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

3 News Stories

#1 Don’t laugh but the Pac-12 recently announced a new media partnership with CBS Sports that will extend through the 2030-31 season. It doesn’t mean much now with only Oregon State and Washington State involved. However, starting in 2026 Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Utah State, and San Diego State are all coming on board. Additionally, Texas State is reportedly set to join as the 8th football team, as well.

In addition to streaming on Paramount+ the championship games in both football and basketball will be broadcast on CBS while all other content will be on CBS Sports Network.

#2 Week 0 may become Week 1 in the future. Would a new Week 0 start in the 3rd week of August then, one wonders? According to reports, college football decision makers are weighing up things and trying to find a consensus on officially moving back the start of the season. So far, it doesn’t look like it’ll be done any time soon as plenty of people like the Labor Day weekend kickoffs to their campaigns.

I can see both sides, but moving up the season and building in more rest for the players has always felt like the right thing to do.

#3 EA Sports College Football 26 is coming out soon and the Dynasty Deep Dive was released this week. As usual, they have given us a video breakdown of the new features but if you really want to dig in they have an incredibly long (it’s roughly one million words) article on the new stuff coming to the game that is worth your time. I enjoyed the return of the game last year but walked away after a few months. Partly out of boredom through some of the bugs (stats were all over the place and awards were a mess) but also the lack of real coaches really ruined the immersion.

Thank goodness real coaches are in the game for the 2026 version. Now you can take control of digital Marcus Freeman. Or maybe you want to be Lane Kiffin. They brought in a lot more outfits–last year you only had two atrocious options. Now, the coach carousel should bring more immersion and fun to the game.

We also have trophy rooms, a deeper transfer portal, location based recruiting, tweaked managed wear and tear, historical stats, a wider range of position types, protected opponents, dynamic time of day lighting, and more.

Recruiting

The commitments for Notre Dame are rolling in fast and furious. Last week, both cornerback Khary Adams (0.9637) and safety Joey O’Brien (0.9667) jumped on board on Friday shortly after publishing the previous Rambler. The next commitment came from tight end Preston Fryzel (0.8781) with Charlie Thom (0.8700) adding to the offensive line haul. In a bit of a late surprise, tight end Ian Premer (0.9766) joined the class on Thursday, as well. Those are all prospects from the 2026 class.

The 2027 class popped a bottle of champagne with its first commit in long snapper Sean Kraft (N/A) out of North Carolina.

Speaking of 2027, Notre Dame has finally made its first 2 quarterback offers for that cycle in Teddy Jarrard (0.9234) and Peyton Houston (0.9584). The former is out of Georgia and the latter is from Louisiana.

A couple weeks ago, edge rusher Richard Wesley (0.9912) left Oregon’s class and he committed to Texas this past weekend.

Miami added edge rusher Asharri Charles (0.9219). The Canes also added tight end Israel Briggs (0.9372) who spent a couple months committed to Arizona State earlier this winter.

Linebacker Shadarius Toodle (0.9301) committed to Georgia. The Dawgs also picked up running back Jae Lamer (0.9518) and wide receiver Craig Dandridge (0.9144).

Alabama picked up a verbal from running back Ezavier Crowell (0.9826).

Mississippi cornerback Preston Ashley (0.9196) becomes just the 3rd(!!!) commit for Colorado in the 2026 cycle.

Big news out of Utah as quarterback Ryder Lyons (0.9901) commits to BYU and becomes the Cougars’ 3rd top 100 verbal of this cycle.

Wide receiver Jayden Petit (0.9208) thinks it’s a good idea to verbal to Wisconsin.

Quarterback Peyton Falzone (0.9131) committed to Auburn from Pennsylvania.

Florida State has added wide receiver Jasen Lopez (0.9117).

Uniform of the Week

Adidas and Washington announced new college football uniforms late last week. We can expect a lot of new uniform sets to be unveiled over the next couple weeks as teams try to get ahead of the new College Football 26 video game where their updated sets will be included. For the Huskies, not a drastic change but some notable areas to point out. One, the traditional helmet remains. They’ve worn alternate helmets and had a brief dalliance with a purple helmet (1996-98) but this traditional gold helmet with purple facemask has been around for decades. However, the sleeves will be the most notable change.

Last year’s home jersey featured two off-purple stripes that were nearly invisible. That’s been upgraded to a gold/white/gold pattern. The white jersey had off purple flanking purple stripes and is now purple/gold/purple. It’s the same change on the pant stripes for both colors, although they went with a truncated look. Gold trim was added to the numbers as the overall new set really embraces gold again. Although I will note since 2014, Washington has remained with the flatter sandstorm gold trim and has yet to return to a metallic gold.

TV & Movies

I watched Becoming Led Zeppelin this week expecting to be underwhelmed. Except, it was really well done! With the run length (2 hours, 1 minute) I was prepared for the documentary to go deep into their career and not exclusively focus on their formation but they did a really good job sticking to the basics in the beginning of their career as a band. It showcases their genius as individual members and their backgrounds leading up to their breakthrough in the United States first, and then later in England. Want to know my favorite part?

A couple weeks ago, I featured Lulu’s “To Sir With Love” as the smash hit from 1967 that I was unaware of in my life. The tune was arranged by Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones who was then a rising studio musician in London. I knew that JPJ and guitarist Jimmy Page were DGT™ as studio musicians but I wasn’t aware how many jams both were playing on among all these older veteran players. Page played on a no. 1 hit as a 19 year old! Amazing stuff.

Tunes

How many years should pass until you should be able to wholesale take the track from a song and apply to a new piece of music? Fourteen years ago, Gotye released “Somebody That I Used to Know” to much acclaim–a song that samples from a couple of Brazilian guitar tracks from the 1960’s and of course the nursery rhyme “Baa Baa Black Sheep.” Recently, I heard the background track on my kids’ tablets but it wasn’t the Gotye song. I thought it was some random YouTube mashup or something.

Nope, it’s Grammy-winning artist Doechii using the song on her single “Anxiety” and if you haven’t heard this yet prepared to be disorientated. It’s becoming a hit song and growing in popularity. I knew Doechii from her “What It Is (Block Boy)” from 2023 which was catchy but got a little too dull after a few listens. I feel the same way with “Anxiety.”