Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
Top News
One of Notre Dame’s greatest players has left us as quarterback Johnny Lujack passed away at the age of 98 this week. We had rated Lujack as the no. 2 Fighting Irish player of all time in 2019 with this bio:
Lujack took over for the war-departed Angelo Bertelli at quarterback for 1943 and finished the season off with a National Championship even though the Irish lost in the finale to the assembled all-star squad Great Lakes Navy. It would be Lujack’s only loss as starting quarterback as he went undefeated over 1946-47 when he returned from his own military service. His .932 winning percentage as a starting quarterback remains the best mark in Notre Dame history.
For his career, Lujack was named an unanimous All-American over his last 2 seasons, finishing 3rd in the Heisman race as a junior then winning it as a senior. A fantastic defensive back, Lujack’s touchdown-saving tackle of Army’s Doc Blanchard in 1946 is his most famous play that preserved a tie and title for the Irish. Lujack was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1960 and is currently the oldest living Heisman winner.
Notre Dame strength coach Matt Balis resigned his position on Tuesday, citing personal reasons.
The Bears have re-signed tight end Cole Kmet to a 4-year $50 million contract extension making him tied for the 9th highest paid player at his position in the NFL.
According to sources, Colorado is in serious negotiations to leave the Pac-12 and join the Big 12 again.
Jim Harbaugh is expected to receive a 4-game suspension for lying to the NCAA. The Michigan head coach would miss a brutal start of the season against East Carolina, UNLV, Bowling Green, and Rutgers.
Isaac Rochell has signed as a free agent with the Las Vegas Raiders.
Chase Claypool has been put on the PUP list by the Chicago Bears.
Last week it was Clark Lea, and this week it is Mike Elko who gets a contract extension at Duke through the 2029 season.
Oregon extended head coach Dan Lanning through 2028.
Former Wisconsin defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard is now a senior analyst at Illinois.
ESPN College GameDay will be in Charlotte for the Week 1 matchup between North Carolina and South Carolina.
Hey, Syracuse Illinois got new football uniforms! Ohio State have released an all-gray uniform to be worn against Michigan.
The Pac-12 is forming a committee to determine changes to their football scheduling effective for the 2024 season.
The Colonial Athletic Association has changed its name to the Coastal Athletic Association.
Uniform of the Week
Recently, I was pursuing some options for a recruiting article for Notre Dame’s most recent commit when I saw this St. John Bosco uniform below. Now, Bosco didn’t make last summer’s top high school uniforms countdown. However, I included standard uniforms and this particular set from the school was originally used for a game up in the state of Oregon. I am not 100% sure but I believe they’ve worn more since that one game. This uniform is fresh.
St. John Bosco’s normal uniforms are fine. They cycle through a ton of different combinations (they must have 4-5 helmets which is absurd for a high school program) and change things up a lot. I normally do not like the mono-gray but the subtle pattern on the uniform is neat and the use of navy blue and cream feels just right. Also, those chest patches are fire. Their normal helmets are like if Notre Dame and Florida State had a baby. These alternate helmets are pretty wild.
Recruiting
Since the last Rambler, the Irish have gained commits from linebacker Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa (0.9499) and wide receiver Logan Saldate (0.8658), the latter flipping from Oregon State.
The nation’s no. 1 running back recruit Taylor Tatum (0.9844) committed to Oklahoma.
Georgia gained a verbal from the top linebacker recruit Justin Williams (0.9952) this week.
Penn State has added defensive linemen Liam Andrews (0.9537) and T.A. Cunningham (0.9170).
Cornerback Corian Gipson (0.9626) committed to Clemson.
Tylen Singleton (0.9404) is a linebacker who gave a verbal to LSU. The Bayou Bengals also picked up a commitment from corner Cai Bates (0.9487).
Linebacker Demarcus Riddick (0.9866) is staying in-state with Auburn after flipping from Georgia.
Safety prospect Brandon Jacob (0.9324) committed to Maryland.
