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

3 News Stories

#1 Sem pontapé inicial no Brasil.

NC State and Virginia were supposed to be kicking off the season on August 29th during week 0 at 3:30 PM ET live from Rio de Janeiro but apparently the planning fell through and those plans are being scrapped. Now, this ACC matchup is going to take place in Charlottesville with Virginia as the home team.

There are reports that the game may have to be moved to week 1 but with an afternoon start on Saturday I would think they’ll be okay to keep things in week 0, though.

#2 Two Covers

The new College Football 27 video game is being released on July 9th and this week the covers for the standard version and deluxe version were dropped. On the former we have Ole Miss running back Kewan Lacy, Miami wide receiver Malachi Toney, and Oregon quarterback Dante Moore. All three athletes also feature on the deluxe cover, as well.

Notre Dame with representation. 

Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti gets the front spot on the deluxe cover, complete with his “not impressed” look that he’s made famous as reigning National Champion. On the right side we have our beloved Irish cornerback Leonard Moore while Texas receiver Ryan Wingo and USC quarterback Jayden Maiava round things out in the background. Also, don’t miss the PLACT sign behind Moore, too!

#3 Va Tech Donations

Back in December, Virginia Tech accepted a $20 million donation towards their athletics program. This week, you can add another large donation to the pot as the school received a historic $75 million donation from a family that will go towards “multiple initiatives” according to Virginia Tech. However, according to ESPN: “In addition, the donation includes unrestricted funds to be used at the discretion of the athletics director, and additional support through Hokie Ventures, a nonprofit corporation approved earlier this week as a way for Virginia Tech to support revenue generation and strategic investment. Virginia Tech has made it a priority to boost its investment and support of football — including the hire of James Franklin last November.”

So it looks like the Hokies are getting Very Serious about football. Could this be a fledging new ‘big’ game from the ACC someday? Notre Dame faces the Hokies in South Bend in 2027 and goes to Lane Stadium in 2028. Those are the only two scheduled games among the ACC agreement until Virginia Tech comes back to Notre Dame in 2033.

Uniform of the Week

Texas Tech has new uniforms. Well, so far they’ve unveiled a slightly new home uniform. In modern times, schools are happy to roll out several new uniforms at once with a bunch of videos in dark rooms and strobe lights. Instead, the Red Raiders released a couple pictures of their red jersey uniforms for 2026. Can you notice the differences from last year?

The big one is removing the bevel from their helmet logo. Sacrilegious? So many places these days are flattening their logos, especially throughout the corporate world–it’s been a trend for at least 5 years. I’ll admit their old logo kind of doesn’t look right on a black helmet. But the new flat logo looks terrible. Also, they have replaced the Adidas logo on their left chest with the Patrick Mahomes brand logo. I’m not a fan of that, either.

Media

Sometimes, a name hits just right and no other choice would work better. Thus, the “Big Boy” name for the Union Pacific railroad steam locomotives that were built back in the 1940’s is perfect. The UP 4014 is the only one in service and has been embarking on a cross-country tour to Philadelphia to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States this summer. Next week, it’ll be doing a whistle stop overnight in Buffalo and it’s an opportunity for me to see this large beast.

These things weigh over 1.2 million pounds and were trucking it through the mountains of Idaho and Wyoming, among other places. The engineering on these machines is bonkers. I don’t know how they didn’t blow up all the time or cause numerous fires. Of course, the embedded Animagraffs video goes through extensive lengths to show all of the safety precautions taken to keep this heavy beast from becoming a fire ball in the mountains out west.

Tunes

There have been a few artists who’ve been featured twice in the Rambler and that list now includes Stone Temple Pilots. I really wish there was a way for me to remember which albums I listened to the most in the 1990’s because in the rock genre Purple would be way, way up there. The critics were pretty harsh on this record when it came out! Man, 1994 music was crazy. So many classic albums dropped that year, maybe the critics were just overwhelmed?

While doing some research online, there seems to be arguments that Purple really isn’t grunge music? I am not sure I agree about that, how are we defining grunge rock anyway? Our AI overlord says: “Stone Temple Pilots are widely associated with the ’90s grunge movement, but musically, they are generally classified as a blend of alternative rock, hard rock, and glam rock rather than traditional grunge. While the grunge label was heavily applied to them by the media and record labels during their early days—especially on their 1992 debut album Core—the band itself has frequently rejected the tag.”

One More Thing

The people who can guess the location from a still Google Maps street view picture are so incredibly talented. Have you ever tried to play GeoGuessr? I’m pretty sure we’ve covered that before in a past article in this series. Major props to anyone who is good at that game. Perhaps an offshoot to that is guessing the city from a birds eye view, something I’m seeing a lot on social media lately.

Which city is this?

I tried this Sporcle version and got 19 out of 30 for 63% honestly way better than I thought I would do. There are a handful of cities that everyone should get and then a couple others I was proud to work out. A few were guesses based on putting a few things together but I feel like I got pretty lucky. The hardest cities are the ones without any water as a reference point.