Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
Top News
UMass is joining the MAC again.
Kansas head coach Lance Leipold received a raise to over $7 million per season on his current deal that runs through 2029.
Eric Bieniemy has been hired as the offensive coordinator at UCLA.
Iowa State is promoting tight end coach Taylor Mouser to offensive coordinator.
According to reports, a 14-team playoff with 3 automatic qualifiers each to the B1G and SEC, 2 AQ’s for the ACC and Big 12, plus 1 AQ for the G5 and 3 at-large bids is being discussed as the latest format.
A federal judge in Tennessee granted a preliminary injunction Friday afternoon that prohibits the NCAA from punishing any athletes or boosters for negotiating name, image and likeness deals during their recruiting process or while they are in the transfer portal.
Washington State football coaches are taking a voluntary 10% pay cut.
The Athletics reported that quarterback Caleb Williams made $10 million in NIL money in his 2 seasons at USC.
Uniform of the Week
Stealing a uniform after moving a team from one city to another, how many worse things in sports are there? It’s especially evil when a team like the Carolina Hurricanes and their dusty uniforms bring out the Hartford Whalers throwbacks, something they’ve been doing since 2018 with regularity. Remember when the Tennessee Titans moved from Houston but wore the Oilers uniforms for a couple seasons?
It had been 24 full seasons since making the name and uniform switch for Tennessee. In 2023, the Titans decided to wear the Oilers throwbacks against Atlanta and even had plenty of former Oilers players happy about it. “Keeping the history alive!” and all that, right? Then, Tennessee later wore the Oilers throwbacks while hosting the Houston Texans. Poor decision? I think the Texans were vindicated with a 19-16 overtime victory.
Recruiting
Officials are weighing adding a 3rd signing day window during the last Wednesday of June. Why even have windows at this point?
On3 moved Notre Dame commit and offensive tackle Will Black from their no. 203 player to the no. 6 overall player in the 2025 class, so that’s pretty cool.
Buford cornerback Devin Williams (0.9576) committed to Auburn.
YouTube Channel
As an adult, I’ve always wondered why we have Pepsi with 40 grams of sugar in a 12 oz. can or Pepsi Zero with a heathy dose of aspartame. If the FDA gets its way it sounds like soda companies may have to ditch aspartame soon. If you like fizzy stuff, we’ve had the ends of two extremes with lots of real sugar or so-called fake sugar. In recent years, sparkling water drinks like La Croix, Spindrift, and Bubly have tried to make inroads and fill a carbonated void but I don’t find those very tasty or comparable to what we’re looking for from a soda.
I just tried my first Olipop the other day and I think they’re on to something much better.
I tried the cherry cola flavor last Wednesday and it was very, very good. It’s carbonated but not overly bubbly like a normal soda. And it had a normal cherry cola flavor except with a bit of a sweet cherry juice bite on top. The aftertaste wasn’t perfect, although it was miles better than a lot of the sparkling waters that feel like a bucket of vodka vapors were poured down your throat.
Olipop uses plants, natural juice flavor, a small amount of sugar, plus stevia leaf extract. Another favorite drink of mine, Ka’Chava shakes, use all sorts of plants plus monk fruit extract. Are these extracts healthier? I hope so! They seem better than a ton of sugar or synthetic sweeteners.
The big issue with Olipip is the price. A 12-pack on Amazon right now will run you $39.97 which is a financial burden for 95% of Americans. Something needs to be done about this problem.
Tunes
Tell your friends and family, Vampire Weekend is dropping a new album on April 5th titled Only God Was Above Us almost 5 years after their last album. How has it been 5 years since Father of the Bride came out!? That was my favorite from 2019, for sure. In anticipation of this new album, Vampire Weekend have released 2 singles so far. They have put out “Gen-X Cops” with the lead single “Capricorn” embedded below.
The band is working with producer Ariel Rechtshaid again so it’ll be interesting to see where this new sounds take them. The single for “Capricorn” is a very classic sound from the band with a slower acoustic nature that takes a very harsh mechanical turn around the 2-minute mark. The new album could have a lot of crazy new sounds, I’m guessing.
Trivia
Which US state had the most players in the NFL per capita during the 2023 season?
The Other Football
The USWNT suffered a stunning 2-0 loss to Mexico on Monday in the Concacaf Gold Cup group stage play. The United States had previously been 40-1-1 against Mexico.
The USMNT announced they’ll face Brazil in a Copa America tune-up friendly in Orlando on June 12th.
Liverpool beat Chelsea 1-0 in added extra time to win the League Cup. It’s the 2nd time manager Jurgen Klopp has won the trophy while with the Reds.
