Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.

3 News Stories

#1 Civil War Back On

Due to the issues surrounding conference expansion, we won’t have an Oregon vs. Oregon State football game in 2026. Or in 2027, either. It’s been 2 full seasons and Oregon in the Big Ten still feels bizarre. Good news for this rivalry, though. The school’s have signed a new 4-game deal to run from 2028 through 2032. Will we see something similar for Notre Dame and USC in the next 12 months?

The Beavers and Ducks have met 129 times to date, including annually since 1945. That annual streak will come to an end in 2026, but at least there’s a scheduled return of the Civil War.

#2 Vaughn on Board

Notre Dame added to its 2027 recruiting class this week as defensive end Jackson Vaughn committed and became the 19th member to pledge to the Irish this cycle. Our friend Jamie is very high on his future, you should check out his “Film Don’t Lie” breakdown from Tuesday evening.

Vaughn comes out of the familiar New Jersey high school Bergen Catholic and is a near top 100 recruit according to 247 Sports. In the Composite he’s a more humble 4-star with a 0.9161 score but still a top 5 prospect in the Garden State.

#3 College Sports, Let’s Protect ‘Em

Can you protect college sports? Some politicians are trying their best! A new bipartisan sweeping legislation was introduced in the Senate on Wednesday called the Protect College Sports Act with the following rules:

  • Limiting athletes to transferring schools only one time without penalty
  • Limiting athlete eligibility to a maximum of five years
  • Prohibiting former professional athletes from playing in college
  • Prohibiting schools from poaching a coach from another school during their sport’s season
  • Enforce a legal spending cap that each school can pay its athletes

Will it be passed or even work? Probably not! I really don’t know how they are going to figure this out and put the toothpaste back in the tube of giving the NCAA more power when so many programs are operating in defiance of this old establishment. Heck, the SEC isn’t getting their way with some things vis-a-vis the Big Ten and the future of the playoffs and they’re floating the idea of just leaving the NCAA structure anyway.

Uniform of the Week

Ohio State became one of the first colleges to unveil new uniforms for the 2026 season. Well, new is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this definition. At least, they now have tweaked uniforms. Back in 2016, the Buckeyes made a rather bold decision to change up the striping on their red home jersey. They unveiled a black/white/red striping pattern that may have gone unnoticed to many across the country but once you see it now the difference is obvious. Basically, for 2026 Ohio State is going back to their traditional look.

A good upgrade.

The silver stripes on the sleeves are back! Thank goodness because I couldn’t stand the previous version, it really ruined one of the more iconic uniforms in college football. It was so, so bad. You’ll also notice they switched out the formal Ohio State logo for the simple “O” logo on the collar and removed the script on their nose bumpers for the same plain logo–both upgrades in my opinion. The school also released updated black uniforms which are nearly identical to their previous set, with the exception of adding in the traditional silver stripes on the sleeves.

Media

Nostalgia time is here as the new Master of the Universe movie is being released in a couple weeks. From 1983-84 they released 130 episodes of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon. 130 episodes! I was watching the hell out of these shows. I didn’t have a ton of toys and dolls as a kid but one I remember fondly is the Castle Grayskull, I’ll never forget it.

It’s hard to tell anything about the movie from this trailer–although I lean towards it being pretty bad. A quick checks shows it took a super long time to get made, stretching back to 2009. It makes it look like he’s a young guy who used to play with He-Man toys and then he gets to become He-Man? One thing that is taking me out is wearing a button down shirt amongst all the fantasy in this trailer.

Tunes

The Notre Dame football team is probably listening to a whole lot of Drake right now as the Canadian hip hop star released not one, not two, but three albums on May 15th. It’s his first new music in 2.5 years after going through some controversy and beef with other artists. But, I guess Drake is officially back!? His recent single “Janice STFU” has debuted at no. 1 and gives Drake his 14th chart topper, moving ahead of Michael Jackson and in a tie with Taylor Swift and Rihanna. By the way, Rihanna hasn’t made music in a decade and is still just 38 years old, what a career!

The Billboard Hot 100 was delayed this week because Drake placed 42 songs on the charts, breaking a record, and apparently breaking the computers tabulating streaming and such, as well. I’ve liked the bulk of Drake’s music but hip hop is in a pretty dark place, or I’m getting old. I firmly believe that you could send “Janice STFU” to any hip hop lover 10 years ago and not a single soul would’ve believed this could ever be a no. 1 song on the Billboard chart. It’s insanity.

One More Thing

Do I commit myself to watching the Ken Burns Baseball documentary? I’ve watched snippets on PBS over the years and enjoyed it enough to think about diving in at some point. The original 9-parts are 18.5 hours long and I’m pretty sure I’ve watched the bulk of the first or second episode. It was a bit slow, but still enjoyable enough.

They are currently on Apple TV for $6.99 per episode, is it worth it?

I am struggling being a baseball/softball parent these days. I’m trying to get back into the pastime Americana feelings and I’m just bored and grumpy the whole time. It’s the least bang for your buck sport my kids are doing now and we’re constantly held hostage by rainouts, rescheduling games, not enough kids showing up, etc. I realized recently, especially watching t-ball with my youngest, that the people really enjoying themselves the most are having fun watching kids not paying attention, forgetting to run the bases, and running the wrong way.

I feel bad hoping for them to ask to play something else instead, but I don’t think that will happen anytime soon. Can Ken Burns shake some sense into me?