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

In the News

The NCAA has passed Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) rules that went into effect yesterday. Buckle up.

Players are already starting to debut their own brands with the new NIL rules. BYU says their NIL must adhere to their honor code system.

Nebraska athletic director Bill Moos is retiring. He had been AD at Washington State and Oregon prior to arriving in Lincoln and also hired Scott Frost.

Things aren’t looking great for Ed Orgeron who is named in a Title IX lawsuit.

Mark Richt has revealed he has Parkinson’s Disease.

Ball State has signed head coach Mike Neu to a new 5-year deal through the 2025 season.

From the Archive

How’d we do ranking the top 25 Notre Dame players ahead of the 2019 season?

The Portal

Devin Auipu was my lowest rated player for the 2021 class and he’s recently announced he’ll be leaving Notre Dame after spending the spring on campus.

LSU starting left tackle Dare Rosenthal is in the Portal after a violation of team rules.

Alabama linebacker King Mwikuta is transferring out of Alabama after 2 years on campus.

West Virginia corner David Vincent-Okoli was the top 2020 recruit for the Mountaineers but is leaving Morgantown.

Helmet Talk

I have been waiting to discuss this one for a while. What do I know about Lehigh University? I know it’s in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, they are in the Patriot League, a friend’s brother played hockey there in the late 1990’s, and they have perhaps the worst helmets in the history of college football.

Actually, I know one more thing. I know that their rival is Lafayette and if I went to that school I’d feel bad for the Lehigh players who have to put on these terribly basic helmets. Do better out there!

Recruiting

Big things are happening! On Tuesday evening Ohio defensive lineman Brenan Vernon (0.990) committed to Notre Dame and becomes one of the top rated Irish recruits in recent memory. He’s from the 2023 class and so is fellow defensive lineman Keon Keeley (91 rating, per Irish Sports Daily) who also committed this week.

Shortly after last week’s Rambler, the Irish picked up a commitment from 2022 offensive lineman Ashton Craig (0.872) who is expected to play center.

Texas receiver Nicholas Anderson (0.915) committed to Oregon after being chased hard by Notre Dame. Oregon also picked up a verbal from Alabama linebacker TJ Dudley (0.920) on Monday.

Wisconsin grabbed in-state offensive lineman Joe Brunner (0.976) this week.

In a bit of a shocker, receiver Talyn Shettron (0.973) flipped from Oklahoma to Oklahoma State.

Ohio State picked up a commitment from Texas cornerback Terrance Brooks (0.974) on Wednesday.

Running back Jamarion Miller (0.930) is staying in-state with the Texas Longhorns.

South Carolina reached into Pennsylvania for offensive lineman Ryan Brubaker (0.909) which is odd.

House of the Week

Looking at this thumbnail had me confused. Wait, Jimmy McNulty lives in a castle in Ireland? How did he pull that off? Turns out Dominic West married an Irish aristocrat! This castle sits in the southwestern part of Ireland in County Limerick, and after attempting to sell it following the death of her father and last male heir, the family decided to operate and keep it themselves.

What can you say? It’s a freaking castle. A flying staircase and an old man riding his horse up them to bed feels like there had to be an accident at some point, no? The couple share a home in London and it seems like McNulty would fit in much better over there, wouldn’t you say?

Tunes

How do we feel about The Weeknd? His 2nd album Beauty Behind the Madness is an instant classic spawning a handful of mega jams and No. 1 hits. His 3rd album Starboy came right afterward and was pretty good but felt like a step back (pretty much anything would) and I thought it was curious that he followed up his success so quickly in an age when you can tour off an album for 3 years if you want.

His Super Bowl performance was really, really bad though. I chalk it up to his inability or decision not to do any dancing. You can’t perform for that long in his line of work, with his type of music, without dancing on stage to an audience of millions. However, his catalog of songs is deep right now and his 2020 album After Hours nearly matches his best yet and “Save Your Tears” is an absolute banger.

On This Day in Sports

On this day in 1941, Joe Dimaggio broke the MLB record for most consecutive games (45) with a hit following a 3-run dinger in the 5th inning against the Red Sox. He’d extend that streak to his now famous 56 games.

At the Cinema

I recently sat down over a few night’s and watched Chinatown while letting my 22-month old calm down before bedtime. This has become my 30-minute Netflix binging time. I really didn’t know anything about this classic which seems odd because of its popularity, especially among film nerds. For whatever reason, it was just one of those Jack Nicholson movies I’ve missed through the years.

I was blown away. It took a bit to get into it (I’m going to need a re-watch to catch some things early that I wasn’t paying attention to for sure) and then really got roaring with the mystery. I personally was completely fooled by Faye Dunaway’s femme fatale set up into the heroine and definitely not ready for the ending.

Hot Take

Does fruit kind of suck? I eat a banana every day for breakfast and have been trying to expand to more fruit, occasionally eating a lunch of melon, strawberries, and grapes when they are in-season. You have no idea how hard it would be for me to eat a whole apple. I can’t do it.

Trivia

Name the 5 quarterbacks in Notre Dame history to throw for at least 3,000 yards in a single season.