Man City were only +0.84 in xG but blasted Luton Town 6-2 in the FA Cup thanks to Erling Haaland’s 5 goals in the first 58 minutes. The quarterfinals of the FA Cup are all set as the following matchups were announced: Wolves vs. Coventry City, Man United vs. Liverpool, Chelsea vs. Leicester City, and Man City vs. Newcastle.
The first full season with Leo Messi in MLS began recently. The American clubs have also been participating in the Concacaf Champions League with Philadelphia, Houston, Columbus, Orlando City, Inter Miami, Nashville, and Cincinnati all still alive.
Florida-based entrepreneur Shilen Patel has bought a 87.8% stake in Championship club West Bromwich Albion.
TV & Movies
I’ve written before that I was 100% a child of MTV. The channel started 6 months before I was born and so many music videos and shows from MTV are ingrained in my childhood. A weird one for me was Beavis and Butthead which hit big instantly in the summer of 1993 and I never really got totally on board with the show. I’d watch it occasionally and definitely saw numerous full episodes. You’d think the 11-13 years old range was perfect but I did find a lot of the show boring.
Looking back, I chuckle a lot more re-watching clips of the show. I think the animation style of Beavis and Butthead turned me off big time as a kid and I never overcame it. The voices are so clear and the animation is so strange, I can’t explain it fully. That’s why I didn’t ever watch Mike Judge’s later show King of the Hill when that came to Fox in 1997. I’ve never watched a full episode of that.
A Look Back
Things haven’t been great for Notre Dame’s women’s hoops team and their high standards with a 21-6 overall record and 11-5 mark in the ACC with senior guard and former 5-star Olivia Miles sidelined for the whole year. However, 5-star freshman guard Hannah Hidalgo has been a revelation and has been absolutely cooking fools all season long while being in the running for the National Player of the Year.
Through Sunday’s action, Hidalgo was averaging 23.7 points, 5.5 assists, 6.2 rebounds, and an absurdly funny 4.9 steals per game for the Irish. She’s only listed at 5’6″ and is on track to be one of the greatest short players in college basketball history. Let’s hope next year is a super impressive and healthy roster for Coach Ivey.
18S Paddock Club
With testing complete we are plunging into the first weekend of the longest F1 season in history. If there are no cancellations or freak weather events like last year, Formula 1 is poised to race 24 times over the next 281 days. First up, the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Since we’ve had testing on the same track last week the picture for 2024 looks a little clearer. Here are the 3 stories to for this weekend:
#1 What’s the gap to Max?
The 2022 testing was a bit of a shock to many with how strong Red Bull looked, last year it was steady as the top car, but a new design for 2024 looks like it could be even more frightening to opponents. While a 1-second gap to the next best car doesn’t seem possible it also wouldn’t be shocking. Still, this is a car and team fully embraced by 3-time champion Max Verstappen although teammate Sergio Perez remains uneasy in his speed and consistency.
#2 Tire management and rear stability
A car that doesn’t eat tires is always a good thing and the abrasive Sakhir circuit has always been a quick determinator for the grid and their capabilities to go on long runs. Last year, we saw quite a few pit stops and plenty of tire management from everyone. This course doesn’t reward top-end speed or cornering through the slow bits as much as it does accelerating quickly from hard braking at several crucial points of the track.
#3 Horner stays
The results of Red Bull’s independent investigation into team principal Christian Horner were made public on Wednesday and the longest serving boss on the grid will remain in his position. The cloud of uncertainty around the team is lifted, although if the rumor mill has any truth to it then Horner may still be locked in a battle for power within the team from the 49% stake held by the Austrian side of the business. This looks unlikely to cause a derailment of Max Verstappen’s white hot career but it’s worth noting for the future if any disgruntlement arises.
EDIT: Shortly before publishing an anonymous person shared a Google Drive of information, apparently incriminating Horner, with hundreds of email accounts involved in F1. Buckle up.
Trivia Answer:
Georgia, 1 player per 71,413 residents.
Just buy a case of Olipop for the writer’s room and it becomes a tax write-off.
Good spot to plug Guinness 0.0 – it absolutely nails the real version.
Careful. We don’t need to put Eric on the IRS’ radar.
He has no reason to worry, the IRS doesn’t go after the top 1%
Hot take: Vampire Weekend’s only truly good album was their first one.
Too hot!
Yeah I’ve found a real yearning for more high quality, *lightly* sweetened soda that doesn’t have any stevia in it (don’t like the flavor). I’ve actually taken to making my own, just getting the sparkling water flavors I like and adding a bit of lime juice and simple syrup (approx 6-8g or a half tablespoon of sugar worth). It turns out great with just a little effort and fine tuning. I like to add cbd tincture for a mellow wind down non-alcoholic cocktail.
Another idea too is to get a soda stream; I find my aluminum can waste pretty large with all the 12 packs of fizzy water I’m buying, and using a soda stream cuts down on the recycling. Further, there’s a good cost savings in getting replacement water to carbonate from the tap.
