Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
In the News
That postponed Arkansas visit to South Bend last year has now been rescheduled to 2028 with Notre Dame also visitng Fayetteville in 2025.
The Cardinals signed former Notre Dame punter Tyler Newsome. Somehow, Sam Young is still clinging on to a job as he signed a 1-year deal to stay with the Raiders. In his 13th season last year, Young made a career-high 7 starts!
Pete Thamel wonders if Notre Dame can win a National Championship.
Florida added 3 years to head coach Dan Mullen’s deal that now runs through 2026.
The 2022 College Football Hall of Fame nominees have been announced.
A freshman football player at Virginia Tech has been charged with 2nd degree murder.
Please welcome the return of the USFL which is coming back in the spring of 2022 including a TV deal with Fox Sports.
From the Archive
Venture all the way back to May 18th for Michael Bryan’s wonderful advanced stats deep dive on the 2020 Notre Dame running game.
The Portal
Tulsa corner Akayleb Evans visited Notre Dame on Wednesday and has the Irish in his transfer finalists. Marshall offensive guard transfer Cain Madden will be visiting South Bend this weekend.
Former LSU tight end Arik Gilbert finally decided on transferring to Georgia (after a brief stop at Florida). The Dawgs also picked up Clemson defensive back Derion Kendrick.
Wisconsin added former Clemson running back Chaz Mellusi, a long-time backup at his former school.
Former USC receiver Munir McCalin is headed to Utah.
Former blue-chip running back Kevontre Bradford is leaving LSU after just 1 season.
Running back David Bailey left Boston College and follows his dude Steve Addazio to Colorado State.
Helmet Talk
The University of Texas at San Antonio just celebrated their 10th anniversary of their football program in 2020 and even made a bowl game last fall. The school has basically cycled through 3 different looks for their helmets during their brief history.
One, the roadrunner on top of the “UTSA” script, that same script on top of a Texas state outline, and then just the enlarged roadrunner head logo. The last is my favorite. Roadrunner is a great nickname.
Recruiting
Where are all the June commits!?? Perhaps for next week’s Rambler there will be some big news for the Fighting Irish.
Pace Academy quarterback MJ Morris (0.917) has committed to NC State.
USC added 3-star receiver Kevin Green (0.881) out of Bishop Alemany High School.
House of the Week
I wanted to include Colombian reggaeton singer J Balvin’s house in Medellin due to his enormous and beautiful shoe collection. It’s wonderful! I don’t want to overlook his home in its entirety which is shockingly tranquil and relaxing. He did a really nice job.
But, back to the shoe collection. I’m in the process of remodeling an old room in my home and looking to add a space on the wall for 4 to 6 pairs of my best running sneakers. I would explode with joy being able to fill a whole room with sneakers (and have the cash to do it). And honestly, it’s such a creative and sensible hobby for celebrities. You can own 500 pairs of sneakers with all the time and love it takes to acquire them or go buy a modestly nice BMW that no one cares about. Easy decision for us sneakerheads.
Tunes
This might be my favorite Chili Peppers song. However, even as an 11-year old at the time I instinctively knew the band botched the release of one of their greatest singles. It was recorded during their Blood Sugar Sex Magik album sessions in 1991, buried as a B-side on two other mega hits, and then later put on the freaking Coneheads soundtrack in 1993 before they finally released the song as its own single.
I don’t have a memory of this video back in the MTV days which is good because it’s pretty terrible. It still can’t ruin Flea’s sweet, sweet melodic bass playing though. What a legend.
On This Day in Sports
Back in 1899 during a game between the Boston Beaneaters (the precursor to the Boston Braves) and Philadelphia Quakers, pitcher John Clarkson becomes the first player to complete an “immaculate inning” striking out all 3 batters on 9 pitches.
At the Cinema
I would like to stan for Sin City the film noire release from 2005. This was the first DVD I watched during the summer of 2005 after graduating from college and starting a real job. I’m not sure why I still remember that, but I do. Knowing nothing about the comic books from Frank Miller I thought this movie was an absolute delight.
I also just learned that there was a second movie released in 2014 which I have not seen. Judging by the reviews and money it generated that’s probably for the best.
Hot Take
Argo is a mediocre movie that should not have won any awards, nor be nominated. What an overhyped film.
Trivia
Who are the 4 players during the Brian Kelly era to total at least 1,000 receiving yards in a single-season? Was this a question already??
