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

Top News

Joe Alt was selected with the 5th overall pick in the NFL Draft by the Los Angeles Chargers.

Notre Dame cornerback Micah Bell has entered the transfer portal.

Reggie Bush is having his Heisman formally given back to him.

The Group of 5 is being pitched participating in its own playoff, backed by private equity firms.

The North Dakota State at Colorado season opener has been moved up 2 days to Thursday, August 29th.

Former Arizona State head coach Herm Edwards has received a 5-year show-cause penalty.

Jaden Rashada is headed to Georgia from Arizona State after the quarterback recently entered the portal.

Colorado running back and former Notre Dame commit Dylan Edwards is in the transfer portal.

Miami running back Henry Parrish has transferred to Ole Miss.

LSU running back John Emery is in the portal.

Miami (OH) kicker and reigning Lou Groza winner Graham Nicholson has transferred to Alabama.

Pitt defensive end Dayon Hayes was vocal about not being able to win enough with the Panthers and transferred to Georgia, no I’m sorry, he is leaving for Colorado.

Iowa State and Kansas State will open the 2025 season in Ireland.

Uniform of the Week

The NFL Draft is ongoing right now in Detroit, the Lions are coming off a 12-win campaign, they won the NFC North, and won 2 freaking playoff games. To cap it off, Detroit just released new uniforms for the 2024 season and they freaking nailed it. They’ve updated the striping on the helmet, shoulders, and silver pants. The facemasks are blue again instead of silver. The numbers on the home blue jersey are white again. For the Lions it’s a simple return to a classic uniform with a small modern twist.

The gray uniforms are gone which is a massive upgrade. The black uniforms are a solid addition, especially with an awesome new blue helmet that is among the best alternates in recent NFL history. The team has also put the city name across the chest of the white road uniform for the first time in addition to the nickname across the black jerseys. My only gripe is they aren’t advertising wearing silver pants with the road white jerseys–I’ve always liked that look.

Recruiting

Defensive lineman Nathaniel Marshall (0.9785) committed to Michigan.

Corner Shamari Earls (0.9455) committed to South Carolina.

Wide receiver Adrian Wilson (0.9372) is headed to Arizona State.

Offensive tackle Jonte Newman (0.8958) committed to Texas A&M.

Athlete Jarcoby Hopson (0.9315) committed to Ole Miss.

Wide receiver Radarious Jackson (0.9103) gave a verbal to Tennessee.

Edge rusher Tyshun Willis (0.9006) committed to Mississippi State.

Offensive lineman Jack Lange (0.9390) committed to Missouri.

Quarterback Adam Schobel (0.9092) has flipped from Baylor to Oklahoma State.

YouTube Channel

We have booked a family vacation to Disney World for April 2025 when my little ones will be approximately 7.5, 5.5, and 3.5 years old. I married a Disney lover and we are going all in for 6 nights. Please pray for me. My first trip was in 1991 and when I returned in 2009 it still felt kind of the same place. Another trip in 2013 and the change was noticeable. Now a decade later, and Star Wars (among other things) has really changed the DNA of the parks. Recently, WDW announced plans to expand Magic Kingdom which feels overdue.

My kids are big, big fans of Encanto and to a lesser extent Coco, with the latter being my favorite Disney movie in recent years. I wish there were more from these movies for the kids to experience by next year. I’ve gone through so much Encanto love that it feels like the movie came out 10 years ago instead of 2.5 years ago. In addition to changes at Magic Kingdom, it sounds like they will be replacing many areas at Animal Kingdom and adding in a new Encanto area which should be awesome. We’re skipping AK when you go next year as it’s not worth it for our little ones. But in the future it will be a must-stop.

Tunes

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced their class for 2024 this week which included Mary J. Blige, Cher, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, Kool & the Gang, Ozzy Osbourne, A Tribe Called Quest, plus Dave Matthews Band. We are now getting to the point where inductees are starting to make me feel truly old and I’m not sure how to feel about that! I went through the list of people in the HoF now and Dave Matthews Band joins Nirvana, Green Day, Pearl Jam, Tupac, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Biggie, Foo Fighters, Jay-Z, Eminem, Missy Elliott, Rage Against and the Machine as artists I was there from the start and old enough to witness their whole career.

