Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
Top News
The upcoming NCAA Division I Council is expected to pass emergency legislation allowing unlimited transfers (and removal of sitting out a year) if athletes meet specific academic requirements, although transferring in-season will be blocked.
According to president Charlie Baker, the NCAA is working on a consumer protection plan for athletes and their parents regarding NIL.
With construction ongoing at Ryan Field, for the next 2 seasons Northwestern will be playing home games at their outdoor practice facility. The school will be building temporary structures for more seating areas and including soccer and lacrosse games on the field.
Oregon State starting running back Damien Martinez has entered the transfer portal.
Outland trophy winner and former Texas lineman T’Vondre Sweat was arrested on suspicion of DWI.
Washington running back Tybo Rogers has been arrested on allegations of rape.
Miami (OH) head coach Chuck Martin has signed a 5-year contract extension through the 2029 season.
Auburn has signed a 10-year deal with Nike effective July 2025 after spending 18 years with Under Armour.
EA Sports’ College Football 25 is expected to be released on Friday, July 19th.
Uniform of the Week
South Carolina defeated Iowa for the NCAA women’s basketball championship this past Sunday. It capped off an incredible 38-0 season as head coach Dawn Staley won her 3rd title for the Gamecocks over the last 7 March Madness tournaments (remember the 2020 tournament was cancelled). It’s the first undefeated season in Staley’s career after coming so close last year. It was the sport’s first undefeated champion since the 2015-16 UConn Huskies, too. However, we need to talk about these uniforms.
The team has occasionally sported white uniforms this year with yellow gradient trim down the flanks and more yellow trim on the collar. This is what they decided to wear in the National Championship. It is with a different uniform set and their school logo on the front above the player number (this actually looks great). Apparently, the reasoning for using the yellow is because of mascot Cocky’s beak and feet, which are the same color. That is really dumb and looks like a passive aggressive way of showing Southern California who the real USC is or something.
Recruiting
Running back Rickey Stewart (0.9129) has committed to Texas.
Interior offensive lineman Mason Short (0.9325) committed to Georgia.
Wide receiver Dillon Alfred (0.8949) committed to Ole Miss.
Tight end Luka Gilbert (0.9114) committed to Miami.
Defensive lineman Trent Wilson (0.9399) committed to Oklahoma.
Wideout Cooper Perry (0.9122) has committed to Oregon.
Offensive tackle Carde Smith (0.9111) gave a verbal to Auburn.
Running back Alvin Henderson (0.9528) has given a verbal to Penn State.
Interior offensive lineman Justin Hasenhuetl (0.9281) has committed to Georgia Tech.
In the 2026 class, athlete Ansu Sanoe (0.9444) committed to Washington.
YouTube Channel
Star Wars content is everywhere and there’s more to talk about today. I didn’t have a ton of action figures as a kid but do remember a collection of some He-Man characters and the Grayskull castle in my toy chest. That thing rocked. My best friend was much more into Star Wars than me and he had many of the figurines and other toys. One thing about Star Wars that I’ve liked are the ships and aircrafts. Those were the best toys.
Last week, we talked about the large cargo ships sailing the seas and I love watching these videos like above that put into scale how massive some of these things are in the Star Wars universe. For example, the Star Destroyer (5:20 in the embedded video) is roughly 4 times longer than the largest container ship in the world right now. I love reading about the largest ship the Supremacy with its estimated 2,225,000 staff on board, crazy stuff.
Tunes
Beck came out of freaking nowhere in 1994. After re-releasing “Loser” to start the year the unforgettable single quickly made its way up the charts and became one of the songs of the decade. I was looking back at his discography and thought his album Odelay came out shortly thereafter, but that wasn’t the case. The album was delayed for a long time and didn’t come out until June 1996, crazy late after the original release of “Loser.”
I wore Odelay out on CD. This was around the time of my first Walkman and I’d rotate CD’s from there to our family’s Hewlett-Packard computer playing many late 1990’s video games and learning about this thing called the internet. My favorite song to this day from Beck is “Lost Cause” from 2002. His ability to play so many different genres has made him so successful but I particularly like sad Beck music.
Trivia
Can you name the top 5 largest college football stadiums by capacity in perfect order?
The Other Football
The UNWNT won another She Believes Cup recently with a 2-1 win over Japan in the semifinals and a 2-2 victory on penalties over Canada in the final. It’s the Americans’ 7th title in the tournament and 4th straight overall.
