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

Top News

Irish tight end Mitchell Evans broke his foot during summer workouts and won’t be back until later in the season this fall.

Notre Dame Stadium has been getting new field turf this week.

Oregon tight end Spencer Webb died on Wednesday after striking his head on the rocks while cliff diving near Eugene.

Shawn Stiffler was introduced as the new baseball coach at Notre Dame on Thursday. The 43-year old spent 11 seasons at VCU winning the A-10 conference twice and making the NCAA Tournament 3 times, including in each of the last 2 seasons.

Beginning in 2023 the Mountain West conference will no longer have divisions for football.

Defensive holding will now be an automatic 1st down in college football. The prior rule was an automatic 1st down on any holding during a passing attempt.

Former Michigan head coach Gary Moeller passed away on Monday at the age of 81.

Texas Tech is planning a $200 million renovation to their football stadium, including building a new 4-story building connected to the south end zone of Jones AT&T Stadium.

Heinz Field is now called Acrisure Stadium after the delicious ketchup maker which you should put all over your hots dogs ended its long-time sponsorship of the Pittsburgh Steelers home.

Nike has signed a new deal with Fanatics beginning in the summer of 2024 to boost the sales of college apparel.

Uniform of the Week

What state is Nicholls State in, readers? This school is in Thibodaux, Louisiana to the southwest of New Orleans and plays football in the Southland Conference. They are a pretty solid FCS team and are the school where the Manning Passing Academy is held. The Colonels have a sharp red and gray palette and with this home uniform use a contrasting red jersey with white trim.

I like it. Although, I would put some kind of white striping on those pants. And to be honest, I’m not even sure this is a 2021 uniform because they are rocking those Adidas socks that Notre Dame had like 10 years ago (how has it been that long!?) but maybe that’s just life in the FCS? Overall, this is one of my favorite red teams we’ve covered in recent Ramblers. 

Recruiting

A guy named Dante Moore (0.9942) finally picked Oregon as his school this past Friday.

Top Irish target defensive lineman Jason Moore (0.9761) committed to Ohio State.

Edge rusher Adepoju Adebawore (0.9534) has committed to Oklahoma.

Linebacker Raylen Wilson (0.9645) has committed to Georgia.

IMG Academy edge rusher Jayden Wayne (0.9815) is headed to Miami. The Canes also picked up linebacker Raul Aguirre (0.9451) this week.

Brian Kelly adds one of the nation’s top wideouts as Jalen Brown (0.9857) commits to LSU. The Tigers recently added running back Kaleb Jackson (0.9233) from Baton Rouge, as well.

Tennessee picked up a huge recruit in edge rusher Chandavian Bradley (0.9836) on Sunday.

Quarterback Dylan Lonergan (0.9549) verballed to Alabama.

Offensive tackle Lucas Simmons (0.9502) committed to Florida State.

Defensive lineman Enow Etta (0.9437) committed to Michigan.

IOL recruit Madden Sanker (0.9502) committed to Louisville.

Penn State added linebacker Tony Rojas (0.9504) this week.

Washington picked up a verbal from Louisiana corner Curley Reed (0.9339).

YouTube Channel

Who loves roller coasters? I had a long childhood playing up a year in hockey, and being smaller to begin with, waiting a while to be able to get on to a lot of rides at parks with family and friends. As such, I developed a bit of a grudge against roller coasters and had to find ways at Six Flags and such to enjoy other rides and forms of entertainment. Once I was big enough to get on the big coasters I came around and enjoyed most of them. Although I wouldn’t say I love roller coasters. I really hate queuing and wasting time.

I was trying to think of the scariest coaster I’ve ever experienced. It would probably be the front of the Mind Eraser HERE about 12 years ago with some friends. I had been on this ride a few times in the past, but never in the very front. The coaster was completely different up there and terrifying. I was shook after that one, partly because it was so shocking how much more intense it was by being up front and I was not mentally ready at all.

Tunes

A couple months ago I featured the first single from Harry Styles’ new album Harry’s House and of course his new LP has been blowing up this summer. This is an interesting album because it’s Styles’ best and maybe the most intimate but at the same time it is dripping in a ton of production and goes to a lot of different places sonically. Take for example “Satellite” featured here today. You begin with these delicate guitar chords combined with really lightweight 80’s synthesizer notes in what seems like it’s a slow and melancholy song.

At the 1:00 mark the song transforms. I talk about drums a lot. It’s an album like this that can be tricky to know whether a drum machine is being used or not. At first, I thought yes. Then after a while, no they are real. I checked and while Kid Harpoon (famous producer) uses a drum machine on several tracks on the album, this song is all real drums. Listen to 2:35 when it breaks down, it’s amazing. Superb mixing, especially when you hear it with headphones.

