Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
Top News
Notre Dame’s 2023 football schedule was finalized on Wednesday. With the week 0 game in Ireland the schedule will feature 2 (bizarrely placed) bye weeks for the Irish.
Aug. 26 vs. Navy [Dublin]
Sept. 2 vs. Tennessee State
Sept. 9 at NC State
Sept. 16 vs. Central Michigan
Sept. 23 vs. Ohio State
Sept. 30 at Duke
Oct. 7 at Louisville
Oct. 14 vs. USC
Oct. 21 BYE
Oct. 28 vs. Pitt
Nov. 4 at Clemson
Nov. 11 BYE
Nov. 18 vs. Wake
Nov. 25 at Stanford
Kathryn Tappen is moving from Notre Dame’s halftime show back to sideline reporting for NBC and their Big Ten coverage.
According to the University of Michigan President, football head coach Jim Harbaugh will be staying at the school and not taking a job in the NFL, although Jim has not been cooperating with the NCAA investigation according to reports. Also, co-OC Matt Weiss has been put on administrative leave after a police investigation into “computer access crimes.” Nice school.
Ohio State quarterback CJ Stroud has declared for the NFL Draft despite speculation this week that a NIL package in Columbus would be enough to keep him with the Buckeyes.
USC top wideout Jordan Addison is off to the NFL.
TCU’s top rusher Keandre Miller and top receiver Quentin Johnston are headed to the NFL Draft.
The 2023 Blue-Gold Game will be held on April 22nd and be streamed on Peacock.
Notre Dame portal target receiver C.J. Williams has transferred from USC to Wisconsin.
Former LSU quarterback Walker Howard is transferring to Ole Miss. So too, is Oklahoma State’s Spencer Sanders.
Former Notre Dame defensive lineman Ovie Oghoufo has transferred from Texas to reunite with Brian Kelly at LSU.
Tragic news out of Athens as Georgia offensive lineman Devin Willock and a Bulldogs recruiting staff member were killed in a car crash on Sunday morning.
Clemson has hired TCU’s Garrett Riley as their new offensive coordinator. The Horned Frogs are signing Arkansas’ Kendal Briles to be their new OC. Arkansas is expected to take Maryland OC Dan Enos in Fayetteville.
Alabama defensive coordinator Pete Golding is leaving for the same job at Ole Miss.
Ohio State has promoted wide receivers coach Brian Hartline to offensive coordinator.
California wide receiver J Michael Sturdivant has transferred to UCLA.
Louisville has hired Brian Brohm as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
Uniform of the Week
You can’t go wrong with matching your helmet and pants, this is the uniform code for football. For some reason, this is something that the Florida Gators refuse to do often. I’m a big fan of Florida’s colors and overall uniform combinations, although perhaps surprisingly I think their traditional home uniform (orange helmet, blue jersey, white pants) may be among the weakest they can offer. I really like when they wear blue pants with their road white jerseys, something they do often.
When Florida wears their orange pants it’s something special. They do so occasionally with their road uniforms and it’s a fantastic look. They very rarely (at least in modern times) wear the orange pants with the blue jerseys which may be my favorite combination of theirs. I don’t believe they’ve worn this since the 2013 Sugar Bowl pictured above. On that evening, the Teddy Bridgewater-led Louisville Cardinals upset the 11-1 Gators led by Jeff Driskell.
Recruiting
Georgia brought in top safety Peyton Woodyard last week and gained a commit from another top safety Jaylen Hayward (0.9807) just six days later. That must be nice.
Top tight end Christian Bentancur (0.9495) committed to Clemson.
One of the best west coast running backs Jordan Washington (0.9405) committed to Arizona.
Texas doesn’t appear to be bringing in a top quarterback behind Arch Manning as Cy-Fair’s Trey Owens (0.8759) committed to the Horns.
Linebacker Anthony Speca (0.8951) has committed to Penn State.
Back in the 2023 class, quarterback Jaden Rashada has filed for a LOI release from Florida after his rumored $13 million NIL promise fell through. What a sport.
YouTube Channel
So, I’m recently searching the world wide web for the best board games of all-time The vast majority of my time playing any games were with my parents and brother, rarely was it something I did with friends. Pictionary, Game of Life, Battleship, Trivial Pursuit, Clue, and Monopoly were some of the games we poured hours into and they are among the best selling board games of all-time. We were also a Scrabble family when I got older, too.
I went searching on YouTube to see what some of the top games are and holy moly I have never heard of so many of these games. First of all, the reviews are somewhere in the neighborhood of 95% white men with facial hair in what I can only describe feels like the Catanification of board games. The cross-over between people playing World of Warcraft and rating board games on YouTube is at an all-time high. Either way, it seems like board games may have upped their game big time and I feel completely out of touch with new things that are available.
Tunes
Things like bad lip reading and silent music videos are among the funniest videos to consume online. Was it 3-4 years ago when the NFL Bad Lip Reading videos took over the internet for a few weeks? I still chuckle at some of those lines. At some point long ago I came across several of the silent music videos (and as I’ve chronicled here many times, I’m a child of MTV) and some of them make me absolutely lose it. The best example is the 1985 “Dancing in the Street” chaos created by David Bowie and Mick Jagger.
