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

3 News Stories

#1 I’ll have a few more thoughts next week in a different article but pour one out for the Notre Dame career of quarterback Steve Angeli coming to an end last week. On Wednesday night, Angeli made it official and will be transferring to Syracuse after graduating from Notre Dame this spring. After being linked to a few other schools, going to Syracuse will make a lot of sense. Fran Brown firmly moved into Doing Good Things™ territory last year with a 10-3 season and a resurrection of Ohio State transfer Kyle McCord’s career with the no. 10 offense (one spot below Notre Dame) according to FEI.

Syracuse traveling to Notre Dame for a game would complicate matters a little bit with the transfer. However, we may need the extra spiciness. Remember, the back half of this 2025 Irish schedule is something horrid to witness. At Boston College, home vs. Navy, at Pittsburgh, home to Syracuse, and the finale at Stanford. I’ll take Peanut Butter playing well and giving us a game, just as long as Notre Dame wins of course.

#2 The Nico Iamaleava transfer saga started off weird and has continued to stay weird. This past Sunday, the former 5-star transferred to UCLA after Tennessee reportedly rejected his demands on increasing his NIL payments in Knoxville. The move ended up costing him upwards of $1 million annually in NIL money but who are we to judge such decisions, right? I’d also factor in the cost of living going up in Los Angeles compared to Tennessee.

Two days later, Nico’s younger brother and current true freshman Madden Iamaleava decided to leave Arkansas after enrolling early and will head to…you guessed it…UCLA. The Hogs aren’t backing down and are reportedly demanding Madden pay his NIL buyout as these things are built into player contracts now.

Soap opera alert. 

Perhaps the best part of the saga is Joey Aguilar who just moved from Appalachian State to UCLA this off-season and has now bolted to…Tennessee. He was quite productive with the Mountaineers with 6,760 passing yards and 56 touchdowns in just 2 seasons, although he did yolo 24 interceptions into the mix. What I would give for UCLA and Tennessee to play each other in 2025.

#3 Checking back in on the House settlement and federal judge Claudia Wilken delayed her decision on a ruling that could be one of the biggest in the history of collegiate sports. To recap, Wilken wants to grandfather in current rostered athletes so as to avoid chaos as this ruling is expected to go into effect beginning this summer for the 2025-26 academic school year. The NCAA has argued, there are nearly 5,000 student-athletes in the transfer portal and many of these schools have already made plans to shape their roster around the impending salary cap.

I kind of get the NCAA thinking here. The portal has been here for a while, student-athletes know what is coming, and we might as well rip the band-aid off now. Every school is treating things a little differently but there will still be roster cuts and students left without a home no matter what happens. I don’t see an easy way out of this decision. If you grandfather in rostered players now that could lead to even worse chaos down the road maybe.

Recruiting

Two more commits came into the Irish fold recently. First up we’ll discuss wide receiver Bubba Frazier (0.8914) from Georgia and the Catholic military school Benedictine in Savannah. He’s a speedy slot receiver with a track background and has rushing and returning capabilities, as well.

The offensive line room grew again with tackle prospect Gregory Patrick (0.9280) committing out of Portage, Michigan south of Kalamazoo and not terribly far from South Bend. Four out of the 11 verbals for the Irish right now reside on the offensive line.

Notre Dame offered running back Derrek Cooper (0.9846) out of Chaminade-Madonna in Hollywood, Florida this week. Other new offers include Pennsylvania defensive lineman Tavian Branch (NR), Texas defensive lineman Alister Vallejo (NR), and Texas receiver Jayden Warren (0.9412).

2027 tight end Jaxon Dollar (NR) from North Carolina was also offered by Notre Dame.

Texas A&M went into Toledo to snatch corner Victor Singleton (0.9598) out of the Midwest.

Quarterback Jett Thomalla (0.9095) committed to Iowa State.

Offensive tackle Kodi Greene (0.9878) decommitted from Oregon and is now a verbal to Washington.

BYU picked up a big prospect in tackle Bott Mulitalo (0.9323) out of American Fork, Utah.

Notre Dame had recently offered wide receiver Gordon Sellars (0.9232) then he committed to Clemson.

Uniform of the Week

Lots of orange talk today. It’s nearly softball season for the Murt kids here in New York and as a parent I really dislike participating in this. So far, they’ve enjoyed all the sports they’ve played but I’m hoping and waiting for that time to come when they decide maybe this isn’t worth their time. Even so, we’ll throw on a little college softball at home and I was recently watching a game between Tennessee and Texas with the Vols upsetting the then no. 1 Longhorns. I couldn’t help but notice the difference in uniforms.

Pinstriped burnt orange with a while belt? Absolutely not. On the other side, Tennessee looked so fresh with their own white pinstriped uniforms with orange trim. I also love how they separated the orange “Lady Vols” with the baby blue player numbers. I’m a big, big fan of sports teams doing this (like the Los Angeles Dodgers). The helmets? An immaculate touch of baby blue with orange trim and facemasks. I was checking out the rest of the Tennessee Lady Vols softball uniforms and they are killing it. In general, fashion in women’s softball (and collegiate baseball) is at an all-time high in terms of options and designs. These schools are out there taking chances, and while it’s not always good, I like the attempt.

TV & Movies

Back on April 1st, and this wasn’t an April Fool’s prank, Sony Pictures unveiled the actors set to play The Beatles in the upcoming biopic: Paul Mescal (Paul McCartney), Harris Dickinson (John Lennon), Barry Keoghan (Ringo Starr), and Joseph Quinn (George Harrison). Filming for the project will begin this July with a release date set for April 2028. I don’t know Dickinson or Quinn very well but Mescal and Keoghan are legit famous. Interestingly, none of the actors are from Liverpool and both Mescal and Keoghan are Irish.

A few thoughts on the project…

  • Apple Corps and the 2 surviving Beatles along with the estates of Lennon and Harrison greenlighting this project is bonkers to me. Remember, Sony is releasing 4 SEPARATE FILMS CLOSE TOGETHER. From the press releases it looks like they’ll drop the movies all within April 2028, so likely one per week. This is right up my alley but I’m not sure I can muster the time and effort to go to the movie theater 4 straight weeks, I’m sorry. This sounds like a terrible idea. That’ll be streaming at home all the way for me.
  • I don’t hate the 4-movie idea and it’ll be interesting to see how they interweave all 4 members of the band while at the same time giving each their own film and story to tell. Sam Mendes as a director could be great or terrible. He has a well-rounded background of movies/TV/theater but strictly in terms of movies I think he’s an underwhelming choice.
  • With the Beatles permission we’re sure to see music from their catalog included in the films. Will they overdub singing? Is there going to be way too many songs? Modern movies tend to turn into 2-hour music videos and I would hope this project doesn’t fall into that trap.

Tunes

I recently stumbled upon a band called The Marias named after lead singer Maria Zardoya who was born in Puerto Rico, grew up in Atlanta, and formed this group out of Los Angeles. Like a lot of groups, The Marias may be set for a late bloom. I caught their song “No One Noticed” recently and despite being on the charts for over half a year it’s now making some noise nationally, peaking at no. 22 according to Billboard at last check. The band’s 2nd studio album Submarine came out almost a year ago and they just dropped 2 new singles this month so a new album could be coming out sometime later in 2025.

The Marias have the indie pop label and that fits well. Zardoya sings with a really soft voice most of the time and they also mix in quite a bit of Spanish lyrics, too. The band were opening for Billie Eilish which gave them a ton of exposure. The singer and drummer used to date each other, which if my research is correct, seems to be driving quite a bit of their past and current music. If they can make that work, good on them.