Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
Top News
Notre Dame cornerback Clarence Lewis has entered the transfer portal.
According to reports, in-house NIL from universities will be a part of new revised legislation in front of the D1-Council this month.
Memphis head coach Ryan Silverfield has signed a new contract for $2.45 million annually through 2028.
The AAC is set to hire former Rutgers athletic director and current IMG Academy president Tim Pernetti as the league’s new commissioner.
Former Notre Dame assistant John McNulty is re-joining Alabama as an analyst.
Warren Sapp has joined Colorado’s staff as a graduate assistant. Ernie Sims has joined Florida State’s staff as an analyst.
Texas Tech quarterback Behren Morton is out for spring after a shoulder injury.
Long-time 247 Sports recruiting reporter Steve Wiltfong is headed to On3.
The Louisiana gaming control board has banned college prop bets effective August 1st.
Uniform of the Week
The Denver Broncos are one of several NFL teams that will be debuting new uniforms this off-season. When they drop later this month, we’ll be sure to provide a review in that week’s Rambler. Since 1997, Denver has been using the same standard uniform template and a makeover has been long overdue. These are far from the worst uniforms in the NFL but they’ve been hopelessly stuck in the 1990’s. Their redesigned helmet logo was strong (I don’t love it but it’s been adopted my approximately 14 million high schools all over the United State so it’s been pretty popular) and the rumors are that it will be staying when a re-brand comes soon.
The internet seems to think the leaked info on the Broncos uniforms is legit. In addition to keeping the horsey logo, the team will apparently be switching full-time to white helmets with interchangeable facemask colors depending on the uniform color combinations. They’ll keep blue, orange, and white pants options while the main jersey is rumored to be orange with blue/white shoulders including some sort of Rocky Mountain theme that is sure to be bad. We’ll see if this is all true.
Recruiting
Notre Dame added to its 2025 class with linebacker Anthony Sacca (0.9322).
Quarterback Matt Zollers (0.9597) committed to Missouri.
Ohio State added linebacker Tarvos Alford (0.9674), defensive lineman London Merritt (0.9496), wide receiver De’Zie Jones (0.8940), ands safety DeShawn Stewart (0.9080).
Ole Miss added top running back Akylin Dear (0.9788).
USC picked up a verbal from safety Matai Tagoa’i (0.9590).
Defensive lineman Landon Rink (0.9046) committed to Texas A&M.
YouTube Channel
Last week’s article originally had a main photo of a large container vessel as I was set to discuss the international shipping while I’m in week 17 of waiting for a new road bike to arrive* from Asia. I’d also covered these ships in a previous article, too. Then the Dali and Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster happened. I decided to remove that section and go in a different direction last week as we learned more about the tragedy. Since that time, the amount of information about how this collision happened, the details behind the tragedy, and what we can learn to prevent it in the future has been fascinating. There’s a lot of really complicated shipping stuff happening all around us.
Where are the shipping and boat aficionados among us? The size of some of these container ships are getting out of control–and the Dali isn’t even close to the largest in the world. It’s just under 1,000 feet long while the largest are over 1,300 feet and can weigh up to 130,000 tons heavier than the ship that crashed in the port of Baltimore. I’ve really been enjoying the YouTube videos from the expert embedded above. If you have any curiosity about the situation they are a great learning experience.
*During editing today’s article, I got the call the bike has arrived at my local bike shop LFG.
Tunes
I digest a lot of ‘new’ music via Instagram Reels and then I later find out that the song isn’t that new and I’m just out of touch with the scene sometimes. This happened recently when I listened to Mac DeMarco’s “Freaking Out the Neighborhood” and I was sure it was released no later than 2023. Nope, it’s from his debut album 2 released all the way back in 2012.
Is anyone familiar with DeMarco’s music? He’s from Edmonton and has released 6 total studio albums, including 2 last year. I haven’t dug into the rest of his catalog yet but I like the vibe of today’s song. And I’m sorry directly from his Wikipedia page, DeMarco describes his music as ‘jizz jazz’ and I think that’s utterly hilarious.
Trivia
Which current Power 5 school was Notre Dame’s first ever away game in a state that does not border Indiana?
The Other Football
Things are starting to heat up in the Premier League as we inch closer to the end of the season. This past weekend, Liverpool got past Brighton 2-1 while the big game of the week between Man City and Arsenal ended in a 0-0 draw.
In mid-week action, each of Liverpool, Man City, and Aresenal won. We also saw a dramatic 4-3 win for Chelsea over Man United following goals in the 90+10 and 90+11 minutes.
Bayern Munich’s stranglehold on the Bundesliga is on life support following a 2-0 loss to Dortmund this past weekend. That leaves Bayer Leverkusen nursing a 13 point lead with only 7 games remaining in the league. They’ve never won the Bundesliga before, which would be pretty cool.