The first leg of the Champions League quarterfinals is complete:
Arsenal 2-2 Bayern Munich
Real Madrid 3-3 Man City
Atletico Madrid 2-1 Dortmund
Barcelona 3-2 PSG
Defending champions Man City are still alive for a second straight treble.
The Europa League is into the 1st leg of the quarterfinals, as well:
Roma 1-0 AC Milan
Bayer Leverkusen 2-0 West Ham
Benfica 2-1 Marseille
Atalanta 3-0 Liverpool
Leverkusen have STILL yet to lose across all competitions this year, truly remarkable.
Liverpool drew Man United 2-2 over the weekend in the Premier League which moves Arsenal into the top spot based on goal differential with Man City just 1 point back in 3rd place.
Leo Messi and Inter Miami have crashed out of the Concacaf Champions League quarterfinals following a 3-1 (5-2 on aggregate) loss to Monterey in Mexico.
TV & Movies
A young man named Baby. I finished watching Baby Driver from 2017 featuring actor Ansel Elgort whose parents were a fashion photographer and opera director. Where did he grow up you wonder? Of course, it was New York City. I thought Baby Driver was going to be this guy’s moniker but not a name he called himself throughout the movie. I also wasn’t expecting Jon Hamm and Jamie Foxx to be playing such unlikable characters. They were so terrible.
I’d give the movie a solid B overall. I was anticipating a little more action with the driving sequences and a little more skill and artistry there. I think Baby was a very good driver, but the best? He made some mistakes, I must say. It’s also tough watching movies with the now disgraced Kevin Spacey. He was in a movie in 2018 with Elgort again called Billionaire Boys Club but hasn’t found much work since.
A Look Back
A quick journey back to Dublin, smell the sweet grass and Guinness. Plus, looking at the video thumbnail today you can smell the fire and gas used to celebrate all those Notre Dame scores. The dawn of the short-lived Sam Hartman era at quarterback. It looked so promising at first.
There have been worse beatdowns of Navy, sure. Still, this one was an efficient victory. 27 first downs, Navy only gained 169 yards, the Irish only committed one penalty, and there were no turnovers. Who wouldn’t sign up for this in College Station in late August?
18S Paddock Club
Any illusions that Verstappen won’t easily run away with the F1 championship again were put to bed in Japan. In fact, this past weekend’s race was the first of 2024 where Red Bull won a race by more at the same track as last year. Not great for the old title fight.
Other news & notes after a visit to Suzuka:
*Red Bull were comfortably 1-2 in qualifying and finished the race that way. During this reign we’ve seen plenty of races where Verstappen was barely shown during the grand prix and this one might’ve been the least TV time of them all.
*Albon and Ricciardo collided on the first lap causing a red flag. It’s a brutal beginning of the season for Williams who has to repair yet another car. Danny Ric’s day was made even worse as teammate Yuki Tsunoda would go on to score a point from P10 in his home race.
*Ferrari were comfortably the 2nd fastest car although 3rd place Sainz finished a distant 20 seconds behind Verstappen.
*It was a quietly great race for both Norris and Alonso who finished P5 and P6 respectively, above their teammates who finished in P8 and P12 lower down the grid.
*Mercedes thought they’d found some pace during practice but poor tire wear and bad strategy led them to P7 (Russell) and P9 (Hamilton). Hamilton also suffered front wing damage. The once dominant constructor only has 34 points through 4 races, and trail McLaren in 3rd place by a hefty 35 points.
*Zhou retired with a gearbox problem. The bottom of the grid is looking rough this year. All 3 of Stake, Williams, and Alpine remains pointless through a sixth of the season so far.
Trivia Answer:
Michigan, Penn State, Ohio State, Texas A&M, and LSU.
If we’re discussing College Basketball National Championship Game uniforms, can we give whatever the opposite of a shoutout is to Purdue’s super tiny back of jersey numbers? Those things sucked – granted the picture below is of a Zach Edey, so it’s already skewed, but c’mon.
Totally ruins cool shadow on the numbers, too. Plus NNOB gross.
That might be a Nike/Fanatics special
I would have guessed Neyland Stadium but, I see Tenn. actually downsized it a while back.( now 101,000+) They routinely put in 107,000 though.
I couldve sworn Tenn was one of them. Also thought OSU was bigger than PSU.
But does the video calculate the tonnage of the star destroyers? That’s what I want to know!
I don’t know these dark arts of measurement.
I bet there are some ship nerds who could help you out
Can you measure displacement in a vacuum?
