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

3 News Stories

#1 More coaching salary news this week as Coach Prime inked a new contract extension at Colorado that will see the third-year Buffaloes leader stay through the 2029 season. According to reports, Sanders’ new annual salary will be $10 million and climbs up to $12 by the 2029 season. The buy out figures are pretty friendly for Colorado, though. It starts at $12 million today and would be under $5 million by the back end of the contract.

That seems like way too much money for a coach with 13 wins in 2 seasons in Boulder, but there’s no denying Sanders is driving a ton of new revenue to the school. I would imagine even this hefty coaching contract is far worth it to the school whose enrollment has increased, football home games are selling out again, and people are watching Colorado play football in numbers not seen in many years, perhaps a few decades?

#2 Leave it to Stanford to do something outside of the box. Less than a week after firing head coach Troy Taylor the school has turned to Frank Reich to lead the football program but only on an interim basis for the 2025 season. Reich overlapped with Stanford GM Andrew Luck on the Indianapolis Colts during the 2018 season shortly before Luck abruptly retired from the NFL. On his recent resume, Reich spent 5 years with the Colts, an additional season with the Carolina Panthers, and did not work during the 2024 season.

Reich is the first NFL head coach to be fired mid-season in back-to-back years, welcome to Stanford!

I’m sure Luck had his reasons, chief among them believing a NFL name whom he’s familiar with can bring stability to a program that just launched its coach in embarrassing fashion. It’s still pretty weird. Now it feels like there’s even more pressure to nail the long-term hire for 2026 and beyond after buying more time. Yet, it’s difficult to overlook Frank Reich’s *zero* years of college coaching and the struggles he may go through at a place like Stanford currently dealing with the messy NIL era and transition to the ACC.

By the way, Stanford has 3 commits right now in the 2026 class.

#3 A backup quarterback has made national news for transferring. Yes, it’s Drew Pyne leaving Missouri and entering the transfer portal again while seeking a 4th school in his career. The former Irish quarterback was classmates in 2020 with Jordan Botelho and Kevin Bauman who remain on Notre Dame’s roster in 2025, as well. What a career to date:

2020: Saw mop-up duty in 4 games, throwing passes in only 2 of them–including the playoff loss to Alabama.

2021: Played in only 2 games, the back-to-back crazy ending against Wisconsin followed up by the tough loss to Cincinnati.

2022: Takes over after nearly 2 games of the Tyler Buchner Experience, looking back his numbers weren’t that bad! Just over 2,000 yards with 22 touchdowns and 6 interceptions. But, he hit the portal in mid-December and we got the Tyler Buchner Experience in the bowl game against South Carolina.

2023: Transfers to Arizona State where he loses the quarterback competition. Pyne saw action in 2 games again, back-to-back once more, but struggled to look comfortable.

2024: Transfers to Missouri where he saw some mop-up duty, filled in briefly during a comeback win over Auburn, and ended his career with the Tigers playing in 2 insane games. First, a 3 interception debacle against Alabama followed up by a 3 touchdown comeback win over Oklahoma. Will that be Pyne’s final college moments?

Recruiting

One of Notre Dame’s top recruiting targets has quickly narrowed down his decision making process. Running back Javian Osborne (0.9597) from Forney, Texas in the northeast of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex will pick between Notre Dame and Michigan.

Osborne had been heavily involved with Texas but he’s since dropped the Horns following running backs coach Tashard Choice’s decision to join the Detroit Lions. Michigan was probably next up after Texas once upon a time but following an unofficial visit to South Bend, Osborne made this announcement and things are trending towards the Irish. He’s set to officially visit both schools in June but he may not wait that long to make a decision.

There are positive vibes with wide receiver Kaydon Finley (0.9518) after an unofficial visit this past weekend, so that’s something to monitor.

Ohio State dipped into Louisiana to pull the Composite no. 1 safety Blaine Bradford (0.9871) from out of Baton Rouge. The Buckeyes also added another top safety in Simeon Caldwell (0.9548) this week.

Mater Dei defensive lineman Tomuhini Topui (0.9417) has committed to USC. He was previously committed to Oregon.

Uniform of the Week

You know how trends go in sports and especially with younger people. They’ll take something and absolutely run it into the ground. I think we’re approaching that mark with the baby blue football uniforms. Houston famously wore Oilers throwbacks. Last year, Rice randomly did too getting on the old Houston NFL franchise bandwagon look. Add Louisiana Tech to the list. Of course, it’s something Ole Miss is known for and Tulane as well. North Carolina can do as it pleases with the color. It’s when a school uses baby blue and it’s not a school color that we have a problem.

What the hell is this baby blue, Liberty? This is not okay. First of all, this school needs work with its logos. I don’t think there’s a school in the country doing a worse job given they have the cool and interesting Flames nickname. The Liberty logos are all terrible. You can’t incorporate some fire into anything? Why such bland script logos for this uniform? Why the red script on the jersey but not on the helmet?

TV & Movies

I was all Boston focused for this section because I wanted to discuss the Celtics City documentary on Max but haven’t had time to watch it yet. It’s an incredible 9 hours long, so that might have to wait a while. I did watch the The Comeback on Netflix a while back and really, really enjoyed it. That 2004 run by the Red Sox was the last time I was invested in–and more importantly around friends invested in–a baseball playoff campaign. I don’t watch much baseball anymore, as I’ve mentioned a bunch of time on the Rambler.

Then, I found it odd less than a year after coming out with The Comeback we now have the Red Sox featured in The Clubhouse: A Year with the Red Sox on Netflix again. I’m sure Netflix wasn’t too happy to see the Sox finish with a 81-81 record and in 3rd place in the American League East division. The trailer is basically “baseball is important in Boston and it’s hard to be a baseball player in the major leagues!” Feel the drama and excitement.

Tunes

I know I’m getting old and out of touch. I’ll still let some hot takes fly, though. Atlanta rapper Playboi Cardi released his second studio album titled Music recently. I only stumbled upon this because his tracks are all over the charts. How much, you ask? As of March 30th, Playboi Cardi had songs residing at 2, 4, 17, 20, 25, 27, 28, 33, 34, 38, 41, 43, 46, 48, 49, 52-56, 58, 65, 69, 71, 75, 80, 85, 86, 88, and 96 on the Billboard Hot 100 tracks. He also had a feature with another artist at 23rd on the chart. What the hell is going on?

Full disclosure, this type of rap isn’t for me and that’s okay. Playboi’s lyrics are pretty interesting, certainly there are way, way worse rappers out there in the music industry. If I could make one change to this type of music it’s to return to a more raw drum sound. This trap music has drums that are way too dainty sounding–and it’s compounded by the fact that many tracks just repeat the same overly electronic drum tracks. The bass in the above song “Evil J0rdan” is really big and booming. Put some drums on that like the Wu-Tang Clan would do, please. I’d say about half the Notre Dame football team is vibing to this new album right now. Kids!