It’s wild to go back and read reviews of some of the DMB’s albums and songs. There was definitely a backlash and dislike for the band that filtered its way through the rock critics. Their 2nd album Crash sold over 7 million copies and to me is a triumph in pop/rock musicianship. From start to finish it’s a force. Try to play along to Carter Beauford’s hi-hat beat in “Tripping Billies” song above, good luck!

Trivia

How many times has Notre Dame beaten the team that would go on to finish no. 1 in the AP Poll that same season?

The Other Football

American defender Sergino Dest, on loan at PSV from Barcelona, had knee surgery and will be out through the summer.

Following a 2-1 victory over rival AC Milan, the Serie A title was won by Inter Milan on Monday. It’s the 20th Italian championship for the club.

A late goal by Jude Bellingham gave Real Madrid a stunning 3-2 win over rival Barcelona. That’s now a commanding 11-point lead for Madrid as the season is coming to a close.

Arsenal smoked Chelsea 5-0 on Monday, Liverpool’s title chances are on life support following a brutal 2-0 loss to cross-town rival Everton, and Man City crushed Brighton 4-0 to move within a point of Arsenal with a game in hand.

FIFA has signed a sponsorship deal with Aramco for the World Cup in the least surprising news of the week.

TV & Movies

I don’t care what anyone says the movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids is a great plot and one of the best “this might be a terrible movie title actually wait it’s a genius movie title” decisions of all-time. Rick Moranis was awesome in this movie. But more importantly, the set design was freaking awesome. Wikipedia says the movie was filmed in Mexico City, which is neat. The props and and perspective used to make the kids seem so tiny was so cool.

This movie made it big at the box office, too. I was only 7 years old and it must have been one of my first big theater experiences. In today’s money it made nearly $600 million and was the 8th highest grossing movie of 1989. More surprising, Look Who’s Talking was the 4th highest grossing movie that year–imagine something like that happening today. They were simpler times.

A Look Back

What was Notre Dame’s longest play from scrimmage last year? You guessed right most likely, it was the emphatic long touchdown run by Audric Estime coming out of the weather delay at NC State. Do you remember the longest passing play from scrimmage for the Irish in 2023? That was the early 2nd quarter 76-yard touchdown over the middle to from Hartman to Chris Tyree against Central Michigan.

I’ll tell you, I never would’ve guessed the top 3 teams in today’s video for the longest plays from scrimmage last year would be Georgia State, Stanford, and finally Miami (OH). Those were the 58th, 110th, and 72nd teams in yards per play for 2023, respectively. The Cardinal had this 97-yard score but their 2nd longest pass from scrimmage in 2023 was just 60 yards.

18S Paddock Club

Grass on fire, painted tarmac, and penalties highlighted the Chinese Grand Prix this past weekend outside of the city of Shanghai. And of course, another Max Verstappen win. Two wins, in fact. With the first sprint weekend of the season the Dutch reigning champion picked up the full 8 points on Saturday, as well.

More notes from China:

*Lando Norris took pole in a wet sprint qualifying but dropped down to P6 during the actual sprint race following a poor start. He’d redeem himself with a P2 finish in the grand prix.

*Lewis Hamilton’s crazy season continued with a P2 finish in sprint qualifying followed up by a shocking P18 finish in normal qualifying. He’d only pick up 9 points this weekend, 7 from the sprint following a quality P2 finish.

*Valtteri Bottas’ engine died during the race for the first DNF. Later, Yuki Tsunoda was hit by Kevin Magnussen and had to retire his car. Danny Ricciardo got a new chassis and looked better this weekend, only to get smashed into by Lance Stroll on a safety car re-start to complete both RB Visa car DNF’s.

*Niko Hulkenberg dragged his Haas to P10 and another championship point for the team as it was announced early Friday he will be leaving the team for Sauber/Haas in 2025.

*Zhou Guanyou got to race on his home track for the first time, and maybe only time. The Chinese driver parked his car on the circuit after the race and took some emotional pictures with the crowd. With Hulkenberg coming to the team, it’s looking less likely Zhou will remain on the grid.

*The top 5 this year is really starting to cement itself with Red Bull (Verstappen/Perez), Ferrari (Leclerc/Sainz) in the top 4 spots, plus Lando Norris in 5th. McLaren are comfortably ahead of Mercedes and it’ll be interesting to see if that changes any time soon.

Trivia Answer:

Once (1-23 overall) against Florida State in 1993.