Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
3 News Stories
#1 Sorsby Hits the Parachute
After a Texas judge issued a restraining order that would’ve delayed Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby’s trial until February–effectively allowing him to play during the 2026 season despite horrid gambling accusations–all hell broke loose in college football. Things got much worse when Texas attorney general Ken Paxton threatened the Big 12 with a lawsuit but that bluff was called.
Instead, the Big 12 petitioned a federal judge for injunctive relief against Paxton and a declaratory judgement that it was allowed to enforce its rules and presumably make Sorsby ineligible to play for Texas Tech.
Mere hours later, Sorsby declared for the Supplemental NFL Draft. And now, for the time being, this dark chapter in college football is over.
#2 Recruiting
Summer recruiting is sizzling now. Notre Dame lost commit Amarri Irvin, a linebacker out of IMG Academy who subsequently joined Virginia Tech’s class. The scuttlebutt was that Notre Dame wasn’t sad and/or was fully prepared for Irvin to leave the class. You may remember his brother, running back Sedrick Irvin, was once a Notre Dame commit, as well. Sedrick ended up at Stanford where he’s a rising senior with 300 yards on 85 career carries.
In more positive recruiting news, defensive end Abraham Sesay committed to the Fighting Irish, a top 50 prospect in the Composite and just outside 5-star status.
Back to bummer news, after the beat media thought linebacker Kaden Henderson was all but done for the Irish, the Floridian ended up committing to Texas A&M on Thursday afternoon. The five-star prospect was the no. 1 linebacker in the country according to the Composite so that one hurts.
#3 The PCSA Advances
With a 19-9 vote, the Protect College Sports Act has passed through a committee vote and could make its way to the Senate floor for a full vote. From Yahoo Sports:
The Protect College Sports Act would allow the NCAA to limit transfers and eligibility, enforce a spending cap, give conferences the option to pool their television rights and prevent coaches from leaving their teams before the end of the season. It also forces schools to commit to preserve their women’s and Olympic sports programs.
Citing concerns about media rights (mostly) the Big Ten and SEC are not in support of this current version of the bill. Will it be revised?
Uniform of the Week
TCU has released their special alternate uniforms for their regular season opening game across the pond in Ireland against North Carolina. You may have noticed the Horned Frogs wore very basic (especially for their program) uniforms in 2025. I’m talking about plain colors, almost no striping, or otherwise funky patterns that have come to define TCU football in the past. For their trip to Ireland at least, they have juiced things back up. Here’s a look:
Four-leaf clover vs. shamrock debate again.
I haven’t seen a side shot of the pants, although I suspect they remain plain black. The numbers have a very subtle frog-skin pattern in them and there is a four-leaf clover stuck on the helmet in the frog’s mouth. The pattern on the collar and shoulders looks kind of like lightning bolts but is supposed to mimic the rigid and sharp back of the horned frog.
Media
I’m a bit sad. Let me explain. I dove into the return of the college football video game a couple years ago and had a really good time. For a while. Yes, the game left a lot to be desired in dynasty mode and it never really felt like the good old days. I’m also much older and a bit of a hack, I just want to play games, dominate, and then it’s quickly not that fun anymore. I’m thinking about jumping back in again with the new College Football 27 later this summer and maybe going with a small school build up situation. That would extend the life of a franchise mode save.
The new game does look great, and a big jump up in graphics compared to the 2025 version. Check out the end of this video and you’ll see the weather changing in South Bend. That was completely missing in the game from two years ago. It made the gameplay get so shockingly stale. I haven’t read too much about any of the new features this year, although the few snippets I’ve seen have me itching to get back in again. I didn’t like the way recruiting was handled in 2025, so hopefully that’s experiences an overhaul.
Tunes
We only got 5 albums from Outkast (I don’t count Idlewild among them) and it’s a shame. They went out on top back in 2003 (again not counting Idlewild) so in that sense it’s nice that Andre 3000 and Big Boi left the industry with nothing more to prove. I have to think they are constantly asked if they’ll ever record again. That could be pretty annoying. Did you know Andre 3000 made the New York Times list of the greatest 30 American songwriters alive today? I was thinking about some of the best outros in modern history and landed today on “B.O.B.”
This song definitely got overplayed and really saturated Outkast into the American consciousness. I embedded the lyrics video today and I have a challenge to anyone. Try to rap along with Andre 3000 in the opening verse. It’s so fast! It’s so long! It’s not even easy to read along with him as he’s rapping. This is truly genius work.
One More Thing
Don’t forget the 2026 season marks the beginning of jersey sponsors in college sports. This week, I saw that Michigan State has announced their partnership with MSUFCU, Michigan State University Federal Credit Union. The Twitter replies to the announcement were brutal in their indignation to the Spartans doing this. I do agree that the patch being bordered in a different color to the jersey makes it look too amateurish. My first rule with jersey advertising patches is making them look as much like they aren’t patches.
