Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
Top News
Notre Dame’s Blue-Gold Game will be going head-to-head against Colorado with the Buffaloes spring game being televised on ESPN this April 22nd.
Tommy Rees’ contract at Alabama will see him paid $1.9 million, $2.0 million, and $2.1 million over the next 3 seasons. That makes him the highest paid assistant in the country.
Mike McGlinchey has signed a 5-year deal with the Denver Broncos worth $87.5 million and $50 million guaranteed following 5 seasons in San Francisco.
UAB new head coach Trent Dilfer’s contract is for 5 years and $1.3 million per year.
Florida State and Georgia Tech will open up the 2024 season playing against each other in Ireland.
Uniform of the Week
Did you know Chuck Martin is entering year 10 at Miami Ohio this season? He has 2 more years left on his contract and is slowly working his way up the longest tenured coach’s in college football. That’s great news for the former Notre Dame assistant. I wonder if Brian Kelly calls him up and tells him he’ll have to work 187 more years at Miami to match the salary BK gets from LSU?
I think Miami needs a full re-brand of their school colors, logos, and football uniforms. They’re right in that territory where you don’t want to be as both relatively simple but ugly and boring. And then, when they’ve tried to spice things up with alternate looks (like the picture above) it has gone really poorly. Someone save this school from itself!
Recruiting
Incoming freshman safety Brandyn Hillman was granted his release from Notre Dame and will not be enrolling on campus this summer or playing for the Fighting Irish.
Quarterback Josh Flowers (0.9021) has committed to Mississippi State.
Quarterback Cedrick Bailey (0.8767) committed to NC State.
YouTube Channel
Tyreek Hill recently rocked up to the USATF Indoors Masters Championship competition this past weekend to compete in the 60 meter dash. As you’d expect he won it, handily. At first, I laughed and found it funny how quick Hill looked on the track. Then, I thought about it more and I wonder if anyone will agree that this was kind of lame?
True, Hill hadn’t run in 9 years since his days at Oklahoma State. But, he is considered the fastest NFL player in the game today, and one of the fastest on the field in NFL history. Swooping into the 25 to 29 year-old division of the Masters (I read Hill got a special exemption to run) feels like a kick in the face to the other runners. That being said, the others sprinters looked pretty terrible. Especially the guy in lane 2, he barely looks like he’s sprinted in his life.
Tunes
Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Let’s talk about U2 today. I know there are a ton of Notre Dame fans who are also huge fans of U2, as well. You can count me in that group, although I was just a little too young to remember their white hot prime in the 1980’s. It felt like “Pride (In the Name of Love)” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday” had a good 15-year run on hit and rock radio. But when their album Zooropa didn’t really land all that well U2 seemed to disappear for a while deep into the 1990’s.
Then, they dropped Pop in 1997 and it was pretty weird. Remember how strange the “Discotheque” song was and the accompanied video? I’m partial to “One” from 1991. I like that there’s really muted guitar work from Edge and a pretty simple beat over some of the best lyrics in all of rock music. Everyone seems to have a different interpretation of the song. What’s yours?
Trivia
Can you name the top 5 largest US-based private employers?
The Other Football
We have the new rules set to take effect for the 2026 World Cup that will be held in North America. FIFA has approved the following changes:
- 12 groups of 4 teams
- 48 teams (up from 32)
- 104 games played (up from 80)
- The top 2 and 8 best 3rd place teams move on to the round of 32
- World Cup finalists will play 8 games (up from 7)
- The final will be played on July 19th in the United States
The tournament is set to be played across the United States with a small amount of games in Canada and Mexico, as well. This is the first time (we knew it was coming) that they’ve publicized the final taking place in the United States. I would imagine SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles is going to be the host stadium.
They’ve already announced that the US, Mexico, and Canada have all qualified as hosts. We did it!
The addition of so many new teams in the tournament is kind of lame. We will see how the group play is affected. Maybe there will be some fun things going on as the team’s battle for those 3rd place spots within the group but that’ll be counterbalanced by a lot of meaningless games from the top teams cruising through their group. We might also see a team resting their players in the final game of the group stages to affect those 3rd place slots and the team who move onward.
Streaming
You may have seen Jake Gyllenhaal recently getting absolutely shredded for an upcoming modern take on the Road House movie. That should be pretty interesting. I wasn’t a huge fan of Gyllenhaal for a long time because I think Donnie Darko was just so weird and kind of disturbing. That was a long time ago, though. When talking about modern classics, I have to put Nightcrawler right up there.