Big fan of squeezing a quarter lemon into some carbonated H20, #LittleTickle #LittleTang
I found Soda Stream to be really bad with flavors, and super inconsistent with the carbonation. But, this was like 10 years ago.
I’m with you on a desire for a lower sugar but no alternative sweeteners soda. I love the Coke Freestyle machines, because it means I can make myself a 50-70% fizzy water, 30-50% regular coke/dr pepper.
For your homemade drinks, look at using cocktail bitters too. They come in lots of interesting flavors these days, and mixing with soda water +/- a little simple syrup makes a nice refreshing beverage.
I wish I could upvote this more than once. That’s the real trick with the sodastream: add in some cocktail bitters or cocktail syrup and it’s absolutely delicious. I typically dump in a bunch of orange bitters or cardamom bitters, or use a half ounce Maine pine syrup or a blueberry shrub.
Not a typo – Shrub is a type of flavoring syrup
I know the trivia question was us STATES, but I’m curious, what’s the per capita of American Samoa?
Also, where did hawaii fall on the list?
Let’s hope Will Black doesn’t do a Keon Keeley and flip once the rest of the world finds out where he should have been ranked all along.
The proposed 14 team playoffs with multiple AQs per conference are disgusting. Only conference champs should get autobids!
Even if you want to say the big and best conferences should get more, how could it be more than 2? It’s a little crazy to think that a team that didn’t even make the conference champ. game would get an auto-bid to the playoffs.
Hannah lol
https://x.com/ndwbb/status/1763373880243056823?s=20
Nice to see the Irish womens’ BB team beat Virginia Tech, yesterday. The Hokies are ACC regular season champions and the #5 team nationally. They had their ten game winning streak snapped in front of our home crowd. Hidalgo was sterling with twenty-three points and set the ACC Freshman record for points in a season.
The Irish are contending for a top four position for the conference tournament which would give them a bye. They are currently tied with NC State and Louisville for third and the Irish are hot, winning four in a row.
Citron scored 21 points all in the second half. Sonia took over in the OT against Florida State in overtime a couple of weeks ago, scoring eight of their twelve points to cement the win. When teams concentrate on Hildalgo, Sonia and Westbeld, who had nineteen points, are weapons. The Irish fast break was one of the determining factors as well as a stout defense holding Va Tech to less than 37% field goal shooing which can ignite their fast break.
The home crowd on Saturday against Louisville will add further energy. It would be nice to have the first NCAA tournament games at home.
The winner of the Louisville game Sunday at 2 on ESPN also gets a double-bye in the ACC tournament and the loser doesn’t*.
*I’m pretty sure that all the permutations in the unlikely event of NCSt losing to last place Wake result in NCSt staying ahead of the loser by tiebreaker 3(a), but not sure enough to wager on it.
Yeppers.
Hidalgo, Westbeld notch double-doubles as Irish power by No. 5 Virginia Tech 71-58. (The Observer)
Tomorrow. ESPN. Check your local listings.
Great post, MC. I of course saw WBB’s first game in Paris vs South Carolina. Now that the Gamecocks are 20 zillion and 0, that beatdown looks less bad. But even then in her first game Hannah showed a ton of flash. You could tell if she got a handle on some of her excessive energy spurts she was gonna be something else, and lo and behold, she surely is.
Double ditto on your comments re: Sonia and Westbeld.
Overall if they can stay in their recent groove and be consistent, it’ll be fun to see if they can do any damage in the ACC tournament.
Cool fact: Vampire Weekend are playing a midday show at an outdoor venue on 4/8 in Austin. Why midday? So they can be playing during the total solar eclipse!
Unless Bonny Tyler is playing, I’m uninterested
TIL that she annotated the Genius page for the lyrics of that song herself – https://genius.com/21308136
Dear IrishTexan –
Changing the subject, but are you planning to attend the A&M game in person?
I’m hoping to do so, and I could use any advice I can get on how best to get tickets while only paying a reasonable markup. (I would ideally need 6 tickets if possible so I can bring the wife and kids still living at home)
Thanks!
I want to go, but have no concrete plans for getting tickets. I’m not involved in my ND club at all, so I don’t expect to be able to get tickets through them. My dad has some business connections with A&M guys so I’ve asked him if he could try to score some tickets but they’re unlikely to be in a ND friendly section.
Although from my previous time at A&M for our last game there in 2001, the crowd seemed friendly enough. I hope Freeman & Co are able to do something to put them in an ill temper this time, though.
How did you get your tix in 2001, through your dad’s friends?
Huge win for Shrew’s Crew last night. Both men’s and women’s teams look like they’re finally rounding into form.
Great second half for our women! Always good to beat the Cards, and it was really fun to watch (I got ESPN for once on USTVNow!)