YouTube Channel
The age expectancy in the United States for men in 1925 was just 57.6 years. Within 100 years, we have added two decades to that life expectancy which is amazing. I am chalking a lot of that up to men no longer wearing full 3-piece suits to the beaches during the summer in Florida. This wonderfully colorized and HD corrected video from the 1920’s has people in Palm Beach in the very beginning. I am suffering heat stroke just watching it right now.
I know a lot of this is based on class. The wealthier folks tended not to take off much clothing. When you see other videos and pictures from this era there were certainly a lot of people wearing the old-timey bathing suits with hats and things of that nature. I crack up at the men especially laying in the sand while keeping their coats on, too. They must have smelled outrageously bad after an hour on those beaches.
Tunes
Hands down, it’s not even close, modern American country is the worst thing to happen to the music industry in my lifetime. Where did we go wrong? We are in the midst of Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” topping the Billboard Hot 100 for the 14th(!!) straight week and it’s possible it will be toppled soon by Jason Aldean’s garbage dog whistle “Try That In a Small Town” song. We just cannot get lower than this type of nonsense, can we? EDIT: Aldean’s racist garbage only made it to no. 2 in the updated Billboard charts.
Wallen’s latest album One Thing at a Time has also spent a crap ton of time atop the Billboard charts. It’s almost 112 minutes long and features 36 tracks. Of course, he isn’t listed as a writer for many of the songs. I’m not against having songs written for someone, especially if it’s somewhat restricted and kept to a minimum. Or maybe if you’re a singular talent in other areas like singing or playing an instrument. However, there’s something grating about country music stars projecting this image to the world and not writing their own music. “Last Night” has 5 songwriters credited and none of them are Morgan Wallen.
Trivia
Which Notre Dame kicker holds the school record for most consecutive made field goals?
The Other Football
The United States Women’s soccer team started the World Cup 1-0 after beating Vietnam 3-0 in their opener. However, the U.S. really struggled to get anything going in a frustrating 1-1 draw against a tough Netherlands team on Wednesday night. The Americans will be back in action on August 1st against Portugal.
Leo Messi scored a patented free kick goal for Inter Miami in his first appearance with the MLS club. This week, Miami beat Atlanta United 4-0 in the Leagues Cup with Messi scoring 2 goals and adding an assist. Messi Fever is in full force.
Saudi club Al-Hilal are trying to buy PSG striker Kylian Mbappe for 300 million Euros. Sure, why not? That would be a world record by a wide margin. According to reports, the club are also willing to pay Mbappe nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars salary just for 1 season with the club. Mbappe has been pushing for a move to his childhood favorite Real Madrid for quite some time and reportedly isn’t interested in Al-Hilal.
Declan Rice is the most expensive English football player in history after a $116.6 million move from West Ham to Arsenal.
TV & Movies
A nice corner of the internet world are the people who matchup places in movies with real world spots. Today, we take a look at the 2003 film Elf…maybe the best Christmas movie of this generation. Or of all-time? I love how old the exit to the Lincoln Tunnel looks. With the structure you can’t tell if it’s from 1971 or today. A few shots later we see Park Avenue, maybe my favorite road in this country.
Buddy getting run over by the taxi is hilarious. It’s wild how some parts of New York look so different from the movie and then stupid me realized it’s been 20 years. How has it been 20 years since Elf came out!?? Someone shake me how is that possible?
A Look Back
Today’s video is for all of those people who get sweaty in the palms and excited about TOUGH touchdown runs from the beloved Irish. First we see Julius Jones, the poor guy had to be at Notre Dame in one of the worst eras of offense in school history. That beautiful run by Tony Jones against Iowa State was finished with authority. There’s Ricky Watters again in the third run doing Ricky Watters things. The super long Josh Adams touchdown is always fun to watch the receivers ahead blocking. Fundamentals.
Marc Edwards makes an appearance as God intended. Then we get to see “Six Yard” Sitko. The Vagas Ferguson run really isn’t tough but it’s a nice little touchdown scamper. Pinkett’s had a similar feel (maybe it’s the old school turf?) but was far longer. Next, Ray Zellers is up with the touchdown run that I thought would be in the top spot. Instead, it’s Reggie Brooks’ tough run against Michigan where he lost consciousness at the goal line.