The first partnership of its kind in the Big Ten.
Beginning this season, all 23 varsity sports will wear the MSUFCU patch. pic.twitter.com/xKsRzKCjfK
— Michigan State Athletics (@MSU_Athletics) June 15, 2026
Curiously, the Reddit comments on this news were all nearly universal in their praise of Michigan State for choosing MSUFCU. Apparently, it’s an awfully swell credit union and treats people right. Good on Michigan State for going down this route, then. But, does this mean Michigan State is kind of paying itself to advertise their own university credit union. God knows we need better corporations out there in the United States, but if Notre Dame signed up with a credit union the lack of aura would bug me.
I’m pretty sure Congress will create a disaster for college football.
I very seldom question your takes, but … is not college football already in the midst of a rapidly evolving disaster? $60 million payrolls next year not sustainable? Not to mention the catastrophe for almost all other college sports?
I mean, it’s not like the schools are forced to pay the players. I don’t think Williams and Amherst are paying their players millions of dollars and fretting about the cost of all their sports.
Of course, Williams and Amherst are actual academic schools with actual student-athletes.
If you want what is a quasi-pro league with pro level facilities, pro level media coverage, pro level TV contracts, and pro level competitiveness, then you’re going to have to have a pro level labor force.
There’s a whole lot to unpack here. Forgive me everyone, but I still cannot let go of the notion of student-athletes. The very reason that athletes at the university level in the US have been recipients of scholarships for well over a century is that notion that dates back at least to ancient Greece and the Romans of a sound mind in a sound body, etc. etc. Even at the Ivies that renounced scholarships many decades ago, athletes can benefit from that prowess. The popular nature of watching sports like CFB at the collegiate level proceeded the professional league in terms of popularity, and created its wide share of abuses, which were constantly fought against, all with the idea of student-athleticism. But now the vast amount of money sloshing around has brought us to the tipping point to which you allude.
Since I don’t favor a full up quasi-pro league, and I do favor max arrangements to keep and encourage athletes to benefit from education, then I think it looks like there’s no other way but to try to square this bigger circle. So, I think the bill in the Senate may be the last chance at that (remember, it took massive intervention to save CFB early last century when players were dying right and left).
Sorry for the rant. Eric, maybe there could be some thoughts here.
Take care all, and — allez Les Bleus!
Noise, certainly things need to be fixed. I just don’t trust Congress to do a good job fixing things. Maybe Tommy Tuberville can figure things out.
I don’t trust anyone who gets their ass kicked by USC
Except TT is in the thralls of the ESS EE CEE!
You know, there is a laxative for that?
I agree with you on the student athlete thing. I’ve just come around to NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL ON NBC basically being a pro sport. Granted, I’ve always that that feeling since I worked for the athletic department, so it’s always seemed like a business for me.
My wife works for one of these small, very academic colleges that plays in the NESCAC and going to football games on Saturdays is a breath of fresh air. The guys are there because they wanted to attend the school, they are all good, driven students, and care about being on the team and leaving a legacy. If there is any NIL, it’s through ads at quaint local businesses, etc. After games, they all linger around and say hi to my wife if she teaches them and I ask about classes, majors, etc. While my old high school would probably put up 50 on these kids, it is a world where actual student athletes exist.
Nicely written, and very understandable. But we’re still at least trying to get our players to study, are we not?
I have always felt that the charm in College Football was the idea of the student athlete. The fact that they had to go to class with the rest of us (which was the case at ND when I was there, and I hear it’s still that way today), meant that those athletes represented us, and not some amorphous institution (e.g., my senior year at ND, we had a major exam in one of my econ classes, which I took right along with Tom Clements and Wayne Bullock) the week before we beat USC, 23-14). As such, given that we knew these guys, at least in some small way, it endeared the team to us.
That relationship between the athlete and the school started to be severed as the schools lined up for the big payday from TV and merchandise sales. And, as we saw, this led to the athletes (with some justification) saying they should get a piece of the pie as well.
Today, the problem overall is that the ability of the boosters to literally pay players unlimited amounts indirectly, means that player compensation can increase without regard to the actual revenue generated by the sport (which would otherwise act as a natural limit on player compensation). And we know there are boosters that will pay almost anything to keep their team in the Top Ten. So, at what point does the pendulum swing the other way? The recent Texas Tech experience shows us that schools and their boosters will not hesitate to break every rule and take every risk, simply to avoid a single season without a good quarterback.
Hell, ND has had multiple seasons without good QB’s and we’re still ok. /S