman takes the reigns of his first full recruiting cycle. Today, [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
Conference championship week is over as Alabama proves yet again they are inevitable, a Group of 5 team finally makes the playoffs, Michigan's run sadly continues, but maybe most importantly we won't have any drama for the Heisman as Bryce Young sewed up the award with a big game against previously undefeated and No. 1 [...]
We know, we know, it's been a while. We've been busy and the 2022 board was, well, not that big. The last time we got together, in September, the Irish class had 21 commits. It has [drum roll] 22 commits today, adding two and losing one (more on that in a bit) over the last [...]
Welcome back to the 18Stripes G5 Top Ten. We had our last big week of games before bowl season on Saturday. While the Power 5 had some more chalk results, we had some more interesting results in the G5. Let's dive into it. Also Considered: Coastal Carolina, Air Force, Northern Illinois, SMU, Western Kentucky Week [...]
The story of Brian Kelly at Notre Dame is one of steady improvement. His success wasn't instant, with close-game struggles and a 4-5 start in Year 1 and the most frustrating possible 0-2 start in Year 2. There were dramatic swings here and there - the breakthrough in 2012 few saw coming, and the collapse [...]
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