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

3 News Stories

#1 In last year’s game review against Stanford I commented on head coach Troy Taylor’s unusual look with the grandpa reading glasses on the sidelines. Although just 56 he looked much older and apparently thought it was okay to bully female staffers at the school, too. On Tuesday, the school fired Taylor as head coach following an investigation ending a sad 2-year stay on the Farm.

He was a bizarre hire from the beginning anyway. Taylor only became a head coach for the first time at 51 years old with just 3 campaigns at Sacramento State before the Cardinal hired him. He was supposed to be an offensive guru but struggled massively finishing 72nd in OFEI in 2023 and falling backwards to 97th this past season. Taylor did have a couple surprising wins last year (at Syracuse, vs. Louisville) but only won 4 other games across his 2 seasons with the program.

Now, school GM and former Cardinal quarterback Andrew Luck sets out to hire a new head coach for a program that is not in a good place at the moment. Known for their ups and downs as a football school, this is probably as poor as Stanford has been (4 straight 3-9 seasons!) on the field since the late 1950’s and into the early 1960’s. A quick Google search uncovers an article from Sports Illustrated with these potential options to replace Taylor:

Pep Hamilton (Maryland OC)
Greg Roman (Chargers OC)
Troy Walters (Bengals WR Coach)
Tavia Pritchard (Commanders WR Coach)
Dave Clawson (former Wake Forest Head Coach)
Chuck Pagano (Ravens Senior Assistant)

Besides Clawson, who might be looking for a job after leaving the Demon Deacons, everyone else has previous ties to Stanford and/or Andrew Luck.

#2 Gary Danielson got a crack at working Big Ten football games and decided that was enough. The long-time color commentator announced this week that the 2025 season will be his last on television. For years, Danielson was among the top TV crew in college football, first with Verne Lundquist, and since 2017 with Brad Nessler. Seeing Danielson’s face in the afternoon conjures up the SEC CBS college football theme song immediately.

Now that CBS lost the SEC–and the Big Ten prefers the majority of their top games in the Noon timeslot on Fox–the television duo of Nessler/Danielson lost a lot of prestige. The network announced that Charles Davis will replace Danielson for the 2026 season. Davis is fine I suppose, but Danielson will be missed.

#3 The bizarre world where Georgia football players can’t operate vehicles like normal human beings continues as two more athletes were arrested recently for major violations. Firstly, sophomore receiver Nitro Tuggle (from nearby Goshen, Indiana and without a Notre Dame offer) was pulled over for going 107 mph in a 65 mph zone and proceeded to get out of his car while parked in the right lane and not the shoulder. He was also traveling with his girlfriend in the car, too.

Redshirt freshman offensive lineman Marques Easley was arrested for side swiping several cars and crashing into a power distribution box on an apartment complex property. Both players were suspended by head coach Kirby Smart. Perhaps more importantly, both players were driving Dodge Chargers–truly one of the worst vehicles for young men to drive.

This marks the 32nd traffic incident of speeding, racing, reckless driving, or reckless conduct for Georgia players SINCE THE PROGRAM LOST A FOOTBALL PLAYER AND PROGRAM STAFFER IN A DRUNK DRIVING CRASH just over 2 years ago. It boggles the mind.

Recruiting

Notre Dame has added a few more offers this week, and we’ll start with Plano, Texas safety Jordan Davis (0.8750) who plays for the Christian homeschool team Dallas HSAA and whose father played in the NFL and mother played basketball at Duke.

The Irish also added an offer to Florida State commit and safety/linebacker prospect Karon Maycock (0.8871) out of Miami Central. He’s been committed to the Seminoles for just over a month but it is planning official visits this summer.

In the 2027 class, an offer was extended to offensive tackle Cameron Wagner (0.9519) from St Joseph-Ogden High School to the east of Champaign, Illinois.

The big news of the week surrounds 2026 defensive end prospect Rodney Dunham (0.9816) out of Myers Park High School in Charlotte. He was on an unofficial visit to Notre Dame this past weekend which reportedly went extremely well.

A couple days afterward, Dunham set a commitment date of April 10th with the industry now leaning pretty heavily towards Notre Dame winning the battle.

In commitment news, the nation’s no. 1 corner in the Composite Jorden Edmonds (0.9846) gave a verbal to Alabama.

Akron offensive tackle Sam Greer (0.9284) committed to Ohio State.

Texas A&M added running back Jonathan Hatton (0.9638).

Another in-state verbal for Brian Kelly and LSU as wideout Jabari Mack (0.9670) commits to the Tigers. They also recently added cornerback Dylan Purter (0.9080) from Tuskegee, Alabama. Not to be out-done, the no. 1 wide receiver prospect Tristen Keys (0.9970) joined LSU, as well.

North Carolina added defensive lineman Trashawn Ruffin (0.9261).

Uniform of the Week

March Madness is in full swing as the Sweet 16 round action is upon us. When you close your eyes and think about the NCAA Tournament which uniform or uniforms immediately pop into your mind? For me, it’s the 1997 National Championship Game between Arizona and Kentucky. This was a Final Four where Minnesota made an appearance (since vacated after an academic cheating scandal) and North Carolina was present. In the title game, it was Wildcats vs. Wildcats in the RCA Dome in Indianapolis (I bet the Hoosiers wanted to be there but they were beat in the first round 8/9 matchup by Colorado) with Arizona winning their first championship in overtime.

This was about year 4 of the really baggy uniforms but before the sport went to the really tight jerseys but kept the roomy shorts. The royal blue vs. navy blue worked for me. Check out the Converse vs. Nike footwear matchup, before Nike bought Converse. I also love both teams having different looks on each side of their shorts. Arizona’s now iconic “A” inside the basketball on the left with the “CATS” down the right. Kentucky went with the “UK” over a basketball on the left and the lunging cat logo on the right. Great nostalgia.

TV & Movies

The 2025 F1 season is underway as McLaren look to be the strongest car by a decent amount as expected with Lando Norris (Australia) and Oscar Piastri (China) picking up the first 2 wins in their papaya and black cars. We’ll see if Ferrari or Mercedes can team up to challenge for race wins, with Max Verstappen still ever-present in the Red Bull. Meanwhile, in Hollywood the anticipated summer movie F1 released a more thorough trailer recently ahead of a release in a few months.

This looks like it’ll be hit or miss. The film title choice was so corporate and bad. The budget is rumored to be north of $300 million with the controversial Brad Pitt getting paid $30 million for his role. They’ve been filming this movie for a long, long time too. The plot has Pitt as a 50-something driver who experienced a terrible crash early in his career now coming back to F1 to battle a much younger hotshot driver. The story seems terrible. Yet, the on-track scenes and action sequences look out of this world fantastic and should be worth the price of admission.

Tunes

Chappell (pronounced like Chapel) Roan has been a slow burn in the music industry. She turned 27 back in February and released her debut studio album The Rise and Fall of the Midwest Princess all the way back in September 2023. It wasn’t until the latter half of 2024 that Roan really started to ascend and became a major superstar in the music world. NPR caught her just over one year ago on their Tiny Desk Concert series that is worth a watch, if at least to witness her campy and over the top outfits and stellar voice.

I first picked up on Roan with her irresistible rocker “Hot To Go” plus “Good Luck, Babe!” and then afterward with the slower dance club vibe “Pink Pony Club” each showing off her considerable range. It’ll be interesting to see how she follows up this type of success after working on this music for a number of years. In the recent Grammy’s last month, Roan was given 6 nominations and took home the Best New Artist award. By the way, with my kids we sing “Big Booty Butt” for the chorus on “Pink Pony Club” and I would recommend trying that for everyone.