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

Tops News

Notre Dame and Marcus Freeman have made a flurry of female promotions within the program as Zaire Turner becomes the director of player personnel, Olivia Mitchell is the assistant athletic director for football operations, and Katy Longeran is now the advisor to the head coach. Additionally, the Irish have hired back Caleb Davis as director of recruiting from Troy.

The SEC will not penalize the ‘horns down’ gesture, it’s now open season boys and girls.

Former 4-star recruit and redshirt freshman offensive tackle Kelton Smith, Jr. is medically retiring at Georgia.

Fresno State head coach Jeff Tedford stepped down due to health issues.

The ACC and SEC will coordinate with Apple to use iPads on the sideline and in the coaching booth during gamedays.

Monte Kiffin passed away this week at the age of 84.

The tradition continues as Georgia linebacker Smael Mondon was arrested on racing and reckless driving.

Uniform of the Week

We’ll never get to all of the new college football uniforms for 2024, but damn it I will try my best. Up next are the Oregon State Beavers who re-branded several years ago (has it been a decade already…maybe!) and continue to come through with a distinctive and clean look with just enough character to keep things fresh. They are one of the few programs where I like all of their monochrome sets, too. They added a 4th anthracite uniform and I kind of dig it, especially the black outlines on the numbers. It’s subtle but effective.

There’s a pattern inside the player numbers, if you can see it from these pictures. What I really like are the unique shoulder stripes coming down from the neck line. Again, it’s different but still somewhat traditional. I really like the orange jersey set with the matching pant stripes. This orange uniform with a black helmet (instead of orange as pictured) is one of my favorite underrated college football looks.

Recruiting

The blue-chip commits for the past week:

OT Chastan Brown (0.9082) – UCF
WR Lex Cyrus (0.9116) – South Carolina
DE CJ May (0.9024) – Louisville [former Notre Dame commit]
WR Tanook Hines (0.8958) – USC
ATH Nick Townsend (0.9484) – Texas
S Rashad Johnson (0.8925) – Georgia
OT Ty Haywood (0.9944) – Alabama
WR Caleb Cunningham (0.9924) – Alabama
WR Travis Smith Jr. (0.9486) – Tennessee
WR Daylyn Upshaw (0.8933) – Miami
WR Quanell X Farrakhan Jr. (0.9019) – Colorado
WR Daylan McCutcheon (0.9526) – Florida State
WR Kelshaun Johnson (0.9259) – Texas A&M
S DJ Pickett (0.9971) – LSU

YouTube Channel

College Football 25 is out NOW! If anyone has been playing this week on early access please drop down into the comment section with your early review and updates on your dynasty and/or Road to Glory game mode progress. If you’re like me, the chance to be back in control of a program and recruiting a championship roster is one of the joys of this world. We are so, so back.

This NTE dynasty video from last week shows a lot of interesting tidbits. What I like is the complexity of decision making and dishing out hours, coaching abilities, and other areas to different parts of recruiting that give us a deeper and more immersive experience from the game 11 years ago. Some of the people playing early are mentioning the difficulty of the gameplay, good luck out there if you’re rebuilding a smaller program.

Tunes

Everywhere I’ve looked lately I see Chappell Roan popping up. Listening to her music I was sure she was a British lady, but she was born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz in Missouri and after watching some of her performances (including her Tiny Desk on NPR) she is very American in her mannerisms. Have you heard today’s song “Good Luck Babe!” from Roan yet? As I type this the tune is at no. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and it’s constantly playing on the Sirius Pop Hits channel.

A while back I wrote about not knowing a ton about the Kate Bush era from the 1980’s and Roan seems to be inspired incredibly by this type of music. She brings a higher amount of energy to her songs in comparison but there are a ton of similarities. The synth pop chords are dripping all over “Good Luck, Babe!” and there are some fun lyrics in this song. “You’d have to stop the world just to stop the feeling.” The slow motion ending to the song is cool and different. Reminds me of a cassette tape with dying batteries.

Trivia

Can you name the top 3 coaches on the hot seat in 2024 from the venerated coacheshotseat.com?

The Other Football

The summer of international tournaments came to a close recently but the Olympics are just around the corner. In the European Championship, a late goal gave Spain the 2-1 victory over England in a game that wasn’t as close as the score indicates. Coming home, it is not for England as their misery extends for yet more time.

Related, manager Gareth Southgate has left the England soccer program.