Leverkusen manager Xabi Alonso doesn’t appear to be headed back to Liverpool where he played to replace Jurgen Klopp next year. According to reports, Liverpool are zeroing in on Sporting manager Ruben Amorim.
Everton have announced an eye-watering loss of $112.5 million big yikes.
TV & Movies
What’s the deal with Spider-Man? I started watching The Amazing Spider-Man recently and quickly realized this wasn’t the movie I thought it would be. I had to go back and figure out I wanted Spider-Man from 2002 with Toby Maguire. I’m sorry but I have not been paying close enough attention to the Spiderverse! I think I’ve watched the first 2 Maguire Spider-Man movies but only vaguely realized we’ve also had Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland in the spider suit, too.
Now, we’re up to 8 Spider-Man movies if I’m counting things correctly. Plus, hasn’t Spider-Man been featured in supporting roles in other Marvel movies, too? Today’s embedded makes it seem like a Spider-Man 4 movie is coming out, adding to my confusion. It’s just a pretend trailer and now I’m even more perplexed as to why people make things like this.
A Look Back
It’s been a much quieter off-season for Coach Prime than I thought we would get after his first season at the Power 5 level. Then again, perhaps Deion Sanders is discovering the inherent difficulties of constantly being in the news at a lower-tier school like Colorado. All apologies to Buffs fans but it’s true. Recently, we also learned that Prime doesn’t do any in-home visits with recruits because…he’s too famous and it’s a big distraction or something?
Colorado currently has zero commits for the 2025 class, by the way. I think it’s clear that Sanders plans on utilizing the Charlie Weis-at-Kansas approach of just bringing in older transfers and hoping he doesn’t have to develop young freshmen and sophomores straight out of high school. Anyway, please enjoy today’s look back at Colorado coughing up a 29-0 lead to Stanford and losing in double overtime.
18S Paddock Club
The 4th round of the F1 season resumes this weekend in Japan on the twisty and fast Suzuka circuit to the east of Kyoto and Osaka. With the time difference, by the time you’re reading this chances are there will already be practice sessions completed across the Pacific Ocean.
*A solid amount of rain is expected for race day on Sunday. The Japanese Grand Prix traditionally was held in the latter stages of the F1 season and has been moved up to this earlier slot in the calendar. It probably wouldn’t have mattered either way as this track seems to get more rain than any other in the sport.
*McLaren have unveiled a special livery for the weekend inspired by Japanese calligraphy Edomoji. The sport continuing with all of these very basic special liveries involving small blotches of artwork is getting quite old.
*Williams will have a second chassis available! After destroying a car 2 weeks ago in Australia, the British team put its mechanics and engineers to work in order to make a new car for this weekend. It’s the kind of cost that could really harm a not-so-rich team like Williams later in the season, though.
*All eyes will be on Ferrari’s pace this weekend and whether they can string together back-to-back races competing for a win. The early reports from the tech side seem to suggest Suzuka is just set up too well for Red Bull, though.
Trivia Answer:
Wisconsin, 1900
When I was serving on a submarine, we almost got t-boned by a loaded merchant in the strait of Juan de fuca near Seattle. Those ships are gigantic, and 2/3 of their cargo load aren’t even visible. They create a bernoulli effect by which the flow of displaced water from their hull causes a suction that can pull a boat up even if it’s submerged. Super fun scary times.
I’m not sure what the analysis of the crash will reveal, but it looks like the bridge ship had a loss of its main engines (all lights go off) and I’m assuming an emergency engine/generator tried to kick on (heavy black smoke rolling coal). The lights briefly came back on, which seems like the emergency system was working, albeit poorly since the lights flickered, then went back out.
So it looked like catastrophic propulsion and electrical failure on a laden merchant with TONS of cargo -> tons of inertia.
My knee jerk thought is that ship probably pencil whipped the maintenance on its engineering systems, in particular the emergency power and propulsion. The rest became a physics problem to the detriment of Baltimore and those workers on the bridge
Pencil whipped?
Cooked the books
Fudged the numbers
Creative accounting
Falsified records
In the navy, “gun-decking”
This is all PURE speculation, but these merchant vessels are all about minimizing costs: one course one speed for as long as possible to reduce fuel spent. I have to imagine the oversight and regulations from certain nations regarding ship care are… lax to non existent. So, if you can save cost on maintenance, you will 🙁 not a good recipe with merchant vessels that run damn near continuously in corrosive seawater.
The submarine must have been closer to that slow-moving cargo ship to succumb to the effects of the Bernoulli’s effect than say submarines in the Red Sea would be to those vessels though the Red Sea depth is five times deeper than the Strait (100 m). I can only imagine if you were at maximum depth and that you could not take on more ballast what the impacts would have been.