18S Paddock Club
For a minute, it looked like the Hungarian Grand Prix was going to be a turning point in the season and provide a ton of entertainment. For the first time in nearly 2 years, Lewis Hamilton stuck his Mercedes on pole by 0.003 seconds over Max Verstappen. Red Bull brought new upgraded sidepods and spent practice really struggling to find the right balance (Sergio Perez qualified P9 in the other Red Bull). The grid looked a little shook up with the McLaren cars starting P3 and P4 while Alfa Romeo’s Guanyu Zhou started a career-high P5.
Unfortunately, Red Bull’s car was perfectly set up for race pace and the entertainment never showed out.
Verstappen beat Hamilton to turn 1 and led every lap, winning by a dominant 33 seconds. This was supposed to be one of the 2 or 3 weakest tracks for Red Bull remaining on the calendar so this was a bit of a wake up call for other teams trying to catch up. Other notes from Budapest:
- McLaren looks to be super legit right now. Norris finished P2 and Piastri (while dealing with a damaged floor) brought it home to P5. Many think they could be the 2nd strongest car on the grid now, what a turn around!
- George Russell got caught up in traffic during qualifying and started P18. However, he came through the field and finished P6 behind Hamilton in P4.
- Ferrari finished P7 and P8, womp womp. Not great that they finished behind a Mercedes that started near the back of the grid.
- McLaren and Aston Martin have seemingly flip-flopped places. The Silverstone drivers finished P9 and P10. They’ve only scored 8 points over the last 2 races.
- 8 points is better than Alpine who are in distress following back-to-back DNF’s for both drivers after Zhou locked up into turn 1 at the start, rammed into Danny Ricciardo, who ran into Pierre Gasly, who sent teammate Esteban Ocon into the air cracking his seat.
- Zhou finished P16 which is terrible given his starting position.
- Ricciardo beat teammate Yuki Tsunoda by a hair in qualifying and finished 2 spots higher at the end of the race. That’s a solid return to the sport.
- Verstappen has won 7 races in a row and looks likely to break a bunch of F1 records this year.
Summer break is coming up but not before we finish with back-to-back races ending in Belgium:
Round 12 of 22
Belgian Grand Prix
Date: July 30th
Race: 9:00 AM ET
Location: Stavelot, Belgium
Circuit: Spa-Francorchamps
Laps: 44
Tire Compounds: C2, C3, C4
Track Evolution: 3 out of 5
Asphalt Abrasion: 4 out of 5
Two years we ago we saw the infamous rain-soaked “race” at Spa and the weather forecast for this week shows plenty of rain across the weekend. Last year, Verstappen started P14 after taking engine penalties and knifed his way through the grid for a dominant victory. Only mechanical failure can likely stop him from driving away from the rest of the grid this weekend.
Rain at Belgium again!?
It’s also a sprint weekend again, our 3rd of 6 on the season. If it’s raining on Friday that could be a little spicy with just 1 practice session before sprint qualifying later in the day.
Lastly, it’s no secret that Spa has been on the proverbial chopping block as a circuit and to date there has not been a contract extension. In recent years, they’ve signed a 1-year extension during the weekend of the race. If they don’t get that done soon it may be time to worry.
Trivia Answer:
David Ruffer, 23 straight field goals.
No love for Horan’s absolutely bad-ass “fuck around and find out” goal???
Modern country or as I call it, Wal Mart country. I do occasionally find myself listening to select songs from select musicians- a Catchy song is a catchy song after all. But I don’t understand why people don’t listen to Jason Isbell or Ryan bingham more often.
Try that in a small town. I listened to it. I think if this song was made 12 years ago I doubt it would have moved the needle socially. Definitely a ‘priming’ effect here in 2023
The ironic thing about country music is that I don’t think it’s never been better than right now…It’s just NONE of the mainstream/popular crap that gets pushed is any good and you have to go just under the surface to get the good stuff.
Isbell and Bingham like you said are awesome. Zach Bryan, Tyler Childers, Cody Jinks, Sturgill. Colter Wall, Charley Crockett, there’s a new-ish young kid from Idaho named Colby Acuff that I like very, very much (I suggest anyone give his new album Western White Pines a listen, if you like authentic but still catchy and entertaining country/western). Billy Strings.
