Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
Top News
Notre Dame defensive tackle Gabriel Rubio will miss a couple weeks with a knee injury.
The New Orleans Saints are trading kicker Wil Lutz to Denver and going with former Notre Dame and current undrafted rookie Blake Grupe as their new placekicker.
The Bears have claimed defensive end Khalid Kareem off waivers from Indianapolis. Other former Irish players who were waived or released this week include Jaylon Smith, Josh Lugg, Ian Book, Brandon Joseph, Chris Smith, Tommy Kraemer, Troy Pride, Isaac Rochell, Kevin Austin, and Sheldon Day.
Kyle McCord has won the quarterback job at Ohio State.
Connor Weigman is the starting quarterback for Texas A&M.
Utah quarterback Cam Rising will not play against Florida this week after rehabbing a knee injury suffered late in 2022.
ESPN will broadcast ACC games and NY6 bowl games at select theatres this year.
Michigan OC Sherrone Moore is suspended for the Wolverines’ opener this Saturday.
Arizona State has self-imposed a bowl ban for 2023 stemming from violations back in the Herm Edwards era.
Tight end Arik Gilbert (now on his 4th school at Nebraska) was recently arrested for burglary.
The ACC have officially opened their new headquarters in Charlotte this past Tuesday.
Uniform of the Week
Coming off the summer of Oppenheimer the Air Force decided to take the uniform game to the next level and unveiled something special for their October 21st road game against rival Navy. Ladies and gentlemen, I present you the “Tokyo Bomb” uniforms! No, really. This is a real uniform I’m not making it up.
Yes, the Air Force has received praise and criticism for creating an alternate uniform based on the 1942 Doolittle Raid on Tokyo following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I find it a bit tone deaf and unnecessary myself, but at least the uniforms are pretty sharp and clean. The thing with the military is that there’s plenty of cool machinery to use as inspiration with directly pointing back to a horrific World War. But, I guess anything military related ultimately points in the direction of death and destruction.
Recruiting
Peyton Bowen’s little brother Eli Bowen (0.8900) committed to Oklahoma as a safety prospect. The Sooners also added one of the nation’s top defensive lineman in David Stone (0.9968).
Safety recruit Zaquan Patterson (0.9602) committed to Miami.
Quarterback Trever Jackson (0.9187) has given a verbal to Ole Miss.
YouTube Channel
I found this PSC highlight video from a year ago showing the most iconic plays from every college football team. Off the top of your head what do you think the choice will be for Notre Dame? My first thought was the Robin Weber catch in the 1973 Sugar Bowl against no. 1 Alabama. The video has timestamps at the top of the comments and you can go right to the Notre Dame submission at 30:46.
It’s the failed 2-point conversion by Miami in the 1988 Catholics vs. Convicts game. I guess that makes sense, it’s probably the most definitive moment from the last National Championship team and regularly talked about as one of the best games in school history. My only problem was how terrible of a play this was from Miami and in hindsight it’s anticlimactic. I’ve always wondered if the situations were reversed and Notre Dame lost this hyped of a game on a weird backfoot underthrown fade that campus may have burned to the ground.
Notre Dame is also featured as an opponent on the plays for Air Force, UConn, and USC. Shout out to Charlie Weis for making the list twice.
Tunes
A couple weekends ago I was supposed to take my girls to see Ruby Gillman Teenage Kraken but the movie was out of theaters after only a few weeks and was no longer available at any Regal or AMC. We would later rent it at home. Instead, I took them far too young to see Barbie on a Saturday afternoon. The vast majority of the film flew over their heads and it was way too long to keep their attention. I found some bits and pieces really funny but the serious turn in the second half felt heavy-handed and a plane that was never landed. In general, the script was bizarre. I thought the performance of Ken from Ryan Gosling saved things in a big way.
As often happens, my kids have moved on from the movie itself and are latching on to the music, particularly “I’m Just Ken” which is a weird 80’s power ballad of a song that (like the movie) is mashed together from a few different bits. I think it’s funny that coming out of a movie with Barbie my girls are more interested in talking about who has more ‘Kenergy.’
Trivia
Navy was held to just 12 first downs this past weekend against Notre Dame. Since 2010, the lowest total that a Notre Dame defense has allowed in a game is 8 first downs, which they’ve done twice. Can you name the opponents and seasons?