So the Irish are now at ninety scholarship players? That’s higher than at this time last spring?
If they were in the Juan de Fuca, they probably weren’t submerged yet, just passing close aboard in the channel.
Yes I am an absolute hater and yes watching Colorado eek out a couple wins early on then absolutely collapse was utterly glorious
I don’t mind Deion as much as the treatment of everything they did as revolutionary and the first time it happened in college football. Also, CU fans seem pretty dumb.
I hated it all and it all played out just about perfectly
They deserve all this for that Orange Bowl.
Hey man Deion said he was gonna be able to dictate where shaddeur and travis hunter go in the draft just like eli and elway. Sure thing I guess man.
But no cold cities, of course. Only places like the tropical paradise that is suburban Denver.
Cold aside, isn’t Boulder considered one of the best places to live?
Probably depends what you’re looking for. It’s sunny if nothing else.
Not so much anymore. Lots of development with low inventory, higher home prices, skyrocketing property tax rates with an increase this year of 25%. Deion’s new home is on 33 acres.
Many of those Colorado players don’t go to classes.
Shedeur Sanders has never taken a class on campus and missing out, according to Coach Prime
I want these kids to get a cut of whatever the NCAA is doing.
He wants them to be named as defendants in about a dozen different lawsuits or?
What a goofball
I don’t think I’ve ever seen ESPN as excited as they were about Colorado in September.
They were running front page (at least on the CFB page) stories on Colorado and Deion even after they were back at .500 or worse. They couldn’t help themselves
Seems like 247 is circling the drain
Who knew Blocking Tight Ends could be so lucrative? Congrats to Brock Wright. As a Restricted Free Agent, the Lions gave Wright an original-round tender of $2.985 million for one year in early March. Tendering a Restricted Free Agent gives the team the right-of-first-refusal if the player is signed to an offer sheet by another team. (Restricted free agents are players with three years of accrued NFL seasons.)
Wright then signed an offer sheet with the 49ers for three years and $12 million with $6 million guaranteed. The prospect of Christian McCaffery running behind their offensive line flanked by Wright and George Kittle must have been attractive to the ‘9ers.
The Lions (44% of plays are rushes) and the 49ers (48%) rely on rushing attacks making a blocking tight end quite valuable. Wright is one of the better ones. The 49ers ranked third in rushing yards per game. The Lions were fifth.
As an undrafted free agent, the Lions would not get a compensatory pick. Detroit had to match that or lose him. They matched SF’s offer.
So, Wright will average $4 million per year for the next three years in the Motor City.
The 2021 draft class of ND players signed four year contracts. Their draft positions and and their average annual pay are:
Liam Eichenberg 2(42) $2.003 million;
Aaron Banks 2(48) $1.768 million,
Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah 2(52) $1.619 million,
Tommy Tremble 3(83) $1.231 million,
Robert Hainsey 3(95) $1.201 million,
Ian Book 4(133) $985 thousand – one year contract for 2024
Daelyn Hayes 5(17) – injury, free agent
Adetokunbo Ogundeji 5(182) $930 thousand
Ben Skowronek 7(249) $891 thousand
Nick McCloud, also Undrafted, was a Restricted Free Agent with the Giants, who signed him for the original round tender amount $2.985 million for one year. Nick is currently listed as their starting Left Cornerback and has not yet signed any offer sheet from another club. PFF ranks Nick as the Giants fourth highest defensive player.
As far as other former ND TEs, Cole Kmet (2020) is in the first year of four that earns him $12.5 million a year with the Bears. Michael Meyer (2023) is getting $2.328 million per year with the Raiders.
That draft class is full of a bunch of legitimately good NFL players. 209 total starts from that list and all but Book and Hayes have over 10 starts.
Yes. Quite a number of those will cash in next year as their rookie contracts end.
Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah valuation is estimated at $8.8 million per year while his current contract salary is $1,619,056 APY.
It will be interesting to calculate what that class’s cumulative Average Per Year will be in 2025.
GCU update from last week. My coworkers husband worked there for several years and recently left, anyways she went to a wedding last weekend and everyone there were GCU grads and she shared she must have been asked 100 times “if she does any work outside the home”. Probably doesn’t dispel eric’s bad vibes from last week
Why all the GCU hate?
The campus is pretty large in a crappy part of town. They do gate off from the outside world, which I understand given where it is located.
There small chapels on every side of campus, so if the outside world wants in, they must pass through whatever denomination GCU professes…except for the small pig/goat farmer in the middle of campus that refused to sell his 1/2 acre. Campus just built up around him…like a small, muddy, fenced-in jewel. He reminds me of the rice farmer in Aiea that refused to sell to the development company that built Aiea Mall outside Honolulu. He was a parking lot attraction
There are a lot of commuter/partial online students from the Metro Phoenix area, not sure if that is pumping up the online numbers. My son’s grad class in 2022 had 6 (of 100) go there full time and a number of family friends have kids that attend FT.