Trivia

Name the 4 receivers from Power 5 conference teams to catch 16+ touchdowns in a single season from 2019-2021.

The Other Football

The United States women defeated Costa Rica 3-0 on Thursday in the semifinals of the CONCACAF W Championship. The team previously clinched a spot in 2023 World Cup with their quarterfinal win and will now have the chance to clinch the 2024 Summer Olympics bid with a win on Monday against either Canada or Jamaica.

Wayne Rooney is headed back to the MLS and will be managing DC United.

Raheem Sterling has officially moved from Manchester City to Chelsea for $65 million. The Blues are also close to an agreement to sign defender Kalidou Koulibaly from Napoli for a rumored $45 million.

Barcelona has swooped in and plucked Leeds midfielder Raphinha out from under the nose of Chelsea and Arsenal for an estimated $60 million.

Tottenham Hotspur defeated the K-League All-Stars 6-3 on Wednesday during a friendly in Korea giving us a clear sign Spurs are winning the Premier League.

Streaming

A few years back I started the Fox series Gotham and enjoyed the first few episodes before completely forgetting about it and never returning. The series finished up a few years ago after completing exactly 100 episodes. I was tempted to return and finish things up and came across this ending to the series on YouTube. Now, the show got pretty good reviews and even in the YT comment section people are specifically praising the casting and character development. However, most of this final scene looks like it’s from a high school production. It seems really hilariously bad.

We have too much Batman and DC Comic-adjacent content now. You could say that about all comic book content. The most recent film The Batman from this year was like the 15th movie featuring the caped crusader. It looks like next year, Batman will be featured somewhat in 2 more films, too. We’re also up to about the same number in Batman or Batman-adjacent TV shows. It’s just a lot of Batman, most of it coming since the early 1990’s, too.

A Look Back

I came across this game by mistake while working on an upcoming project. After a lull being busy in the late 1990’s and into the new century the 2002 season was my first since childhood going hardcore into Irish games. And it went pretty well. For the most part. The following season was an abomination with an assembly line of embarrassing moments from barely beating Washington State in the opener, to being blown out by Michigan, USC, and Florida State, and even another loss to Boston College. It was a terrible time to be in college as a Notre Dame fan vainly carving out time on Saturday’s to watch this debacle.

Don’t sleep on that regular season finale loss at Syracuse as a gut-punch that was unnecessary. Living in upstate New York and going to college north of Syracuse this game hit particularly hard and took a long time to get over. Remember, the Irish came in on a 3-game winning streak and Syracuse was not very good having just lost convincingly to Rutgers while riding their own 3-game losing streak. Adjusted for opponent, this was about as pathetic as a Notre Dame team looked in the period between Lou Holtz and Charlie Weis. Don’t forget to check out Snoop Dogg in the cringy AOL commercial to start this video.

18S Paddock Club

At first this past weekend in Austria looked like it’d be a Max Verstappen domination. He topped qualifying by a hair, won the sprint race, and was leading Sunday’s race on lap 12 before the tables suddenly turned. At turn 4, Charles Leclerc executed a beautiful inside move to take the lead and Verstappen responded with an early pit dealing with surprising tire degradation while Leclerc waited until lap 27. By lap 33, Leclerc passed Verstappen for the lead once again.

Both drivers would pit again later in the race and Leclerc made the pass for a 3rd time on lap 53. Just four laps later while quickly chasing down Verstappen for 2nd place, the other Ferrari of Carlos Sainz saw his engine literally explode and his car catch fire.

It was a tough break for last week’s winner and prevented Ferrari from making up a ton of ground as Sergio Perez in the other Red Bull was hit on the opening lap and eventually retired his car. With a virtual safety car out, the leaders both dipped into the pits for medium tires. Despite a tricky throttle issue for Leclerc, he’d hold off Verstappen for the victory in Austria.

With the sprint race and Verstappen picking up the fastest lap on Sunday it only ended up being a deficit of 5 points loss on the weekend to Leclerc. Nevertheless, it was an upset weekend and a refreshing battle to get Leclerc back in the championship hunt.

Elsewhere, the Mercedes’ cars were once again in place to take advantage of retirements with a 3rd and 4th place finish. Esteban Ocon had a great drive for 5th place, both McLaren and Haas drivers picked up points, while Fernando Alonso finished 10th for the final point.

Formula 1 is off this weekend and returns to Paul Ricard in Le Castellet outside Marseille next weekend for what could the last French Grand Prix for a while as the sport looks to drop the race in 2023 and beyond.

Fantasy Update: Your boy and ndtex tied for the lead in Austria with 270 points.

Trivia Answer:

Jordan Addison, Pitt, 17, 2021
DeVonta Smith, Alabama, 23, 2020
Ja’Marr Chase, LSU, 20, 2019
Justin Jefferson, LSU, 18, 2019