Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
3 News Stories
#1 Eichorst is Back
Notre Dame’s opening opponent to the 2026 football season will be breaking in a new athletic director. Scratch that, he’s not really new and will be returning to the Badgers for a second time. Shawn Eichorst is back as AD following his previous tenure from 2006 through 2011 as the deputy AD. He then moved on to Miami as their AD, then to Nebraska before being fired by the Huskers. Yup, he’s the guy that took over for Tom Osborne and ended up firing Bo Pelini.
Over the last 9 seasons he’d been entrenched as the deputy AD at Texas. He walks into a tough situation in Madison where they are searching for a new chancellor (theirs left for Columbia) and of course Luke Fickell is squarely on the hot seat with a contract that runs through March 2032.
#2 Big 12 Sell Out
Did you think jersey patches are bad enough? How about a conference signing a new deal for its members and adding another jersey patch? That future is already here as the Big 12 announced on Tuesday that it has a signed a deal with Monster Energy to become the official “entitlement partner” of the conference. From the Sports Business Journal:
The agreement centers on two marquee assets: a co-branded Big 12/Monster jersey patch that teams will wear in football and men’s and women’s basketball, and co-branded field and court logos that will appear on playing surfaces.
The Big 12 football and men’s and women’s basketball regular seasons will also be dubbed “Monster Energy Big 12 Football” and “Monster Energy Big 12 Basketball.”
I don’t think we’re prepared where advertising is going to take this stupid, dumb sport.
Monster does have a cool logo though, gotta hand them that.
The deal is only supposed to provide $20 million per year to the conference. Or roughly, it’ll pay for the cost for one football team to pay for a cupcake matchup per season. It’s not nothing, but it ain’t much overall.
I will say, I’ve come around hard on Monster Energy drinks. I used to avoid energy drinks outright, really don’t like the taste of Red Bull, but these days drink one Monster per week when I want a good pick-me-up. I buy the 12-pack variety of the citrus (white can), extra blue Hawaii (blue can), and ultra punk punch (pink can) which is an excellent combination.
#3 Locking in the Big Bowls
We know the future of the college football postseason remains in constant change and an agreement to expand the playoff has yet to be agreed upon with the leaders in the sport. However, that hasn’t stopped the College Football Playoff bowl games and dates for quarterfinal and semifinals through the 2031-32 season:
2028-29 College Football Playoff
CFP Quarterfinals
Saturday, December 30, 2028, at the Capital One Orange Bowl
Monday, January 1, 2029, at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, Rose Bowl Game presented by Prudential and the Allstate Sugar Bowl
CFP Semifinals
Thursday, January 11, 2029, at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl
Friday, January 12, 2029, at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl
2029-30 College Football Playoff
CFP Quarterfinals
Tuesday, January 1, 2030, at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, Capital One Orange Bowl and the Rose Bowl Game presented by Prudential
Wednesday, January 2, 2030, at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl
CFP Semifinals
Thursday, January 10, 2030, at the Allstate Sugar Bowl
Friday, January 11, 2030, at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic
2030-31 College Football Playoff
CFP Quarterfinals
Tuesday, December 31, 2030, at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl
Wednesday, January 1, 2031, at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, Vrbo Fiesta Bowl and the Rose Bowl Game presented by Prudential
CFP Semifinals
Thursday, January 9, 2031, at the Capital One Orange Bowl
Friday, January 10, 2031, at the Allstate Sugar Bowl
2031-32 College Football Playoff
CFP Quarterfinals
Wednesday, December 31, 2031, at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic
Thursday, January 1, 2032, at the Capital One Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl Game presented by Prudential and the Allstate Sugar Bowl
CFP Semifinals
Thursday, January 8, 2032, at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl
Friday, January 9, 2032, at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl
While the future of the small bowl games remains a question over the long-term, it’s pretty clear the major bowl games won’t be going away anytime soon. I’m sure in these bowl committee’s minds they will be on the gravy train for another 100 years at least. We don’t have the championship game locations all the way through 2031-32, but the next several games will be played at Allegiant Stadium (2026, Las Vegas), Caesars Superdome (2027, New Orleans), Raymond James Stadium (2028, Tampa), and Hard Rock Stadium (2029, Miami).
Uniform of the Week
Notre Dame released their Shamrock Series uniforms on Wednesday (read our review HERE) and on Thursday the regular season opening opponent Wisconsin Badgers released their uniforms to be worn in the same game. It’s a color vs. color matchup! Back in January, I debuted the Bad Uniforms series and Rutgers 2012 led things off. Wisconsin said, “what if we made a uniform that looked just like that!??” While I had some issues with the Notre Dame set, this offering is far worse.
Eww.
Red is my least favorite color so there’s some bias here. But, I think all-red monochrome is just the worst look on a football field. Louisville, NC State, Maryland, Arizona, or Utah I think it always looks poor. One thing I know for sure is that the lights at Lambeau Field better be able to reflect the player numbers for both teams really well. I think Notre Dame’s metallic gold accents will be more visible, and I have real doubts Wisconsin’s metallic silver is going to be legible from most angles.
Media
Is there anyone in recent NBA history more destined to be lost and forgotten, compared to how legendary they were in their prime, than Isiah Thomas? This got me thinking a lot this week after watching a video on Zeke and his career. He was overshadowed by Magic Johnson as a point guard in the 1980’s. As a passer, he was overshadowed by John Stockton. He was a small guard and not much of a pure shooter which is going to lose him a ton of points compared to modern players and their scoring abilities.