The Other Football
Late goals for Man City (2-1 over Sheffield United), Man United (3-2 over Nottingham Forest) and Liverpool (2-1 over Newcastle) saved their weekends. Arsenal dropped points in a 2-2 draw with Fulham. Spurs beat Bournemouth 2-0 and Everton have opened the season with 3 straight losses after narrowly escaping relegation last year.
After all this time, Messi finally made his proper MLS debut with a goal in a 2-0 win over New York Red Bulls. Miami also drew Nashville 0-0 last night.
FC Cincinnati (East) continues to lead their conference while St. Louis City SC remains atop the Western Conference.
Barcelona’s Ansu Fati is expected to join Brighton on loan this season.
TV & Movies
Dare I say I was excited to watch the new documentary Swamp Kings this past week. Silly me, what was I thinking?? This was pretty negligent from Netflix if we’re honest. For sure there are parts that are entertaining and enlightening about this era of Florida Gators football. At first, the introduction of Urban Meyer’s first season in Gainesville does a good job. However, shortly thereafter this documentary (if we can call it that) goes off the rails. So far, I have seen tepid praise but an awful lot of criticism.
It’s essentially an Urban Meyer PR campaign with Tim Tebow in the leading role. They didn’t include a lot of people directly involved with this time in Florida history, gave way too much air time to Meyer, and glossed over or outright ignored massive issues and problems associated with the Gators program. I’m not even sure what Netflix was trying to impart on its viewers? If you enjoy college football you’ll likely enjoy this in some form but it’s mostly super frustrating to watch and pretty condescending to real fans of the sport.
A Look Back
I wish these Irish Access videos were longer and more detailed. We used to be spoiled back in the day and they have really pulled back on these intimate sideline cut-ups when I’d think this would be more popular than ever in the NIL era. Go pump up your players for the rest of the world to see! Especially when you feel like Notre Dame student-athletes stand out above the rest as players, teammates, and competitors. Surely, there’s more footage worth publishing? They are creating these in shorter chunks (so far there have been 3 from the Navy game) and I wish it was all together in one large video.
I’ve watched this video a couple times and don’t sleep on that move by Deion Colzie to set up his touchdown. It wasn’t a great tackling effort by #11 on Navy who probably saw Colzie’s size and thought he could drive through him towards the sidelines. Colzie doesn’t make a really deep cut but its quick and he’s skinny enough to shrug off the limited amount of contact to gallop to the end zone.
18S Paddock Club
Holy moly so much chaos happened this past weekend in the Netherlands that it’ll be tough to chronicle it all, but I’ll try:
- Verstappen took pole comfortably with Norris in P2 and even more fun with Albon in P4.
- Ricciardo broke his hand and was replaced by reserve driver Liam Lawson.
- The whole grid, except Hamilton in P14 on mediums, started the race on soft tires.
- Rain came immediately on the 1st lap as several drivers like Perez, Leclerc, and Gasly pit immediately for inter tires.
- Most of the remaining grid pit on the next lap as the rain came down pretty steadily.
- Perez was flying on inter tires and shot up from P7 to a healthy lead by lap 4. Zhou(!) found himself in P2 all of a sudden.
- The rain stopped and Verstappen (who was quickly catching Perez) undercut his teammate and found himself in the lead again.
- On lap 15, Logan Sargeant lost hydraulic pressure in his steering and brought out a Safety Car after crashing into the barriers.
- We had a long stretch of little action until heavy rain poured down on the track very quickly late in the grand prix.
- Everyone raced into the pits for inter tires, except Ocon who opted for the full wet tire.
- The conditions were so bad that Zhou slid off at turn 1 and brought out a red flag.
- Perez nearly crashed prior to the red flag but got caught speeding on his way into the pit lane.
- After the re-start, Russell retired with a puncture.
- With his 5-second time penalty, Perez dropped down to P3 and Gasly took the final podium spot.
- Verstappen won his 9th race in a row, Alonso had a great drive to finish P2, while McLaren & Mercedes strategy were poor.