I always thought this song and video were so unnecessary. Roughly a dozen major acts had covered the song in the 20 years since it was first released. Yes, Bowie and Jagger did it to raise money for Live Aid. It worked, the song went to no. 1 in the UK for 4 weeks. They recorded the song one day in the summer of 1985 and went immediately to the Millennium Mills that night to film the video. It’s pure lunacy. You could argue neither star ever recovered from it.
Trivia
Which non-linebacker had the most tackles for Notre Dame in 2022?
The Other Football
Well, the North London Derby was a disaster for dear old Tottenham Hotspur as Arsenal won it easily 2-0 on the road. It’s one thing to be having an existential crisis about Spurs (that’s comfortable!) as manager Antonio Conte’s contract is ending in June but witnessing Arsenal winning the league makes me want to quit sports forever.
Chelsea’s spending spree continues to show no slowing down as they swoop in for Shakhtar winger Mykhailo Mudryk for over $108 million. The Shakhtar owner pledged $25 million of that money to the Ukrainian war effort, so that’s cool.
After missing out on Mudryk, Arsenal are poised to sign Brighton winger Leandro Trossard for $25 million.
Barcelona embarrassed Real Madrid 3-1 in the Spanish Supercopa Final.
Colombian forward Jhon Duran is headed to Aston Villa from Chicago Fire for a club-record fee of $18 million.
Streaming
I have a hard time getting into musicals. Especially really peppy musicals that love to just smiley musical themselves to death. Artistically, I’ve always found it weird to tell us a story and have people break out in large coordinated dancing and singing scenes all the time. In my brain, operas at least make a little more sense. You can imagine my surprise when John Travolta popped up in the 2007 musical film Hairspray as the role of the protagonist’s mother.
No doubt, Travolta was going through a rough patch in the late 1990’s and into the 2000’s but I thought he was coming back after the 2005 film Be Cool. This movie got really good reviews and a decent amount of critical acclaim, too. Like I said, it wasn’t for me. To this day though, when I think about Travolta my mind goes to Grease, Saturday Night Fever, then him looking like absolute nightmare fuel 1960’s mom.
A Look Back
Notre Dame could be playing Phil Jurkovec again in 2023. It would be the 3rd time but the former Notre Dame quarterback sat out this past year’s game in South Bend with an injury. Now with his third school at Pitt, their program is set to come to Notre Dame on October 28th.
Today, we look back to the 2020 visit to Boston College when Jurkovec threw 40 passes and nearly put up 4 or 5 interceptions. The game was close for a while before Notre Dame pulled away towards the end of the 1st half. Also, this featured BC in their red bandana road uniforms which meant the Irish were wearing their home blue jerseys. I wonder what the last true road game to feature Notre Dame in blue was before this? Perhaps trivia for another week!
18S Paddock Club
Previewing each team on the grid for the 2023 season…
Team: Alpine
Founded: 2016 (as Renault)
2022 Result: 4th
Base: Viry-Châtillon, France & Enstone, England
Owners: Groupe Renault
Power Unit: Renault
Team Principal: Otmar Szafnauer
Drivers: Esteban Ocon (6th season) & Pierre Gasly (6th season, 1st with Alpine)
The Good: Alpine took to the new regulations really well and brought a much more powerful engine that on its day was able to race neck and neck against Mercedes as the 3rd best team on the grid. We’ll always have both drivers racing each other like maniacs in Jeddah last year. Ocon continued to develop into a very solid driver finishing with his most points ever in a season.
The Bad: The reliability of the Alpine, particularly for Alonso, was atrocious. The team should’ve cruised to 3rd place quite easily but dropped so many points with car problems. They were taken by surprise when Alonso announced he was leaving for Aston Martin and completely bungled a possible generational young talent in Oscar Piastri and his contract. Or should we say, non-contract.
2023 Hope: Alpine were the brunt of many jokes and for several weeks faced the reality of bringing in a super unproven young driver or adding a veteran re-tread from off the grid to replace Alonso. They were lucky that Red Bull let Pierre Gasly out of his contract to make an all-French lineup with the only French team in Formula One. There’s a history that the Ocon and Gasly families (as well as the drivers themselves) do not like each other, which could get spicy. If reliability can be improved Alpine could really put together a fun 2023 but this also feels like an incredibly volatile team right now.
Trivia Answer:
Safety D.J. Brown, 48 tackles
Of the “classic” board games, a lot of them have had rule changes in the past 25 years which make them very different. Off the top of my head, I’m aware of Sorry!, Trouble, Guess Who? and Pictionary all having changed their rules (and ultimately their gameplay). Not really sure why game makers have done this, but I don’t think it’s made for a better having experience. As to your point of “Catanification” there has been an influx of European board games – Catan, Ticket to Ride, Power Grid, Le Havre – in the past 15 years. There’s definitely a much steeper learning curve with these games, but once you learn them, I think it’s a lot more fun than the “classics” mentioned earlier.
