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

3 News Stories

#1 It doesn’t seem long now until we’re going to see NFL-style spring scrimmaging and/or games between college programs during the spring. None other than Deion Sanders floated the idea recently as he met with the media and said he’d like the NCAA to amend the rules so that Colorado can set up some competition during the spring with another program. In response, Syracuse head coach Fran Brown took to social media and said he’d be up for bringing the Orange into the Rockies and compete with the Buffaloes.

Will the NCAA eventually cave on this issue? Will they have the authority to stop it?

I kind of like the idea if only because the February through July off-season is brutally boring for college football now. With the current structure I don’t see it as being realistic nor effective for quality entertainment purposes. If Notre Dame agreed to this, for example, they would be rolling out as many walk-ons as possible during a scrimmage and we’d learn nothing about the players on the roster. If the seasons went back to 10 or 11 games, then maybe there’d be more appetite to really compete against another program for a spring game.

#2 More NIL floodgates were opened earlier this week as the NCAA has agreed to drop its rule disallowing schools from negotiating NIL packages until a student-athlete is enrolled in their school. It’s yet another move inching college sports closer to a pro model as the NCAA decided not to fight federal antitrust lawsuits from several states attorney across the country.

A federal judge granted an injunction last month against the NCAA and now it’s permanent. In a few weeks, the House Settlement is scheduled to be approved where universities will be allowed to offer NIL packages prior to enrollment as part of their athlete financial sharing plan.

The times are a changing.

#3 Did it feel like the college football season just ended? Well, welcome back to spring football! Notre Dame opened up spring workouts on Wednesday in South Bend with the media present for a handful of sessions to see the lads back on the field. Marcus Freeman also met with the press for nearly 30 minutes to provide some updates with the program.

  • They moved back the start of spring practice by 2 weeks due to the late end of the season running through the National Championship and to provide enough focus on the winter strength and conditioning program.
  • Keeping in line with today’s top story above, Freeman was asked about changing spring practice or the spring game. He commented that we will continue with a “version of a spring game” and stressed that holding the Blue-Gold Game is important to the fans and community of Notre Dame fans.
  • Wide receiver Jordan Faison, who spent the bulk of last spring with the lacrosse team, will be working with the football team a little bit more this spring.
  • Freeman has been pleased with how well new DC Chris Ash has gotten all of the defensive assistants on the same page.
  • All 3 quarterbacks (not including true freshman Blake Hebert) will receive reps with the first-team offense and there is no timetable to name a starting quarterback.
  • Also, rising redshirt sophomore Devan Houstan has moved from defensive line to offensive line. We’ll see if this is a permanent move or if it’s just to help out for spring practice. He’s changing his number (see below) so it’s probably for good.
  • New numbers jersey numbers: Leonard Moore #2, CJ Carr #13, Aneyas Williams #22, Devan Houstan #52, Peter Jones #73.

Recruiting

Let us unfurl the Pot of Gold scholarship offer list scroll that came out this past Monday on St. Patrick’s Day:

RB Amir Brown
RB Landen Williams-Callis
RB Myson Johnson-Cook
RB Noah Roberts
RB Honor Fa’alave-Johnson
RB Jaxsen Stokes
RB Isaiah Rogers
RB Elijah Kimble
RB David Gabriel Georges
RB Kemon Spell
RB Terrance Grant Jr
RB Cantrell Eubanks II
WR Zerek Lee Sidney
WR Trenton Yancey
WR Quentin Burrell
WR Julius Jones Jr.
WR Osani Gayles
WR Iveon Lewis
WR Xavier Sabb
WR Julian Caldwell
WR Corey Hadley Jr.
TE Seneca Driver
TE Zac Fares
TE Jack Brown
TE Grant Haviland
TE Brock Williams
OL Maxwell Hiller
OL Cooper Hackett
OL Kennedy Brown
OL Terrance Smith
OL Albert Simien
OL Jake Hildebrand
LB Liufau Loumoli
LB Garyon Hobbs
LB Quinton Cypher
LB Michael Griffin
LB Kaden Henderson
LB Isaiah Leilua
LB Taven Epps
LB Isaiah Phelps
LB Ellis McGaskin
LB Cooper Witten
LB Amarri Irvin
LB Antwoine Higgins Jr.
DE Chris Whitehead
DE Jayce Brewer
DE Rashad Streets
DE Jaylen Mercer
DE Kyng Golston
DE Cameron Pritchett
DE Braden Gordon
DE Frederick Ards III
DE Andrew Rogers
DE Recarder Kitchen
DE Prince Tavizon
DE KJ Green
DE Miles Schirmer
DE Griff Galloway
DE Ty Tautolo
DE David Jacobs Jr.
DE Justin Weeks
DT Benjarvius Shumaker
DT Jamar Thompson
DT Richie Flanigan
DT Sione Felila
DT Brayden Parks
DT Troy Bowens
DT Sam LeJeune
DT JD Jones
DT Elijah Patmon
DT Donivan Moore
DT Deven Robertson
DT KAdrian Redmond
DT Tevita Nonu
DT Elija Harmon
DT Alifeleti Tuihalamaka
DT Jeremiah Williams
DT Montana Toilolo
DT Jon Ioane
CB Jerry Outhouse
CB Jailen Hill
CB Xavier Hasan
CB Censere Gaylord
CB Hayden Stepp
CB Aaryn Washington
CB Ace Alston
CB Josiah Molden
CB Danny Lang
S Marquis Bryant
S Khalil Terry
S Kamarui Dorsey
S Myles Baker
S Isala Aisa Wily-Ava