There’s so much good stuff out there, but it’s a shame what Pop Country is and not the actual good music. (If anyone has Spotify, their Indigo playlist is a great starting point).
—
Also, I kinda agree about your parting thought about the backlash being a sign of the times. A lot of people seem to want to be offended by stuff like that, and then the other group of people gets their joy in making a backlash to the initial backlash. And on we go in society these days. Like 20 years ago Willie Nelson and Toby Keith literally did have a song about lynching people and it was beloved haha (but I guess immediately post-9/11 that sentiment was more allowable).
Agree there’s so much good stuff in this genre right now, but none of it is getting radio play. A smaller act to check out is Zac Wilkerson – Texas singer songwriter, little on the bluesy side of country.
I’ve always called it “bro country,” and consider it the soundtrack to getting wasted on a lake (or river).
My worst one recently is “Wait in the Truck”. For those who’ve been lucky enough not to have heard it, this song tells the story of a man, driving through a little town where he has no connections or history, finding a battered woman walking down the side of the road. He lets her into his truck, asks her where is the man who did this to her, and goes to murder him. He’s a good guy, though, because he waits for the cops to come and does his time afterwards. It is abhorrent. And on the radio roughly twice an hour.
Lea and Elko doing well at Vandy and Duke is good for ND. It’s been a long time since there was a successful ND coaching tree in college football — probably back to the Holtz era or earlier.
I used to joke here about the “Brian Kelly coaching twig” but he now has a legit coaching tree! BK 2.0 paying off yet again!
The biggest positive from Colorado going back to the Big 12 from my perspective would be that Dan Hawkins would once again be correct. “It’s the Big 12! It ain’t intramurals!”
R.I.P. Mr. Lujack. My Uncle Bill’s favorite ND player. Wouldn’t you know my Uncle went to one ND game in his life and Lujack was sitting right behind him. He got Lujack’s autograph, on a paper hot dog holder, and a picture with him. On the train to Chicago he lost his bag with the autograph and camera. When he told me, I thought he was going to cry. I wrote Lujack a letter, I did mention the hot dog holder. About 6 weeks later my uncle got a signed photo of Lujack in the mail. He knew I had something to do with it. I immediately vaulted to #1 nephew. I have the photo now and his ND jacket. I miss him….Thank You Johnny.
Funny story . After the BC game in 93′ my Uncle went to 7pm mass. He was wearing his ND jacket. As the priest began his sermon, he asked my uncle, ” Bill are you ok?” If he was in the same state I was after that game he probably wasn’t sure.
Totally. Lujack was my own favorite uncle’s absolute #1 ND player, in the era where we had all the 5 stars. Uncle Hank was a B17 bombadier, and was right in front of the famous tackle in Yankee Stadium — etc.
Speaking of which, hi to all from Ramstein AFB — just took the leaders of the air ops center to Bastogne (air kicked ass when the weather cleared, ND guys were on the ground and in the air both.
I can’t remember if we’ve covered this before but Todd Blackledge is taking over the primetime games at NBC. Will that always be the Big 10 game (which is at 7:30PM) or is it possible for a couple of our primetime games – USC and whoever else we have at home in the evening he’d call those games?
He and Noah Eagle are the B1G team. I think they’re getting the best B1G game, not the best NBC game.
Perhaps next year they will call the ND @ USC game.
That’s so disappointing that we get the “C” team. It would have been nice to have Blackledge a couple times a year for our home games.
On the Harbaugh suspension: Michigan is massively favored over a lesser program from North Carolina in Week 1, which will also be the first Big Ten game broadcast live on their new network? East Carolina has the opportunity to do the funniest thing and I am trying to will it into existence.
Speaking of, Michigan-Sparty is going to be appointment viewing this year. It’s in East Lansing, at night, with alcohol sales in the stadium. Mel Tucker’s job may very well be on the line, and Valenti is already threatening Michigan fans not to attend (I know he’s a blowhard but he gets their fanbase all riled up).