I think if you look at it like a large Community College (despite a large FT/residential population & granting 4-year degrees) that may ease your vibes some. The on campus grad rate is pretty high, compared to the other for profit colleges, especially local for profits (I’m looking at you University of Phoenix)
I have been to 6-7 Men’s BB games over the last 2 seasons and it is an enthusiastic crowd, led my the students. There baseball stadium is like going to a Cactus League game, a bunch of fun with cheap tickets.
Impressive list of head coaches – among others, Bryce Drew, Dan Majerle, Paul Westphal, and former ND player, John Shumate, who also coached for the Phoenix Mercury and Phoenix Suns. Another ND relationship is that former Big Ten Kevin Warren, played there. Warren got his JD from Notre Dame so he’s no slouch academically.
Grand Canyon basketball: What to know about GCU Antelopes men’s team in 2024 March Madness
I’d give their leading scorer another year for medical exemption or maybe U. of Arizona could be a transfer destination..
GCU’s Tyon Grant-Foster nearly died during a game in 2021. Here’s how he made it back to the court
In the tournament, against Alabama, GCU limited the nation’s No. 1 scoring team to 19 points below its season average.
DIA sucks. It’s 15 hours from the city, security lines suck and the terminals seem like they’re from the mid-90s.
You forgot the many delays. Oh the delays
But, if you have a long layover and want to walk up and down the terminal for miles and miles, there’s no place better. I got 15k steps there one day.
Look, you wouldn’t want to hide the dead aliens close to the city in case they come back
With Caitlin Clark showing off in the women’s bb tournament and Iowa about to play their Final Four game and passing Pete Maravich’s career scoring, men’s scoring records have triggered reviews. Lisa Kelly on One Foot Down has an article on Austin Carr’s and ND’s upset of John Wooden’s No.1 UCLA, mainly excerpts from a NY Times article at the time.
It’s worth noting that there was no three pointer rule at Maravich’s and Carr’s time and players could not play as freshmen. The comparison is three years to Clark’s four years. Maravich averaged 43.8% of his field goals attempted. Carr averaged 52.8%. Clark’s career average is 46%.
I prefer Sports Illustrated’s article on the UCLA game. John Wooden said “There is no one to compare with him man-to-man.” and “Austin Carr is tremendous and today we met a team that played better than we did.”
AN IRISH CARR MOVES INTO HIGH GEARAND MIGHTY UCLA THOUGHT IT HAD BEEN HIT BY A WILD DUMP TRUCK (SI)
Carr reflected on his performance:
Still Clark is a star, taking the women’s game to a new level and will be fun to watch as she finishes her illustrious career.
How does a degree in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering with 25+ years of experience sound?
Randomly and with no added value, I also spent two months on the USNS Leroy Grumman (one of the two ships that were in danger from the SPAR LYRA at 6:13 in the video) when I was a sophomore in college.
Sal Mercogliano from “What’s going on with shipping?” seems like a pretty knowledgeable guy, and his video up above has a lot of great content. One thing he didn’t mention that I might have is to discuss what the MV DALI really weighs in order to properly calculate the impact on the bridge.
A thousand-foot container ship is certainly heavy, but it’s not quite as heavy as gets reported in the news, since quick Google searches only provide a ship’s “tonnage,” which is a measure of volumetric carrying capacity and not a true measure of it’s actual displacement (weight).
https://www.followingseas.media/blog/2018/9/8/monday-minute-gross-tonnage-is-not-displacement
Doesn’t change the fact that a very big, very heavy object is very hard to steer or stop when the lights go out, but it still bugs me when people throw around the wrong very big numbers to describe a ship.
Boring as hell!
Well, certainly not as exciting as flying helicopters for the Army for 39 years like my father did, but there have been some decidedly non-boring aspects:
But yes, quite a bit of math was involved, so maybe it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
So, CSN, it sounds super great to me, and congrats on the career. I am posting to let you know that at the Normandy Utah Beach Museum not only do we have the Navy Monument on the big dune outside, and a great statue of a WWII Sailor on the path to the shore, but we’re getting a moemorial to the Merchant Marine this June 6th.
… a memorial…
With absolutely zero Elvis Presley connections it can’t compare to your career (wink emoji), but I’ve done what I can.
We visited France when I was very young and my father was stationed in Germany, but I hope to make a pilgrimage to Normandy someday to see the D-Day Beaches and show them to my kids.
Let me know, I’d be happy to help out!
My apologies re the weight I know not what I do!
And then Logan Sargeant decided to make Murtaugh look bad.
The chassis is okay after inspections!
I think Sargeant may be getting replaced before this season is over.
I think so, too. He’s considered a pay driver, right? Or close to one?