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

Top News

The latest playoff talks have been surrounding ironing out a new scheduling format with the 12-team tournament. Picking up steam is starting the season in week 0 (will we see week -1 games too?) and shuffling around playoff games in the winter to avoid the NFL (which plays on Saturday’s from time to time) including possibly moving some matchups to Thursday night.

The LEAD1 Athletic Director summit in Washington, D.C. has reportedly led to a preference to keep FBS within the NCAA with a stream-lined policy group within that structure only for the FBS.

The SEC has ordered Georgia and Tennessee to drop their upcoming series with Oklahoma as the Sooners prepare to switch to their conference in the coming years.

Quenton Nelson secured the bag and signed a new contract with the Indianapolis Colts for 4 years and $80 million with a whopping $60 million in guaranteed money.

Also grabbing the bag is Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney who signed a new 10-year deal worth $115 million.

Rick Stockstill, head coach at Middle Tennessee State since 2006, signed a new contract through 2028.

Tyler Buchner wasn’t the only quarterback to suffer a bad shoulder injury in week 2. Also, Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers is out 4-6 weeks with his own shoulder sprain.

Michigan is sticking with J.J. McCarthy at quarterback. RIP the Cade McNamara era?

Fanatics has begun selling college football jerseys with customizable nameplates on the back. Thank you, NIL! Now, we wait for Notre Dame to actually do this during games.

Cincinnati defensive lineman Malik Vann tore his pectoral muscle against Kennesaw State.

The Alabama-Texas game last week saw 10.6 million viewers on Fox, just edging out the 10.5 million from the Notre Dame-Ohio State game in week 1.

Uniform of the Week

I have so many questions for Kent State. They’ve been with Under Armour for a while now (I honestly thought they were a Nike school and was researching when they switched) and recently have attempted to move toward a San Diego Los Angeles Chargers type of template for their uniforms. In theory, this is a great decision. In practice, we’ve got some problems.

The helmets are terrible and look like something you’d see from a wealthy pee-wee league with no taste. Yellow on white like this without any darker outline is tough. The jersey numbers are much better, but wow that is a lot of patches on the front. The small, dark blue lightning bolt on the sleeve is also hilariously unintimidating. Lastly, putting “Flash Fast” on the pants is a war crime.

Recruiting

It’s pretty quiet in the recruiting world. By my count there are 22 top 100 Composite recruits in the 2023 cycle still without a commitment to a school.

That includes Notre Dame running back target Jeremiyah Love (0.9696) who had the joy of visiting campus during last week’s Marshall game. Well, it was a nice sunny day!

A funny note from the 2024 class where Bishop Kenny quarterback James Resar (0.8778) from Jacksonville has witnessed the past 2 weeks and decided he wants in on the offense at Iowa. Jokes aside, that’s maybe a smart move for early playing time. Hey, maybe that’s what Jeremiyah Love has in his head, too!

YouTube Channel

Have you ever met someone really neat? Like military neat? There can be no one in this country more concerned with attention to detail than Tomb Guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. Their training and preparation is on a whole different level than most of us can process. I specifically get a kick out of the way they are so fastidious with their uniforms in ways that have to be annoying to even some of the Guards. I also love watching them yell at people being disrespectful during their walk.

Who among us is extremely neat? I’ll tell you one thing I absolutely hate to do is make the bed. Hate it. I’m a type of guy to just throw a big comforter on top and over the bed and call it a day. Tucking in sheets, making clean lines, absolutely do not like that. I also move around a lot during sleep. You know how in a hotel especially, they tuck the sheets in so tight you can barely get your legs underneath? I rip all of that out so I can keep my feet cool. My bed is an absolute mess in the morning.

Tunes

A couple weeks ago I talked about the bands who were massive and when the calendar struck the 1980’s it was kind of just over. Bad Company was one of those bands. From 1973 until the release of their album Desolation Angels in 1979 they were among the biggest acts in the world on Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song label. Their self-titled debut LP is probably their best by far. I wouldn’t call the rest of these 1970’s albums amazing but Bad Company can go pound-for-pound with anyone from this era putting together a greatest hits compilation.

The 1977 tune “Burnin’ Sky” from the album of the same name is a good example of their catalog. They were on the downturn at this point but this song opens up the album and absolutely grooves. It’s in the pantheon of songs to open up with a crack of thunder, no doubt. In the hard rock category it’s one of my favorite intros to a song from this period. There’s a great guitar solo with a sweet transition back into the main beat, too.

Trivia

Which Notre Dame kicker wore No. 97 and started his career making 23 out of his first 24 field goals?

The Other Football

Well, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II passed away last week and cancelled all of the Premier League games over the weekend. Manchester City didn’t want any of this Spurs smoke anyway.

Chelsea wasted no time in signing Brighton manager Graham Potter to replace the fired Thomas Tuchel.

Liverpool fullback Andy Robertson will be out with an injury for a while as Liverpool’s no-good-very-bad season continues.

The Champions League resumed on Tuesday with games outside England (still in mourning over the death of Queen Elizabeth II) as Liverpool got back on track with a 2-1 win over Ajax, Leverkusen took down Atletico 2-0, Bayern Munich beat Barcelona 2-0, and Sporting had the nerve to score twice in extra-time to beat Spurs 2-0.