Ticket to Ride is pretty fun. It takes a round to figure it out, but it’s very simple once you do. My favorite thing about it is that it takes a while, usually 1-2 hours, but does end, unlike Monopoly.
And also unlike Monopoly, the results of TTR aren’t obvious for the last 20 minutes of the game, just waiting for the other player(s) to quit/flip the board over.
Very true. And even when you get blocked and know you’re going to lose, you can still do everything in your power to screw over others. Vengeance!
Just call Tottenham the Abu Dhabi Royal Family, because they own City
Got some warm milk over here
Go City.
Mike Brey is announcing his retirement following the season tomorrow. I’m glad he’s willing to manage his step away with the University so that we can all celebrate everything he did for more than two decades.
“The reviews are somewhere in the neighborhood of 95% white men with facial hair […] playing World of Warcraft.”
Wow I am catching some strays here this week!
On the topic of that Pitt game in October: my wife talked about us going around that time (it’s near my birthday) provided I asked about what a game is like with a newborn. She’d be 40 weeks old that weekend if that matters. I’ve been to plenty of Notre Dame games, some with young kids, but never that young and never my own, so any advice would be helpful!
Friendly strays.
40-week old at a game does not sound like a good time to me, but maybe it’s okay!?
40 weeks might be a tad young. I was 16 months at my first game, ND Army ’47, as Terry Brennan ran the opening kickoff 97 yards my mother had to save me as my father unceremoniously was dumping me, I am reliably informed. I took my older son to ND-Michigan in ’92, the tie game, he was a tad over two years and a very good kid, though he did fall asleep during Reggie Brooks insanely good TD run. My conclusion from all this is that it’s going to be a genuine two adult minimum drill, and plenty of distractions from the game, but it can be a memorable event.
Walter Rouse, LOT from Stanford, announced his transfer to Nebraska and Matt Rhule (1/11). Three days later Rouse changed his mind based on faith and gut instinct and will play for Oklahoma. The Crimson and Cream collective announcement (below) came a day before Rouse committed. It’s expected to amount to $45-50k per player.
Oklahoma-focused Crimson and Cream announces teamwide NIL deal for football roster
Texas Tech ($25k per), SMU ($36k per), and Baylor collectives have similar deals for teamwide players. Oklahoma’s per player deals weren’t published.
Last year, six OU OLinemen were included in a national deal to promote Hooters.
Fixed it.
Certainly chowing down wings at Hooters and enjoying the sights may be a religion to many, Hooters is for profit but has a non-profit division qualifying for tax exempt status as a IRS 501(c)(3) foundation. With a rash of NIL collectives filing for that status has occasioned Congress to take note, those bills will probably go nowhere. Texas, for instance, with mergers now has only one NIL collective and it is registered as a 501(c)(3). I imagine they would guide local business with tax exempt donations implications as well as assist “student athletes” in their contributions to the community businesses like a deserving faith-based chain and their endowed representatives.
Cornhusker Nation was not happy with Rouse’s last minute decision including questioning his integrity, character in pursuit of profit and the cons of transfers for NIL rewards.
Why are U.S. Senators introducing bill targeting 501(c)(3) NIL collectives?
YMMV, but IMO working for the employer who offers you the most money is not really a character flaw
The Duke game is on my birthday and the gamecocks are out of town so I will be attending at least two ND games (@ Clemson too lol)
here’s hoping it goes as well as it did last season
As one of the resident board game nerds here, I’ve gotta say the transition to new/interesting games has been pretty great. It’s nice getting away from some of the old games that suffer from the “game is decided but we still have to sit here for 2 hrs to play it out” disease, king-maker problems where the person in last gets to decide who wins or generically boring/limited game play where the only variety in play is which type of animal you’re drawing/describing/pantomiming this time.
As DrIck said, some of the results of the Catanification have a much steeper learning curve, which isn’t always ideal but the added complexity of some of the games makes them stay fun a whole lot longer. Meanwhile, there are other games being developed that are easy, beautiful/well made and somehow still have layers of strategy/skill.
Azul, Dominion, 7 Wonders (or 7 Wonders Duel for 2 people), Patchwork, Splendor, Codenames and Pandemic are all interesting, yet easy/simple with very small learning curves.
All that to say that while the middle aged white dude with facial hair youtuber contingent pushing the “most complex games = best” may make it a little daunting, there’s a lot of entry points for great but simpler games that you will actually enjoy playing and are worth the look.
Where the hell did this guy come from?!?
lol, i thought the same thing. Editor? What? Since when?
He’s been an editor this whole time, he’s just been reading the rules for 8 years before getting crafting his first post.
lol
Used to do some basketball writing. Then the basketball team sucked the fun out of anything/everything and I stopped writing anything.
Now Brey is gone and I feel free again!
Seems a bit harsh to Mike Brey.
I don’t blame you!