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

3 News Stories

#1 The slap(s) on the wrist keep coming for Michigan football and their Connor Stallion’s scouting scandal. Head coach Sherrone Moore now suffers the brutal indignity of a self-imposed 2-game suspension for 2025 that won’t be served for the Wolverine’s first 2 games this fall. No, it’ll be served for their 3rd and 4th games (Central Michigan & Nebraska, respectively). This will allow Moore to coach against his alma mater Oklahoma in Michigan’s 2nd game, way to go everyone!

The suspension revolves around Moore deleting a ton of texts with Stallion’s after the allegations were made public. The NCAA will be meeting in a month to review further punishment for Michigan in this case. I’m expecting the NCAA to hand down a 6-page book report for Moore and a $50 reduction from his on-campus meal plan card.

#2 We can’t fault Notre Dame for their efforts in making scheduling moves for the future. On Tuesday afternoon news dropped that the Fighting Irish and Clemson have agreed to a 12-year annual scheduling deal between the football programs. The new arrangement is expected to begin for the 2027 season.

Notre Dame is expecting the games against Clemson to count towards the 5 annual ACC games, although according to Ross Dellenger “the issue is expected to be an ongoing discussion.” The ACC has commented that the previously scheduled games (2027, 2028, 2031, 2034, 2037) would count as part of the 5 games annually but the other 7 games to be scheduled would not.

I like Notre Dame’s odds in that battle, for what its worth. Remember, with the new revenue sharing and ACC uneven media deal this will give the Irish a larger chunk of money for the future. But, Notre Dame also doesn’t want to be adding additional games against Wake Forest and Pittsburgh if they don’t have to.

#3 This past Wednesday, attorneys for the NCAA and power conferences submitted revised rules around roster limits grandfathering in player spots with the caveat that it will remain at each school’s discretion whether to use this spots. According to Yahoo: “Schools will be permitted to grandfather-in a range of athletes: (1) those currently on a roster; (2) those athletes who have already been cut this year; and (3) those high school recruits who enrolled at a school after committing to a roster position only to see it eliminated.”

Importantly, these players part of the grandfather process will not count against roster limits and the same holds true if they transfer to a new school where they will not count against that new program, either. Shortly after the filing, new Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua weighed in:

I think it’s important to note that the transfer portal issue overall remains the larger problem. Being able to grandfather in roster spots is helpful but too many athletes are out there looking for a home, hoping for something better (which isn’t a bad thing necessarily), and might not find a school–and if they do it could come with a huge decrease in NIL funds without an improved on-field life. Be careful out there, kids!

Recruiting

Shortly after last week’s Rambler was published Notre Dame’s 2026 recruiting class added a pair of prospects. First, St. Xavier linebacker Jakobe Clapper (0.8917) jumped aboard. Not long after, the Irish added running back Javian Osborne (0.9585) out of Forney, Texas in the eastern suburbs of Dallas.

The commitment date is set for Georgia running back Jonaz Walton (0.9438) who is down to Notre Dame, Tennessee, Stanford, Florida, and Alabama. He will decide next week on May 14th.

The Irish have offered wide receiver Devin Fitzgerald (0.8858) out of Brophy Prep in Arizona. He is the son of future Hall of Fame receiver Larry Fitzgerald. A handful of more offers went out this week, as well:

WR Anthony Roberts (0.9131), 2027
TE Luke Brewer (0.9198), 2027
EDGE Isaac Miller (N/A), 2027
DB Donovan Webb (0.8981), 2026
DB Jaden Walk-Green (N/A), 2027

Georgia added one of the top quarterback in the nation as Jared Curtis (0.9980) is headed to Athens.

Athlete Derek Colman-Brusa (0.9316) committed to Washington as the top player in the state.

Mater Dei receiver Kayden Dixon-Wyatt (0.9506) gave a verbal to Ohio State.

Damarius Yates (0.9430) is looking to stay in-state and committed to Ole Miss.

Ohio cornerback Elbert Hill (0.9803) has picked USC.

Uniform of the Week

If we create a bracket for the worst college football helmet logos I’d be putting Middle Tennessee State as a #1 seed, and potentially the first overall seed. MTSU picked “Blue Raiders” as a nickname back in the 1930’s because some guy liked the Colgate nickname and switched ‘Red’ to ‘Blue.’ For decades, they informally used a blue dog as a mascot but also used a caped Cowboy atop a steed for some live events, too. Then, in 1998 they pivoted towards an official horse logo.

Not only does the logo really stink (you can’t really make out the horse atop the letters and for some reason he has wings!?) but Middle Tennessee State has never changed this logo on their football helmets since debuting it nearly 30 years ago. In this era of teams using 4, 5, or 6 different logos and helmets per year this is insane. According to my research they did one throwback helmet with player numbers since 1998 and a whole bunch of military appreciation colored accents on their uniforms but nothing else.

TV & Movies

After a full week at Disney World with the family we found ourselves really enjoying the Toy Story areas at Hollywood Studios (Toy Story Mania was the top ride of the trip from the kids) and we spent the last several days working our way through the 4 movies. We had watched them sporadically in the past but not right in a row and with more intent. I was nearly 14 when the first movie came out and at that age I made a hard pass on everything about Toy Story, even though it was a cultural phenomenon. With kids now and after visiting Disney, the nostalgia hits so hard with these movies and all the merchandise.

Disney hit a homerun (to say nothing of the acquisition of Pixar) and it’s been paying off for 30 years. So, what will next summer’s Toy Story 5 be about? Before I have a thought on that here are my rankings of the first 4 installments:

#1 Toy Story 2
#2 Toy Story
#3 Toy Story 3
#4 Toy Story 4

I wouldn’t argue with putting the first move in the number one slot. Those two are pretty interchangeable for me. Checking around the internet it seems like TS4 was the least liked and the lines up with my thoughts. I found myself not caring as much about the characters and I’m curious to see what they come up with for another movie. People seem to think Woody is officially gone and won’t be in it?

Tunes

I’m old enough to remember watching a lot of 1960’s TV shows that were syndicated on the early days of cable. Right up there with some of the memorable shows were The Monkees, the band created for the NBC TV show, and later morphing into a musical act, sort of. It’s a bit sad, Mickey Dolenz is the only surviving member of the group today. Keenly aware of their criticisms of not playing their own instruments all the time or writing all of their music, I still liked them then and now.

I threw on their Apple playlist a few nights ago and the song “She” came on. This opened up their 2nd album in 1967 titled More of the Monkees which was released without their knowledge and sums up the ensuing legal battle that saw the band jump into a legal fight with their record label and manager while eventually writing and recording their own music for their 3rd album. I love the vibe from “She” although Peter Tork (keyboards) and Davy Jones (tambourine) really need to do a better job miming things for the video.