Of course, Thomas was a controversial figure who had an affair two months before his wedding and the Bad Boy Pistons will never win him any popularity points. Then, he became a flop as a coach and basketball executive in his post-playing career. To make matters worse, if you Google his name the former Boston Celtic’s guard Isaiah Thomas is just as likely to be your first search result. He got name mogged! THIS piece from ESPN back in 2022 ranked Thomas as the 27th best player of all-time. Thomas was so damn good on the court and I think within 10-20 years he’ll be outside the top 50 on these sort of lists.
Tunes
I saw something that blew my mind and had to check the accuracy in order to share it here today. It is NOT Hall & Oates, at least officially speaking. That’s how they’ve been introduced for my entire life and that’s what I grew up calling them. Yet, when you look at their albums and anything written in an official capacity it’s always been Daryl Hall & John Oates. Some of their albums show that, others show Daryl Hall/John Oates, and other times it just has their two names printed on their cover. What a bit of weird branding from the past, it’s no wonder everyone just called them Hall & Oates.
If you like weird, I don’t think things in popular music will ever get more bizarre than the early days of MTV. Today’s song “Out of Touch” is from the fall of 1984, so 3 years into the new MTV craze. How about a giant drum set that runs over our protagonists? A leopard patterned full suit? Then the giant drums come back! I particularly like Oates hammering the bass drum pedal with his arms. This was played late at night where not many people saw it, right? Nope, this song went to no. 1 in 1984!
One More Thing
We thought our central air conditioning broke late last week and the local company that services our unit wasn’t answering the phone. It was stupid hot and humid, with “feels like” temperatures into the 100’s at times. In other words, alarm bells were ringing because I’m soft as hell when it comes to handling heat, particularly while sleeping at night. I try to do some heat training and heat adaptation for cycling and it’s never easy. At night, I need to be cool. I overheat like a camp fire just laying there. I didn’t grow up with AC and I’m constantly wondering how I slept, particularly in the summers. We used to go to these wooden heat box cabins during the summers at Allegany State Park and I’m amazed I slept at all–but things are different for kids. Last week it was 80 in our house and my kids are snuggled up in full pajamas, under a pile of blankets. No worries at all.
Need this in my life.
Luckily, our AC system wasn’t broken. Our filter was dirty (we notoriously forget about it and go through this ordeal every few years if we forget to change it) and the line got frozen and jammed up while dealing with the scorching heat. So here we were the dumbs dumbs turning our AC off and having to blow the fan in order to warm up the pipe while it was scorching hot outside. That made me go and research how an AC unit works in detail–what an awesome invention. Truly, a life changer for civilization.
I see no thought has been given to condensing the CFP schedule. Wonderful.
The history of air conditioning is very interesting. Apparently the guy credited with the inventing the first modern, electrical air conditioner was actually working on a device to control humidity, which damaged newspapers in the summer. In the process his coworkers quickly started hanging out in the storage room since it was more comfortable, and thus was born modern AC. At least, as far as I recall the story
Here in France we’ve long disliked the aggressive US use of AC to really chill interior spaces at times. Of course, AC has transformed living and working in hot times, hence the enormous impact on population growth in the South, etc. I remember when DC became a ghost town for July and August. But as you’ve been reading, the series of nasty hot heat domes here in the last months has hit that tendency hard — Paris and northern France (and elsewhere in Europe) not ever having been built for hot temps. So now there’s a big debate — partly because the impact of AC on warming overall temps. I don’t have it, but I’ve got about 8 fans going and have a finished basement. But my son’s apartment in Paris, a real dream on Montmartre, is a real oven now. All of this to wish you cool nights, Eric, and better AC maintenance — but the world IMO does have a larger issue. Poor us. But I stray from sports — other than, Allez Les Bleus! (Note for tlndma, the crowd in Foxboro Stadium was awesomely French last night. Thanks you Bostonians!!)
Hey Noise, I have a very Irish last name but, I’m actually more French than Irish. There’s no question who I’m pulling for in the WC. Plus we have the greatest bike race happening at the same time. To top it off, I won at trivia the other night (at the Boynton, you’ve been there) partly for knowing the 4 Musketeers when no one else did….Vive la France !
In the high heat, I too, have a cool basement room to go to and only use AC for my bedroom. My house gets plenty of shade too.
I hope your family has recovered from the civil war that must have erupted after Henry’s 2009 handball.
Hey, just back from the Alps (mountain biking there with Lil, a great way to stay cool) and saw this post. To sum up: bravo et merci !!
Gonna be a very challenging encounter in Dallas: the Spanish ability to eat up time and place of possession will be a tough counter to the French forwards.
Seeing Pogacar (and his team) make that move on the Tournalet was a treat to watch. Very sophisticated stuff, normally one would think he made the move too soon, with an uphill finish at the end of the ride — but that long downhill from the summit just nailed it, he’s good there. Watched it with Lil. She brought our boys there for a Tour and the day prior rode up to the summit on her triple tandem bike with the kids in back — much applause from the crowd who were there a day early and had nothing else to do.
Nice move on the Musketeers!
Really need ND to make a quarterfinals Orange Bowl one of these years; I visit my in-laws about 90 minutes from Miami for New Year’s and its the easiest big bowl location for me to get to
As someone who left and then returned to the deep south: the “wet blub” effect is no joke. High heat + high humidity at night really taxes the body.
That was supposed to be “wet bulb”, haha
Apparently when it gets over 35 degrees Wet Bulb … you die. The catalytic trigger event in the dystopian The Ministry for the Future is predicated on a (very) mass casualty event
I wonder if the Big 12 is going to start sponsoring MMA and motocross now