Now we head to the north of Milan…
Round 14 of 22
Italian Grand Prix
Date: September 3rd
Race: 9:00 AM ET
Location: Monza, Italy
Circuit: Autodromo Nazionale di Monza
Laps: 53
Tire Compounds: C3, C4, C5
Track Evolution: 3 out of 5
Max Verstappen enters Italy with the chance to break the F1 record for most wins in a row. It’s expected and would add another ring to his 3-year run of dominance. This is perhaps the lowest downforce track of the season and one in which Red Bull should flourish. However, as is their want to do, Ferrari will probably go down swinging. Their home race will feature yellow accents on their car like last year, plus special edition race suits and helmets:
I’m sure Ferrari will be turning their engines up to 11 for qualifying and hoping for the best on Sunday. Even if they can grab pole, Red Bull has shown the amazing ability to run slightly higher downforce for better tire management while also maintaining tremendous straight line speed, which is so crucial at Monza.
It’s probably time to watch out for Alex Albon doing something special in his Williams, too. This time last year, the typical low downforce Williams package propelled Nyck de Vries to a seat with AlphaTauri and Albon missed out on his chance due to surgery. He’s coming off a solid P8 in Netherlands and might fight for big point this weekend in Italy.
Trivia Answer:
2015 Texas and 2010 Army
The real question that Swamp Kings raises is whether Texas or Texas A&M is going to hire Urbz this winter.
Ohio State when Ryan Day loses by 1 to Michigan.
My personal theory is Urban financed the documentary to get a comeback rolling.
The Bishop Sycamore doc on HBO Max is the complete opposite of Swamp Kings and I highly recommend it
The head coach is genuinely one of the craziest people I’ve ever seen lol
Does anyone ACTUALLY enjoy an F1 race? There are like 2 important passes per race, Ferrari does something dumb, and Max Verstappen wins. Old dads in America love talking about how boring soccer is; perhaps I’ve got an old dad attitude toward F1.
Barbie was very funny. Ryan Gosling was excellent. His role as “Ken” could be a great prequel to his role in The Big Short.
Speaking as a 36 year old white man who is utterly befuddled by F1 and EPL, holy crap do mid-30s white dudes love F1 and EPL.
F1 record amount of overtakes in this past race, though. I think Americans are frustrated by the Verstappen dominance no doubt. There’s a ton of interesting things to follow if you look past 1st place, I think.
The Guy Who Decides Formula 1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cFhz57OZHY&ab_channel=JimmyRees
Why do you look past 1st place in a race? In the immortal words of Ricky Bobby, if you ain’t first, you’re last.
That’s right
Same reason why millions will watch college football teams who have no prayer of winning it all.
::cough:: Iowa State ::cough::
nope, absolutely not
Love the Air Force helmet, jersey looks okay, what pants did they go with though?
Also, the Doolittle raid was a tremendous act of heroism. Not quite a suicide mission, but the odds of their return was very small. It took tremendous courage, great execution and incredible improvisation. It should never be forgotten, but I am sure most people have. Great book. The movie from a couple of years ago was a little too politically correct, and not particularly accurate about what happened in China, but close enough.
Oh yeah I’ve got zero qualms with the optics of this.
The ACC sucks – SMU, Stanford & Cal don’t make anything more enticing for ND to stay/join fully. I’m more on board with a jump to the B1G if/when that needs to happen. If I were the new AD, I’d be negging the FSU/UNC/Clemson AD’s about how much more $$ the B1G/SEC are getting so they bolt first and blow the whole thing up.
Notre Dame probably loses money by adding these schools when the travel is factored in for everyone. Per Thamel at ESPN:
*No broadcast revenue for SMU for 9 years.
*Stanford/Cal receive 30% shares of revenue and when does that increase??
*$50 million pot being withheld to those 3 teams, but how much were they going to be adding to the overall revenue???
*Withheld money will be divided among current 14 members, plus Notre Dame’s partial payout.
*But, a yet to be determined amount of that $50 million is going to be set aside for “success initiatives” for programs that win.
*Notre Dame isn’t eligible for football success (ACC Championship) or at least would have to negotiate a piece of that pie.
*Let’s say $25 million of the withheld money is for success initiatives. Then all full 14 members get $1.78 million per year, but again, it’s not clear if this is ‘new’ money or just money that doesn’t need to be shared with Stanford/Cal/SMU.
*As a partial member, Notre Dame gets about 42% of the full ACC payout, so the Irish would get just under $750,000 more from the “withheld” money.
We’re talking about a really small amount of money for ACC teams, and that’s before Stanford/Cal/SMU start sucking off the teat as they take more broadcast revenue in the latter stages of the Grant of Rights deal.
As always, the only thing that saves the ACC is if the Big Ten and/or SEC refuse to take more teams.
