Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
3 News Stories
#1 Our first news story this week takes us to the lovely land of Jacksonville where the Jaguars are currently going through a coaching transition following the failed Doug Pederson era that flew off the train tracks in 2024 with a 4-13 record. The team has now turned to 39-year old former Kentucky/Rams/Buccaneers offensive coordinator Liam Cohen to lead the team moving forward. None of this is very notable for one of the NFL’s most unremarkable franchises. Except, we were given another edition of “New NFL Coach Being Weird at His Introductory Press Conference.”
Please head to 4:35 in the video for the most awkward “Duuuval” chant in recorded human history.
The thumbnail makes it look like they both have little jaguar ears.
This is truly something special. Cohen raises one eyebrow ready to deliver the horribly butchered version of the chant. He then raises the other eyebrow for maximum delivery before recoiling back with a tilted head, happy with what he’s completed. However, this masterpiece finishes with a quick look away from the teleprompter to the crowd below him where you visibly see him die inside with the flat reaction from those in attendance.
So many emotions in so little time.
You could argue Cohen’s weird face, ill-fitting clothes, and inexperience are giant red flags for Jaguars fans. From what I’ve seen, I won’t rule out a 0-17 season for Jacksonville in 2025.
#2 In other weird coach news, I’ve long been a skeptic of Matt Rhule. It started when he was coaching the Carolina Panthers and I noticed he has this really aggressive lip-licking tic or something. It’s continued through his tenure at Nebraska. Anyway, this weirdo just cancelled the Cornhuskers 2025 spring game. Why? Allow the man to speak his reasoning:
“The word ‘tampering’ doesn’t exist anymore. It’s just an absolute free open common market. I don’t necessarily want to open up to the outside world and have people watch our guys and say, ‘He looks like a pretty good player. Let’s go get him.”
Now, I am siding with anyone who wants to cancel a spring game and I’ve written a couple times in the past how Notre Dame could do something differently that would drive more fan engagement. However, the gall to presume that people are watching 7-6 Nebraska looking to take their talent away from them! I could understand that statement coming from Ohio State, but the Corn?
#3 In far less weird news, Notre Dame running back coach Deland McCullough is leaving South Bend to join the Las Vegas Raiders. Pete Carroll and Chip Kelly teaming up to steal one of the best Irish assistants away from us, damn it.
I see McCullough uses the G2 pens, smart man.
Actually, this is fine. It doesn’t make too much sense to get worked up over the loss of position coaches in my opinion, and this was always going to be the path forward for McCullough at some point. It’s not like he’s a young pup either. There’s been talk about him wanting to become a head coach someday and he’s a sneaky 52 years old. I’m not sure he’s closer to that goal now but he’s reportedly set to make more money with the Raiders.
I wish him well, and it’ll be nice to welcome a new running back coach to the team with the veterans Love and Price ready to perform. That should make the job pretty attractive.
Recruiting
Hey, the recent Notre Dame transfers out are finding their new homes:
WR Deion Colzie – Miami (OH)
WR Jayden Thomas – Virginia
OL Rocco Spindler – Nebraska
OL Sam Pendleton – Tennessee
OL Pat Coogan – Indiana
OL Ty Chan – UConn
Good luck to all of them in their respective careers from here on out. I will point out none of these teams feature on the 2025 regular season schedule, although a Notre Dame vs. Tennessee playoff game could be a possibility.
Our recently departed friend Chad Bowden met with the press in Los Angeles and made a couple eye-raising comments. One of them included here:
“USC for me…it meant more to me [than Notre Dame.]”
– USC’s new Football General Manager, Chad Bowden. ✌🏼 pic.twitter.com/qgnX0fJdzg— Nico (@USC_Nico) February 5, 2025
This elicits a pretty big yawn from me. Apparently Bowden grew up as a USC fan? I guess he would’ve been a small kid during those Pete Carroll years and he jumped right on that bandwagon! Anyway, I’ll say it again…the Trojan logo on Bowden’s hoodie is a much better option than their interlocking “SC” in the background.
Uniform of the Week
I have a love/hate relationship with gray uniforms because sometimes it looks so good and sometimes it looks so very bad. A couple years ago, Oklahoma dropped these dark gray uniforms with red accents and very little white for a really drab design. Chalk it up to example no. 3,592,404 why a lack of white can ruin a uniform. This past summer, the Sooners totally redeemed themselves with these 1946-56 throwbacks:
That’s the stuff! An excellent example of a modern throwback. I’d even go a little further to modernize this look, and wear it regularly if I were Oklahoma. I’d add nameplates (of course) and then put the old italicized school logo on the helmet. Everyone would love it, I’m sure.
TV & Movies
It’s been a while since I watched a movie all the way through without interruptions and then immediately had the desire to watch it again. This happened for me recently with the 2024 film Saturday Night, a whirlwind look at the first night of the famous sketch comedy show’s debut back in 1975. At first, I thought the show would take us through parts of the first season and be more of an ode to famous skits from that year. But, nope!
This movie bombed and hasn’t made $10 million to its estimated $30 million budget. That’s too bad. The costs shouldn’t have been that high but they clearly dished out for some talent, and honestly the casting and makeup work on this show were outstanding. When I saw the previews, I thought a few of the cast members looked realistic but they nailed the look for just about everyone. What a fun, chaotic, and funny movie.
Tunes
It’s looked like the Black Keys were done a couple times in the past. Lead singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach released his 2nd solo album Waiting on a Song just over 3 years following the Black Keys’ last album to that date. We finally got another album from the band in 2019 Let’s Rock and since then we’ve been graced with 2 more follow ups. However, the band cancelled their North American tour last year and panic set in again.
That turned out to be a problem with their management company who poorly booked the tour and were price gouging fans, the group told Rolling Stone on Thursday. I really liked the latest album Ohio Players that came out in April 2024. I’ve included the first song off that album plus their first single. They are headed back out on tour soon, too.
Hot damn, the Black Keys! Twofer no less. Been neglecting them since they played with the Stones, over a decade ago, time flies.
To me a great thing about Coach McCullugh was his keeping the RB room from the PT jealousy trap. But based on HCMF’s several comments on just that, he’ll be looking for a new hire along those lines.
One of my favorite concerts was a Black Keys show in Vegas — it was the first time I was at a place where the floor bounced and it was really cool to feel the crowd moving
As luck would have it, the Black Keys dropped a new single “The Night Before” today:
https://youtu.be/mI7ohVmdDgU?si=f9Km-iE9KdGS8Bbi
Those OK uniforms look too much like Nebraska — I think they watched the Huskers’ spring game and stole their uniform design!
I know you’ve mentioned wanting to change the Spring Game in the past; have you written about alternate replacement options?
The NFL Pro Bowl still stinks, but the Skills Challenges are actually pretty fun. I would vote for a Spring Game where they do a half of football and then a Skills Challenge. I think that could be an interesting way to mix things up.