I don’t understand sneaker collecting. I would take the BMW any day, and I’m not even a car guy. My brother in law loves shoes, my best friend loves shoes, and I just cannot wrap my head around wanting an entire room for your shoes.
Trivia question: Fuller, Floyd, TJ Jones(?) and Claypool(?). I have very little confidence on the last 2, as I feel like Claypool’s junior year receiving partner may have actually been the one to break 1,000.
What shoes are you wearing right now? We can start there 🙂
Black Nike Court Legacy with a white swoosh. I honestly don’t even remember how long I have had these, but they are no longer in great shape ha.
Nike is good but we gotta get you into something nicer than some knockoff Vans.
Not worth the effort!
You can upgrade from 1910’s technology with a click of a button!
Will fuller
Chase claypool
Michael Floyd
I’ll say 4th is TJ Jones.
—maybe could have been Boykin if he had book for all year
I was 19 for sin city, didn’t know anything about graphic novels but loved the movie. Had the Jessica Alba sin city poster on my wall in college. Still remember “little Nancy Callahan, she grew up, she filled out”
TRIVIA ANSWERS:
You are correct.
You are absolutely correct about Argo. In a year where The Master *wasn’t even a nominee for Best Picture* The Academy was just all sorts of wrong.
If there is anything the Academy Awards love, it’s a movie about Hollywood.
Re: RHCP…That song wouldn’t be in my top 10 with them, honestly. Everything is subjective, and I was never even a giant fan of them, but a song like Snow or Otherside always gets me to turn up the radio. Soul to Squeeze doesn’t really move the meter for me. Oh well, chocolate or vanilla, right? They do have some really solid stuff. And even as 55-ish guys they put out Dark Necessities…which is pretty serviceable, imo.
This should probably be in the weekly rambler but homefield apparel is releasing their notre dame gear tomorrow. I feel like we’ve talked about homefield before but their shirts are really cool. My wife went to Tulane and they’ve got a bunch of cool Tulane shirts so really excited to see what they release for nd.
Good call.
Noon today the Notre Dame stuff is dropping by Homefield:
https://www.homefieldapparel.com/?rsc=1623467
https://twitter.com/HomefieldApparl/status/1400844804842352645?s=20
Personally, I’m a little disappointed with the selections. I feel there’s maybe a couple shirts I’d consider getting-the hockey one and maybe the green with gold/yellow script…but not for the price.
I’ll be honest, me too.
1) There wasn’t anything cooler than the few shirts that leaked beforehand which was a bummer.
2) I thought there’d be more options overall to purchase.
3) I think Homefield does a great job but it benefits from looking all of their stuff from so many schools and in totality it’s amazing. Once you focus on one school it’s not quite as amazing.
Yeah, I agree. Wasn’t really that blown away. A bunch of cool stuff but no real standout IMO. Kinda underwhelmed with all their hype machine had played it up. They do a great job marketing and using social media and tracking sales via all the schools to create a rivalry and competition there. Very smart stuff, that’s probably the most interesting aspect of that company to me is more the glitz and glamor they have on the side.
Definitely my favorite house we’ve seen so far. So beautiful and simple, and love the color scheme. I’ve never heard of J Balvin but I was really impressed by his personality in this video.
I hadn’t heard of him until he made a couple of great songs with Cris Cab within the last 5 years.
Turn out the Light in particular has recently become one of my favorite songs to listen to in the car.
ND baseball is having a year!
Anyone else think they should tone down the gold color in the helmets?
This made me think how I’m surprised we haven’t seen this look yet on the football field:
The white pants would be controversial in some quarters but they should try this on a Senior Day green jersey night.
It’s preeetty close to the Fenway uniform.
Have we ever tried baseball themed uniforms? Could be a hit! /s
We did. The Syracuse game in Yankee Stadium. I flew in and my daughter and her family drove down from Boston. My son-in-law’s family are typical completely embedded Red Sox fans. The last words from his grandmother on her death bed were if the Sox had beat the Yankees last night. Thus they were not fans of the pinstripe look on the unis. I am agnostic on Yanks and Red Sox, but I was not impressed with the look itself. I don’t know if Eric ever expressed an opinion, I would like that, him being a major uni person.
They are indeed. Looks like the coach may be a keeper (if we can keep him). Yes, I think the gold is kind of… glittery. We could say the same for the hockey team?