I’m looking through his IMDB page and I haven’t watched most of his movies. Maybe that’s why I found Nightcrawler so surprisingly entertaining. Gyllenhaal’s performance is outstanding, creepy, and the cinematography of all the scenes is so awesome. I feel like the movie would’ve been even better as an extended season on Netflix to draw things out a little bit. Although Gyllenhaal’s descent into madness about his job plays super well in the movie’s shorter time frame.
A Look Back
Everyone likes to talk about the 1993 Notre Dame season and whether they deserved to be National Champions after beating No. 1 Florida State but losing to Boston College. Those arguments picked up more steam in the playoff era where Big Wins are held in such high regard now. It really is a shame that Lou Holtz only picked up a single championship and none of these early 1990’s teams could get the job done. This team was so damn close.
I’ve always thought the 1994 Cotton Bowl in the re-match against Texas A&M was such an important victory for this program. It was a close and hard-fought game, too. If it ended being a loss the whole 1993 season takes on a different shape. So does this period in the 1990’s for the Irish. I think they still would’ve been known as a team that could win big games but a lot of the post 1988-era would have a very different feel. Instead, in 1993 they finished No. 2 and have a claim they got screwed over by Bobby Bowden and politics.
18S Paddock Club
We’re back in Saudi Arabia this weekend for the second race of the season. Hopefully, there will be no missile attacks near the track like last year!
The whole sport is waiting to see if this track can tighten the gap between Red Bull and some of the other teams like Ferrari and Aston Martin, heck maybe even Mercedes. A lot of teams struggled with tire degradation on the abrasive track in Bahrain and things should be much better in that regard this weekend in Jeddah.
With really strong one lap pace, it wouldn’t be a shock to see a Ferrari on pole this Saturday.
Round 2 of 23
Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
Date: March 19th
Race: 1:00 PM ET
TV: ESPN/F1TV
Location: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Circuit: Jeddah Corniche Circuit
Laps: 50
Tire Compounds: C2, C3, C4
Track Evolution: 4 out of 5
Asphalt Abrasion: 2 out of 5
However, it’s already reported that Charles Leclerc will be taking a 10-place grid penalty for a new battery after the first race DNF. It’s a double whammy for maybe the only non-Red Bull driver who could challenge Max Verstappen this year. Once the race opens up, it should be fairly easy for Leclerc to overtake the midfield but catching up to Verstappen will be incredibly difficult.
We’ll also get to see how truly impressive this new Aston Martin car can be, or if Bahrain also flattered them a little bit in a way that won’t be present at many other tracks. Jeddah has almost exclusively high speed corners and we’ll figure out if Fernando Alonso is able to wrestle the AMR23 through this tight and twisty track as quick as the top teams, particularly in qualifying which has been a weak point for the team.
The views are amazing at this track.
Also, we should point out that the FIA moved the last DRS detection point from the end of the long straight leading into the final turn 27 to the end of that turn as you enter the main straight. They’re doing this to try and prevent the DRS games we’ve seen in the first 2 races on this track and slowing down in order to get a jump through that main straight.
Trivia Answer:
Walmart, Amazon, Allied Universal, Accenture, and FedEx.
Classic, famously Irish fanbases. I get trying to open the UK market or even Germany, hoping to get big countries with lots of potential fans. But Ireland?
Seems like we’ve had an annual game in Ireland between random teams for a while now.
If you want to see more great work by Gyllenhaal you should check out Prisoners. He’s not the lead but it’s an overall excellent movie and his role is pretty interesting
I have heard good things!
I was going to say Black Hawk Down but turns out that was Josh Hartnett. Or a young Orlando Bloom…
Congrats to Rees and McGinchey! Mike’s contract for five years and $87 mill set the bar for Right Tackles which includes a Signing Bonus of $17.5 mill. The Cowboys restructured Zach Martin’s contract (6 years, $84 mill including a signing bonus of $20 mill) converting $11.8 mill into a signing bonus.
Many of the other ND players who signed rookie contracts in 2019 are also free agents this year – Jerry Tillery, Drue Tranquill, Miles Boykin, Julian Love, Dexter Williams, Alize Mack, Alex Bars, Sam Mustipher and others. Las Vegas had five former ND players on the roster last year and all are Free Agents.