I don’t think ND has any intention of sticking around the ACC when it all hits the fan. Helping Stanford and Cal was more a vanity project for Swarbrick than anything else.
In the short term, I’ll be curious to see what changes with regard to ND’s ACC scheduling alliance.
I agree, it’d be great if we could keep Stanford as one of our 5 ACC games per year so we have room for possibly another B1G or rotating B12/SEC game.
I’m largely not a big fan of saving Stanford though. It seemed good for us that Stanford could drop to non-televised independent or G5 level football so we would lose fewer academically inclined major recruits to them.
Well, as far as that goes, I don’t think them joining the ACC will do anything to make them more attractive to recruits. Or to anyone else, really.
ACC on ESPN is still more valuable for Stanford than “Stanford football streaming for $9.99 a month, nearly-live!, only on stanford.sports.football.edu.”
And welcome back to posting, we need your banner for the ND football optimists to follow on here.
Yeah this is what I was thinking, Cal/Stanford/SMU is just advantageous schedule-wise for ND to have games in California and Texas. ACC expansion like this helps the schedule continue to look somewhat like a fully independent schedule and not so locked into Duke, Syracuse, Wake Forest, and Virginia doldrums.
How is adding Cal and SMU not just extending the doldrums? Playing a game in Texas for the sake of playing a game in Texas can be done in much easier ways (and more entertaining) – Shamrock Series & scheduling home & homes with Texas, A&M, TCU, Baylor, Texas Tech & Houston. Expanded ACC scheduling will only draw out the rotation, so an away game in Texas might only occur once every 6 or 7 years – in no way is that advantageous.
My thinking is that it’s advantageous because either way we have to play 5 ACC games, so this at least expands the footprint those games occur within. It doesn’t negate the possibilities of scheduling marquee games in the rest of our schedule. I think the only drawback is that it dilutes the pool, so we have fewer shots at marquee opponents. But the marquee opponents are trying to find a way out of the ACC anyways. Idk all this might be moot within the next 5-10 years
The ACC has accepted Stanford, Cal and SMU. Oregon State and Washington State are left looking for a conference.
The ND-Navy game had 3.81 viewers which was the highest in two years for a NBC broadcast. (Same as the Cincinnati game in 2021). Last year’s ND-Clemson game in prime time had 3.22 million viewers. Ohio State and USC at home this year could well eclipse that. Last year’s Notre Dame-Ohio State in Columbus drew 10.5 million viewers, and last year’s USC game had 6.68 million viewers.
Kraemer, Jaylon, Joseph, Smith, Day, Mustipher, Jones and Rochell signed practice squad contracts.
From Nicole Auerbach yesterday:
“Stanford AD Bernard Muir tells @TheAthletic that, based on what he knows as of now, Stanford’s game against Notre Dame will continue to be played on an annual basis and will count as a nonconference game. Cardinal will still play 8 other ACC opponents.”
This sucks
I would’ve bet so much money this was going to happen 🙁
Jack continues to torch his reputation on the way out.
Clickbait. Conflicting statements on that.
ND may honor their contract for annual games through 2024, but it’s more likely that Stanford falls into the ACC scheduling rotation, especially considering increased travel for Stanford every other year to come to SB in addition to ACC away games.
The big questions are how the scheduling may change and will the USC contract be renewed. ND won’t change from five ACC games per year per contract unless the BoT and twelve ACC approves that. As gambit says, this may free us another game on our future football schedules. I like how Swarbrick and the Board negotiated full voting rights with the ACC contract. Interesting how Corrigan and Cunningham differed on voting for membership.
Notre Dame games every three years are valuable for ACC members. With ACC new scheduling model and now seventeen members, those three primary annual opponents will need to be reworked. Stanford, for instance, may play Cal and SMU annually, but if the ACC and ND mutually agree to include the other three as ND’s primaries, the other ACC members (fourteen) will have to rotate through the two remaining games. Our new media partner may have a say in any changes to our scheduling in addition to the BoT. Wouldn’t we prefer to have Stanford in the rotation freeing up a big-time BIG/SEC game?
Outside of the Stanford contract through 2024, the new members will be only three at the table deciding future ACC scheduling.
So, Auerbach may – or may not – be trying to clickbait, but if Stanford and USC contracts are not renewed and Stanford falls into ACC scheduling, ND could have one – or two – games open to schedule some attractive home non-ACC games as gambit says. That might even increase the value of the media contract. That might restore the “Saavy Jack” nickname.