There are going to be multiple fights in that game and it will be hilarious.
Someone is going to choke on applesauce
Sparty’s as a team scored as many points as players who picked up aggravated assault charges (7) in the last matchup, so that’s pretty good
Randomites:
–nice article on Lujack by that great writer of ND football, Lou Somogyi. Sports Illustrated chose Lujack as one of five QBs on their All-Century team
-my nomination for worst contribution to music is Taylor Swift. I understand from a friend who went to the Mariners game nearby that Swiftees overwhelmed the area around her concert waiting to get in
-the Womens World Cup has already set the record for attendance (almost 1.6 million tickets sold to date) surpassing the 1.35 million in Canada in 1915 despite . The average attendance was 48% higher than France 2019. Overall Viewership is also setting records. The USA-Netherlands game drew 7.93 million viewers, making it the largest combined English- and Spanish-language audience for a group stage match involving the American women.
–a Notre Dame womens soccer player, Kiki Van Zanten, is playing in the Cup, proudly representing ND and Irish womens soccer. From Chicago with a Dutch father and Jamaican mother she is playing for Jamaica. In the Women’s CONCACAF Championship, as a late sub in during the bronze medal game, Van Zanten scored the game-winner against Costa Rica 2022 at the Concacaf Championship which secured Jamaica’s place in the World Cup
–How Bob Marley’s daughter saved Jamaican women’s soccer Van Zanten would balance university soccer at ND and the the Reggae Gilz qualifying games.
–Van Zanten has earned NIL money from Under Armour (hmm) and the Chicago White Sox
Taylor Swift is the female version of nu metal. I will not be elaborating.
I’m gonna push back on the “popular country is trash now” argument and direct you to Golden Hour by Kasey Musgraves, which is pretty clearly a top-3 album from the last decade and may be top-1
She writes (or co-writes) all of her songs and is a decent instrumentalist, too. She’s way above the other country pop trash.
Hm yeah if those are the excluding criteria hard to argue with the point, maybe with some Keith Urban excepted
If the downvoter would like to present 3 albums from the last ten years better than that, I’m all ears. TBF music has had a pretty rough last decade generally imo. Rap and Taylor Swift are currently carrying the business, and in my estimation there have been zero (0) truly great rap albums (other than maybe Life of Pablo, and, well, let’s just exclude that for now; good kid m.A.A.d city came out in 2012) and at most arguably two great T Swift albums in the last ten years.
But, definitely willing to give something a try or a second listen!
Idk who would downvote that, Kacey Musgraves is very talented and that was an excellent album. Shouldn’t be so controversial haha.
The Aldean song was released in May and NO ONE said boo about this sing or the lyrics being a racist dog whistle, but the music video comes out with real life clips spliced in (such as cops being spit on) and it becomes one.
Did I chronicle this correctly?
Aldean’s career has been in the tank for a while which explains why barely anyone heard the song a couple months ago (also he doesn’t write his own songs surprise, surprise).
Someone on the NDN Backroom put it succinctly that the lyrics to the song are “pure rural grievance porn.” When the video is added to the equation there is a pretty strong political wink wink going that, at minimum, is pretty problematic. They knew exactly what they were doing, if we’re being honest.
Correct — Aldean wanted to make really, really clear what the point of the song was, so he made a video that delivers the message with all the subtlety of a confederate flag-wrapped 2×4 to the head.
So to be clear, it was or not a racist dog whistle to have an opening lyric about spitting on a cop and then splicing a video of a white girl spitting on a cop? Many years ago the Charlie Daniels band had a song called “In America” and by today’s standard that would be a racist dog whistle. I would never buy or download his music, but I did check his discography on Wikipedia and he’s not struggling with his charting in recent years. To post that is completely disingenuous. As far as not writing his own songs, big deal. There are many mega successful musicians who do not write their own songs. Legendary Glen Campbell comes immediately to mind. Yes, I realize the hook and the gimmick with the video but that does not justify parroting the opinion of the View who vilified it but consider WAP by Cardi B to be “art”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Aldean_discography
Still irksome to me that the shade of green they use looks just off a little bit, but dropping all the blue is a huge W.