Across the Atlantic in the Copa America, a late 2nd half goal gave now charmed Argentina another major trophy. The defending World Cup champions beat Colombia 1-0. It gets worse as the president of the Colombian football association was arrested for battery following the loss.

Oliver Giroud has retired from international football with France as he nears his time playing with MLS club LAFC.

Cavan Sullivan became the youngest player ever to feature in the MLS at 14 years old.

Manchester United have signed striker Joshua Zirkzee from Bologna for $43 million.

TV & Movies

Sirens are going off as the Gladiator II trailer dropped recently. The film is releasing on the United States on November 22nd later this year and I’d imagine it’ll do really well at the box office. The original made nearly half a billion on a budget of just over $100 million. It’s probably among my top 5 most watched movies, certainly since it came out. There might be a few from pre-2000 that would surpass it, though.

The sequel story is set to follow Lucius Verus (the young boy in the original movie who adored Maximus) about 20 years after the events set with Russell Crowe. Lucius is living with his family in modern day Algeria (Numidia in ancient times) and is forced into slavery by invading Roman soldiers. You’ll never guess what they make him do next…yup make him fight as a gladiator! A quarter century to get that script together. I thought Denzel Washington might be one of the Roman Emperors but he’s cast a Macrinus, a arms and gladiator dealer, again probably echoing back to the Oliver Reed character a bin in the first movie.

A Look Back

Re-branding in sports is one of my favorite topics. It’s amazing to watch a team get it right but it’s perhaps even more amazing for a team to come out and completely bomb what amounts to a corporate refresh. It happens all the time in the real world and it’s certainly happens enough in the sports world where we can point and laugh. Let’s take a look at today’s video of the top 10 worst rebrands:

#10 Washington Commanders – A garbage dump re-brand so bad and void of character. I say this all the time, you know when a new look comes out that it won’t last. And this one is getting changed soon.

#9 Washington Wizards – I’m not sure this would make my top 10 list. It’s lifeless as the video says but the overall branding and the uniforms aren’t really that bad.

#8 Los Angeles Rams – The logo is pretty stupid, although the return to the royal blue and yellow covers up a lot of sins.

#7 Detroit Pistons – This franchise has never had an exciting or great brand. They are hopeless.

#6 CF Montreal – Ah, I kind of like this badge! The newer one I feel is worse.

#5 Toronto Raptors – Walking away from the purple is heretical. It’s been a huge disappointment.

#4 Dallas Stars – The old Stars logo that came from Minnesota was elite. I haven’t enjoyed anything this hockey team has done visually in many years. Their logo is horrible.

#3 Los Angeles Clippers – Years and years of atrocious branding. The new cruise ship line still stinks.

#2 Los Angeles Kings – Whoa, I didn’t expect this one here. I agree about turning their back on purple but the overall branding and logos is quite solid, in my opinion.

#1 New York Islanders – Noooo, not the Fisherman logo. I remember being appalled when this came out as a kid and today I kind of dig it. The colors were actually really nice.

18S Paddock Club

F1 returns to the track this weekend outside of Budapest for the Hungarian Grand Prix at the aptly named Hungaroring Circuit. After the triple header that finished up a couple weeks it feels like a long time has passed since action happened in the paddock. Here are a few thoughts as round 13 is coming up.

*I genuinely like this track a lot. It always seems to have weird weather and a fun qualifying–Hamilton took pole here last year. There are times when drivers have a hard time completing overtakes but there’s been a lot of good racing in recent seasons on a circuit with a fun mixture of corners.

*I am a little surprised this track is keeping its place on the calendar given the rumors of other new races waiting to join F1. I’m not sure the fields outside Budapest are the type of draw F1 is looking for, although for the average fan this is perhaps the most cost effective grand prix to see on the entire calendar–even if you live overseas. The Hungary contracts runs through 2032!

*Are Mercedes properly back? Mercedes plus McLaren have looked like the strongest teams in recent races with Ferrari sliding back a bit. We have Max Verstappen still near the top every week and a 84-point lead in the standings which is probably enough to win another title. We’re in a weird spot right now with poor momentum from Red Bull and Ferrari in the top 2 of the constructors but maybe not enough drama among the driver’s points to fully engage the fans. Look at Lewis Hamilton coming off his first win in forever–he trails 2nd place Lando Norris by 51 points and Verstappen by 145 points.

Trivia Answer:

Sam Pittman (Arkansas), Dave Aranda (Baylor), and Billy Napier (Florida).