On Wednesday in the UCL, Potter’s debut with Chelsea was spoiled in a 1-1 draw against Salzburg. Elsewhere, Real Madrid beat Leipzig 2-0, PSG beat Maccabi Haifa 3-1, Benfica beat Juventus 2-1, and Manchester City came back to beat Dortmund 2-1 thanks to the cyborg Erling Haaland scoring this stunner against his former club:

18-year old Barcelona midfielder Gavi has signed a new contract through 2026 with a $1 billion release clause. Might as well make it a $6 trillion release clause.

Streaming

If you can’t remember anything from a movie is it fair to say it wasn’t very good? So it goes for the 1999 comedy Mystery Men which I remember getting excited about throughout the promo process and definitely went to see it in the theater as quickly as possible. Judging by the release date it was a late August viewing before going back to school that summer.

I couldn’t tell you a single thing about this movie.

I do remember Dane Cook (right before he became much more famous Dane Cook!) and the “Waffle Man” scene when he introduced himself being stupidly funny for some reason. To this day, whenever I see a waffle machine I scream high pitch in my head “Waffle Man!” It’s no surprise this movie was an absolute flop losing $35 million. It was just an all around bad idea from start to finish.

A Look Back

The very first Notre Dame on NBC game takes us back to the 1991 home opener against Indiana. It’ll forever be known for that play by Irv Smith rumblin’ bumblin’ stumblin’ his way to the end zone with half of the Hoosiers defense climbing on his back. It’s easily one of the top 5 most impressive plays in Notre Dame history. Every time I watch it–knowing he’ll score a touchdown–it seems like the end zone is going to appear on the very next frame. But nope, he just keeps going and going.

Mike Tirico vs. Dick Enberg, who do you prefer? For me, I give the edge to Enberg as I think his voice is more iconic. When I hear him in these 1990’s Notre Dame games it brings back a lot of great memories. It’s too bad he didn’t stick around full-time with NBC doing Notre Dame games for very long, but I realize he was already a GOAT at this point and needed to continue doing other things.

18S Paddock Club

There were signs that maybe, just maybe, we’d see a Charles Leclerc victory on home soil for Ferrari in the Italian Grand Prix this past Sunday. They nailed their set up, turned the engines up, and even without a tow from Carlos Sainz (taking engine penalties) we saw Leclerc edge out Max Verstappen by almost two-tenths for pole. Verstappen would also be starting 7th on the grid after taking a new internal combustion engine (ICE) which offered more hope for Ferrari.

Leclerc got away nicely at lights out but Verstappen shot up to 5th after turn 1, passed Pierre Gasly in sector 2, and overtook Danny Ricciardo on the main straight at the start of lap 2 to move up to 3rd place with Verstappen just 2.5 seconds behind the leader. On the start of lap 5, Verstappen dove on the inside of George Russell for 2nd place although catching Leclerc proved a little more difficult (or perhaps Max was preserving his tires).

On lap 13, Leclerc took very early to the pit lane for medium tires from softs, signaling an aggressive strategy by Ferrari. This was during a Virtual Safety Car when Sebastian Vettel retired but it ended just as Leclerc was in the middle of his stop, so he didn’t gain as much time as he would’ve liked.

Red Bull would not flinch and kept Verstappen out on his soft tires until lap 25 when his lead was 13.5 seconds over Leclerc. Ferrari thought about going long, very long, for a 1-stop on those medium tires for Leclerc but Verstappen was chopping away 0.5 seconds per lap and Leclerc put on soft tires on lap 34. He’d have 20 laps to cut a 19.5-second deficit but unfortunately, Verstappen’s race pace was far too strong with the medium tires.

With 7 laps remaining, Ricciardo’s McLaren suffered an engine failure with Verstappen nursing a 16.7 second lead over Leclerc. It took a bit for the Safety Car to be called and Danny Ric’s car to be removed off the track (it was stuck in gear and wouldn’t go into neutral to be pushed away), long enough for both of the contenders to pit for new soft tires. However, it was too late for any fireworks as the race ended under the Safety Car and Verstappen’s 5th straight win and 11th victory on the season.

Verstappen passes Russell for 2nd on lap 5 at turn 1.

It was a rather dull Italian GP with no one seriously challenging at the top besides Leclerc and Verstappen. Outside of those 2, Russell picked up his 7th podium of the season, Sainz cut through the field from 18th to 4th, Hamilton from 19th to 5th, Perez from 13th to 9th (with the fastest lap), with Norris (7th), Gasly (8th), de Vries (9th), and Zhou (10th) finishing in the points. That was a F1 race debut for Nyck de Vries who took the Williams seat after Alex Albon was ruled out after appendicitis and then suffered severe complications from anesthesia. Get well soon, Alex!

Formula 1 will be back on October 2nd under the lights for the Singapore Grand Prix. There are a maximum of 164 points remaining for Leclerc is he wins every remaining race, with the fastest lap, plus the Brazil sprint race. Meaning, if Verstappen wins the next race and Leclerc finishes 8th or lower the championship will officially be sealed with 5 races remaining. Officially, Verstappen may have to get past teammate Perez to mathematically clinch the title.

Trivia Answer:

David Ruffer, 2009-10