Last year’s Aer Lingus game between Nebraska and Northwestern had an attendance of over 42k with 15k traveling from America and 3k from other locales. Aviva stadium capacity is 49k. The economic benefits to Irish economy are estimated at 70 million Euros with an average seven nights stays by American visitors.
If you’re a fan of U2, you should check out the podcast “U Talkin’ U2 2 Me?” It’s a comprehensive and encyclopedic compendium of all things U2 from 2 superfans.
My wife and I married in Vegas and U2 played the MGM the night we wed; good show. They opened (appropriately) with “City of Blinding Lights”. Bono’s voice was damaged in some way so they had some guest singers for songs on which he couldn’t hit the notes, including Brandon Flowers (lead singer for the Killers, also a great live act) on “One”. Mary J. Blige appeared too, although I don’t recall which song, it may have also been “One”.
I recall reading an article that quoted Bono being puzzled by people using “One” as a wedding song because it was written during a low point for the band and it was about breaking up.
“And I can’t be holdin’ on to what you got. When all you got is hurt.”
Let’s get married to that!
If we’re talking U2, how are we spending more time talking about videos than their live shows? That was always their thing. The Zooropa album made a lot more sense in a very meta way, and before meta was cool (Vorsprung durch technik? Eat to get thinner?) when you saw Bono coming out a giant Lemon or in front of a wall of TV sets.
Two hot Zooropa takes: “Stay” off that album is a better song than One. And Stay, Lemon, Numb, and the Wanderer with Johnny Cash can go against any top four songs off ANY U2 album.
Hate to be that guy (do I?) but One is on Achtung Baby, not Zooropa. But I am definitely with you that Stay is a good song and the best on Zooropa
And also, “One” with MJB is 1,000% better than the Achtung Baby version.
Oh, I wasn’t putting One on Zooropa. I was putting it in the slow ballad category of famous U2 songs, along with Stay, With or Without You, All I Want is You etc., and saying Stay is the best one of them all.
Whole different category for arena rock thumpers like Sunday Bloody Sunday to Where the Streets Have No Name to the present. And the answer to that question is still Bad, after all these decades.
Fair enough. I think I’d still put one on top – especially live.
Agreed on Bad. Especially from Wide Awake in America
Brandon Flowers/Killers is indeed a great act. I took my wife to their show in Austin for her birthday last year, as she is a super fan (I think mostly of him…) and I came away super impressed. One of the best rock shows I’ve seen.
I’ve never seen them, but I always assumed their concerts would absolutely be very good or extremely bland. (I very much enjoy The Killers)
If you like them at all, check out a live show. They’re great. Brandon Flowers has Freddie Mercury-style front man charisma.
Ehh, I feel like for that level and age it is what it is at that point, gets more focus and attention for Hill showing up and obviously judging from the competition it’s not like he kept anyone terribly worthy from being there.
But then again I love the idea of NFL players branching out to show how athletically unreal they are. My dream would have been like the 2000’s Steelers defense taking a year off to cross-train for rugby or the best RB/WR’s and DBs training to play the next World Cup. Not serious or anything, gotta have to respect the specialization that the other sports have since childhood to reach their peaks, but just for fun.
Notre Dame wearing green jerseys for the Ohio State game
https://twitter.com/NDFootball/status/1636729098562142209?s=20
look how good gold on green looks! @UnderArmour
Saw this on tos, if they keep the blue numbers and neon looking green it’s not as exciting as it could be. This setup (especially the one on the left!) is right there
The green with white numbers would be great, and should be in regular rotation
Hopes are high but expectations are low since blue numbering on green jerseys is still en vogue in the athletic department these days.
These will be back some day. Oh, yes. Some day.
For U2 fans, check out Bono’s new book Surrender. I’m currently listening to it on Audible, and although it is heavy with the weight of Bono’s ego, it is still an interesting read. Sort of a memoir, telling the story of his life, U2’s career, and his work in activism through stories about 40 U2 songs.
Also, if you’re ever wondering what a U2 lyric is about, you can probably put down money that it’s about God.
You’re obligated to say it’s an interesting listen if you’re not reading it.
Apologies. interesting listen. Actually I think this book is probably much better on Audible than on the page, as it is more like a one-man show with all the author’s intended inflections pauses etc. Also includes snippets of songs.
Yep. Just being a turd.