It’s important to note that Notre Dame had offered 2027 prospects, current high school sophomores, prior to today and that some of these athletes were just waiting to report it for Pot of Gold Day.

California (21), Texas (9), North Carolina (8), Georgia (7), and Florida (7) lead the way with the most offers from Monday’s barrage. Perhaps a surprise with the next most offers–Alabama with 4 overall. We’re coming for those Tide prospects! I’ll also point out 3 offers in the state of Mississippi which definitely isn’t something you see every day.

We continue to see some outrageous names these days from young people.

Some names to notice include Alifeleti Tuihalamaka, the little brother of current Irish defensive end Junior Tuihalamaka. He goes to Oaks Christian and weighs 260 pounds already.

Cooper Witten is the son of Jason Witten and a safety/linebacker prospect already considered a 5-star and one of the best players in the state of Texas.

Julius Jones, Jr. is an unmistakable name for Notre Dame fans. The son of the former Irish running back is a 5-star wide receiver at St. Thomas Aquinas in Florida. I’m underselling him, he’s the Composite no. 1 wideout in the 2027 class although listed at only 5’10” and 160 pounds.

Uniform of the Week

Just like LSU, the Clemson Tigers underutilize the color purple in their uniforms. LSU isn’t quite as bad of an offender but in the Dabo Swinney era they’ve really moved away from purple except on Military Appreciation Day at home when they wear all purple uniforms with their standard orange helmets. It doesn’t take much to drag Clemson, but they have a sharp color scheme that has been made to be really boring and sterile over the last decade-plus.

Video game GOD.

Their standard white pants feature zero purple, it’s outrageous. Look at their early 2000’s uniforms above with Woody Dantzler at quarterback. Purple pants with stylish stripes. Drop shadow numbers with more purple and sneaky cool striping on the collar and sleeves, too. This is so much more fun than what they are currently doing with their uniforms.

TV& Movies

If you’ve been anywhere near social media lately you’ve heard the celebration of Parker Posey’s southern accent from White Lotus (Piper nooooo!). Recently, on the Rewatchables podcast the 2000 comedy Best in Show was covered and it reminded me of Posey’s character in the movie (she gets the thumbnail picture below too!) and just how funny everything was in this film.

Christopher Guest, what a genius. I was surprised to learn that he’s married to Jamie Lee Curtis, how did I not know this? Also, he’s developing the story for Spinal Tap II that has a TBD release date. Guest hasn’t really done much work in recent years (Mascots in 2016 was his last movie and I definitely did not see that) so the pressure is on to follow up one of the best mockumentary’s ever created.

Tunes

Would you ever have imagined that Ray LaMontagne and this voice is from a guy who was born in New Hampshire and lived his pre-music career there and in Utah and Maine? Only his last name is a giveaway of his roots in the American northeast, otherwise you could be forgiven if you thought he was from a small town in Arkansas or Texas. As a frequent listener of the Spectrum channel on Sirius XM I’ve heard LaMontagne’s single “Step Into Your Power” a few times.

He’s got quite the voice. I know a handful of other LaMontagne songs and they are nice, he’s a real emotional singer. Maybe at times it’s a little too slow and sappy for my tastes–but I like that once and a while. This faster paced song, released last summer as the first single from his 9th album Long Way Home, has a foot-tapping groovy beat.