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

3 News Stories

#1 It’s time to adjust your schedule for the fall, speak with your family and significant others, and tidy up your travels plans because the Notre Dame home game start times have been released this week. We know the season opens up with a 7:30 PM ET kickoff at Miami followed up by a bye week. The home schedule will then follow up with another night game as Texas A&M comes to town with a trio of 3:30 PM ET starts after that. Notre Dame facing Arkansas for the first time ever and going to Fayetteville on September 27th could make it 3 night games in the first 4 games of the season but we’ll have to wait on that news.

Also, it was reported that the Boise State game would be on Peacock but that has been officially released for the NC State game the following week.

Oddly enough, Syracuse could surprise and be a fun Senior Day night game (featuring Steve Angeli) but we’ll see 7:30 PM starts for USC and…Navy instead. Will NBC have something else to broadcast on the afternoon of November 8th? I’m sure there will be a lot of alcohol consumed at that tailgate to make it all the way to that kickoff against the Middies.

#2 The NFL career of Jaylon Smith appeared to be over. The former Notre Dame superstar was last seen in a Raiders uniform back in 2023 making a couple tackles in one game for the entire season. After making the Pro Bowl in his 3rd season in the NFL with Dallas, Smith’s career fizzled out and he spent 2021 on the Packers and Giants before closing things out briefly with Las Vegas. However, he’s back in the mix!

This week, Smith signed with the Raiders again after impressing during a rookie camp tryout. Although I don’t follow Las Vegas super closely the reporting suggests he’ll have a pretty decent shot at making the roster and playing in the NFL again. Jaylon’s last big contract came with a 5-year extension in Dallas worth $64 million in the summer of 2019 of which $35.5 million was guaranteed.

#3 The ACC meetings kicked off this week in Florida with talks about the possible changed playoff format for 2026. The commissioners from the Power 4 programs have been meeting separately from other playoff leaders trying to come to a consensus on a new format and are still not in agreement. What does seem to be signed, sealed, and delivered for 2026 is a 16-team playoff–but what about the details?

The Big Ten and SEC remain steadfast in implementing their preferred 4-4-2-2-1 format where their leagues get the 4 automatic bids. The ACC and its athletic directors continue to fight for a 3rd automatic qualifier spot. From the negotiations so far, what seems unlikely is that we’ll see any format that includes the Power 4 conference each splitting 3 automatic qualifiers. Momentum for compromise seems to be heading in the direction of the ACC and Big 12 getting their 3rd automatic spot–at the expense of the at-large spots.

Also coming out of the ACC meetings is a preferred straight seeding formula, which would benefit Notre Dame. We’ll have a busy summer of decisions to be made.

Recruiting

Notre Dame’s string of commitments continued recently with Texas defensive lineman Tika Hola (0.9019) coming aboard. He had visited recently with the Irish winning the recruiting battle over USC and SMU. The good news kept coming on Wednesday as Georgia tailback Jonaz Walton (0.9431) pledged to the Irish to give the program one of the top running back classes in the country.

The Irish offered linebacker Toa Satele (0.9470) who is the top rated player in Hawaii for the 2027 class and son of former NFL veteran center Samson Satele.

A big win for Miami as they haul in the Composite no. 1 overall player and offensive tackle Jackson Cantwell (0.9995) who comes out of the state of Missouri.

Edge rusher Richard Wesley (0.9894) who reclassified to 2026 ended up committing to Oregon.

Top 100 recruit and safety Jordan Smith (0.9569) stays in-state with Georgia.

Wide receiver Davion Brown (0.9274) committed to Penn State.

Cornerback Jordan Thomas (0.9286) plays at Bergen Catholic and gave a verbal to Ohio State.

Texas added cornerback/athlete Jermaine Bishop (0.9420) this week.

Mater Dei linebacker Shaun Scott (0.9043) committed to USC.

Uniform of the Week

On May 7th the former Winnipeg Jets, formerly the Phoenix Coyotes, and now formerly the Utah Hockey Club announced they will officially be rebranded as the Utah Mammoth for the 2025-26 NHL season. I’ve been waiting to put down some Thoughts on this design so let’s get to it now:

*Like their current uniforms, my brain cannot process their “rock black” color as anything other than navy blue. I like the colors so it’s okay that they stuck with this palette. Surely a baby blue (officially “mountain blue”) jersey will be coming sooner rather than later.

*People seem to be upset that they’re called “Mammoth” and not the “Mammoths” although I kind of like the way the former sounds.

*Reception so far seems mostly positive overall but I really dislike the main logo. The criticisms of it being too minor league baseball and EA Sports generic create-a-team feel on point. This looks like an expansion project geared towards kids, which isn’t the worst decision to sell apparel and generate excitement, but it’s not aesthetically going to hold up over time.

*Relatedly, can we be done with the cartoon-y side profile animal logos? The NHL isn’t quite as bad of an offender as say the NFL (roughly 80% of the new or redesigned logos for the past 30 years are side profile animals) but this Mammoth logo is like a poor man’s version of the Nashville Predators with a less creative version of the Minnesota Wild. I’m looking at a lineup of all the current NHL logos and I’m telling you the Utah one sticks out as super cheesy.

*That being said, the logo should be on the front of the white jersey, too. My hot take is that the only the Rangers can pull this off and that’s only because they’ve been around for 100 years. It’s way too generic and I would guess Utah will change this within a year or two when 90% of their jersey sales will be with the black one.

TV & Movies

There’s a massive corporate feel to Formula One and no team embodies that more than Mercedes-AMG Petronas (I had to do the complete name for full effect). Sleek and understated, yes. Also, bland and commercial in a way that isn’t always exciting. For example, they recently dropped a documentary on Netflix called The Seat that chronicles Lewis Hamilton leaving and the hiring of teenager Andrea Kimi Antonelli. I didn’t have high hopes, and it was only 45 minutes anyway. A lot of the show includes WhatsApp messages between team members as the drama unfolds. It’s basically a WhatsApp commercial. Even on YouTube the trailer is found on the WhatsApp page:

Antonelli’s rookie season has been going quite well, though. He’s still only 18 years old and sits 6th in the driver’s standings heading into the weekend at Imola in his home country. That includes a sprint pole position and a fastest lap recorded in 2025–both F1 records for the youngest to do that in the sport. The Mercedes car is solid but still finicky in this last year of the regulations, too. If he can keep up this pace he’s on pace to fulfill his massive promise as a future superstar. Can Mercedes hold on to him for years to come?

Tunes

Today’s artist Role Model, birth name Tucker Pillsbury, was originally a rapper. I’m not making this up. Sometime in 2017 he did a hard pivot and has been making pop rock music ever since. He just turned 28 years old yesterday so he’s been around for a while and today’s song “Sally, When the Wine Runs Out” has been his most successful single to date. It’s off his February 2025 album Kansas Anymore (The Longest Goodbye) and the catchy tune and unusual titles to his content caught my attention recently.

This has the sounds of a late 1970’s to early 1980’s song mixed with a late 1990’s vibe that’s got some heavily processed vocals. I’m most impressed by the throwback guitar sound, I mean multiple guitars in a pop song? In this economy? Helping the throwback vibes is the use of the name ‘Sally’ which has plummeted among the most popular girl names in the United States. That name was top 50 in the US in the postwar years but around the time Role Model was born it had dropped back outside the top 600 most popular and is currently outside the top 1,000 baby names. Essentially, Sally is a grandma name to young folks today.