Just gonna say the moment in Star Wars 9 (I won’t bother looking up the title) where we find out that the revived Emperor has somehow secretly built a bajillion star destroyers but somehow the Rebels are going to take them out with a cavalry charge was the last of so many last straws for me.
In my time in Columbia I don’t think I’ve seen a uniform worse than those WBB jerseys man I *hate* them
In other women’s hoops news the very short lived Hannah Hidalgo to LSU smoke had me teetering on the brink of insanity
Ha! Our womens’ BBall is having such an impact on the failthful.
I’ve enjoyed and respected the comments by all, especially those related to ND sports. I appreciated the recs for mine. But when mine have to be approved for some reason and I’ve received no explanation and no response, it’s time to move on.
My latest includes links to ND womens’ soccer achievements and a Chelsea v Celtic match at the stadium as well as Quinn Ewers signing NiL deals and Martinez and MSU and Sanders’ daughter entering the Portal. Check them out if approved – or Google them if interested.
Slainte to all !
It’s because there is an anti-spam filter that pushes comments with too many links in them to the ‘awaiting approval’ section, ya big baby.
Quinn Ewers inks NIL deal with private jet company Nicholas Air“The deal calls for Ewers to have hours using Nicholas Air’s fleet of private jets for travel, training and philanthropy.” So unselfish. A model for all college foottball and high school recruits. Arch Manning denies he may transfer. Maybe he’ll ride along.
QB Quinn Ewers’ transfer shows need for uniform NIL rules (February 28, 2022)“The Texas High School Association denied Ewers the ability to profit from his NIL as he entered what would have been his senior season in the fall of 2021. Accordingly, Ewers reclassified into early graduation and enrolled for the 2021-22 school year as a freshman at Ohio State University, where he entered a contract with GT Sports Marketing for $1.4 million.”
Michigan State Football and Jonathan Smith Has Inside Track On Transfer Portal’s No. 2 RB Damien Martinez He reportedly turned down a $40k NIL deal to stay at Oregon State.”A semifinalist for the Doak Walker Award in 2023, Martinez is one of the best tailbacks in the country. 247Sports lists the junior as the No. 2 running back in the transfer portal, behind only former Ole Miss RB Quinshon Judkins, who transferred to Ohio State.”
Colorado guard Shelomi Sanders, daughter of Deion Sanders, entered NCAA Transfer Portal She’s played seven games in two years?“First and foremost, I would like to thank my creator for allowing me to have this platform with amazing experiences,” Sanders wrote. “I want to thank my coaches and the university for accepting me to be a part of the family, it has been a blessing accomplishing as much as we did. I would like to thank my family and my support system for always uplifting and pouring into me on and off the court as a student athlete.”
Have these been mentioned?
More Irish Flair Added to USWNT“Back in the fall of 2022, both Korbin Albert and Eva Gaetino donned Notre Dame uniforms and won the ACC’s Midfielder and Defender of the Year, respectively. Then Albert pursued her pro dreams and signed with European giant PSG. A year later, Gaetino followed suit after four years in South Bend and signed with PSG as well, adding another American to the roster. Then Albert caught the eye of the USWNT and interim head coach Twila Kilgore. The rest was history as Albert started all but one match in the Gold Cup and helped lead the U.S. squad to victory.”
Notre Dame Stadium Hosting Chelsea vs. Celtic FC Friendly in July 2024
^All Spam
How does player transfer rules constitute an emergency?
Most likely not allowing unlimited transfers would come with a whole lot more lawsuits than not allowing them.
I’m sorry, what is the She Believes Cup? That’s not a FIFA or Concacaf thing right?
It’s organized by the US soccer federation.
Tottenham is playing next year to try to pick up some hardware
Take what we can get.
We were all heavy into Star Wars when the boys were young, and just before the Lord of the Rings figurines came into our universe, my older son, very heavy into legos, built the Lego Star Destroyer. One humongous set of tiny plastic blocks.
Also, thanks for the great memory of Dublin. I wound up sitting next to our very own Irish Spring and we had a heck of a time.
Finally, speaking of a heck of a time, I haven’t been to a Blue and Gold game forever, like 1988, but the ND Alumni Association is having a big Annual Meeting and I’m repping our France club, and we finish Saturday at noon, and I don’t fly back until Sunday, so I bought four tickets (they’re cheap!) But none of my cousins can come so if anybody on the site wants to attend, I’ll even treat to popcorn.