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

Top News

Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden has signed a new 4-year contract to stay in South Bend through the 2027 season. The Irish also promoted Max Bullough to linebackers coach, cornerback coach Mike Mickens to defensive back coach, and running backs coach Deland McCullough to associate head coach.

Jac Collinsworth is no longer the Notre Dame on NBC play-by-play man and will be replaced by Dan Hicks.

The College Football Playoff has officially voted in the new 5+7 format effective for the 2024 and 2025 seasons. Now there will be only 5 automatic qualifier spots for conference champions with the collapse of the Pac-12.

Also, a 14-team playoff for 2026 was discussed this week at CFP meetings. According to Ross Dellenger from Yahoo Sports, the SEC and Big Ten are pushing for a larger pool of automatic qualifiers in a 14-team field that would preserve 1 AQ spot for the Group of 5, with possibly as many as 12 AQ slots overall, and byes to the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country. Reportedly, the Big Ten and SEC want 4 AQ spots EACH and are lobbying for this to happen.

The Pac-12 has fired commissioner George Kliavkoff. The presidents of Oregon State and Washington State have appointed Teresa Gould as the new commissioner.

Alabama has hired Nick Sheridan as offensive coordinator with JaMarcus Shepard as co-offensive coordinator.

Notre Dame has officially announced the program will be in the upcoming NCAA Football 25 video game this summer. Additionally, more details have come out about the game including:

  • Players who opt in to the game will receive $600 and a free copy
  • NIL will be a part of the game in dynasty and Road to Glory modes
  • The transfer portal will be included
  • All 134 FBS teams, the 12-team playoff, and all bowl games will be present
  • Conference customization will be included in some form
  • Players will not be allowed to create an athlete who does not opt in to being in the game
  • FCS will not be included for this year but is a focus for future games
  • Real-life coaches will not be in the game, but could be in the future
  • Playbooks based on each school’s identity will be in the game
  • All 2024 uniforms, plus alternates will be included

Desiree Reed-Francois is moving from Missouri to Arizona as their new athletic director.

Steve Sarkisian’s raise with Texas has been passed and he’ll be making $10.3 million per year.

Uniform of the Week

I was watching some college hoops this past weekend and caught the end of the Ohio State upset over Purdue. During that game they were showing some highlights of USF caught my attention. They ended up beating no. 24 FAU by 4 at home but I was drawn to their uniforms, of course. Check out this shade of green!

I poked around their social media and apparently they are calling this color ‘slime’ and they’ve used a few different iterations of this shade over the past several years. I think it looks pretty interesting with the black trim. Of course this reminds everyone of the old Notre Dame shamrock shake basketball uniforms. Will they ever be brought back?

Recruiting

Notre Dame picked up a commitment from Ohio wide receiver Shaun Terry (0.8750) on Sunday. A couple days later, Connecticut offensive lineman Matty Augustine (0.8859) also committed to the Irish.

Running back Deondrae Riden (0.9237) committed to Texas A&M.

Interior offensive lineman Peyton Joseph (0.9485) gave a verbal to Florida.

YouTube Channel

Jaromir Jagr turned 52 years old this month and is only experiencing his 6th season without NHL hockey. Recently, the Pittsburgh Penguins retired his no. 68 and sent it to the rafters at the PPG Paints Arena to join Mario Lemieux and Michel Briere. Of course, Jagr played his entire career with Pittsburgh at the old Civic Center aka “The Igloo.” He ended his NHL career with an eye-watering 1,921 points and 766 goals. What’s even more fun, is that Jagr is still playing professional hockey to this day.

Back in his native Czech Republic, he’s still suiting up for his local Kladno Knights and played in 15 games so far in 2023-24, or roughly half of the games. So far, he’s been held without a goal and has picked up 4 assists. Jagr clearly isn’t married, although he is currently dating someone. Can anyone get him to finally hang up the skates? Will it ever happen?

Tunes

I’ve been checking out as many NPR Tiny Desk concerts as I can while surfing YouTube and the British rock band Idles popped up recently. Is anyone a big fan of the group? This performance below from the summer of 2019 was pretty fun. Lead singer Joe Talbot seems like quite an interesting front man. He’s had a really challenging life but packs such a great rock voice with this band.

Idles released their 5th studio album Tangk just a few days ago and are making the rounds across the United States to promote it. I like their sounds in small doses but overall wouldn’t enjoy listening to a full album I don’t think. I do like the vibes of the band, though. I feel like the world needs more musicians and groups that write and perform songs like this. Just to get the juices flowing once and a while.

Trivia

What were the names of the brothers who wrote the Notre Dame “Victory March”?

The Other Football

The top 4 in the Premier League all won this past weekend with Liverpool then holding a slim 1-point advantage over Manchester City for the top spot. Spurs lost to Wolves and are just 3 points ahead of Manchester United for 5th place. Liverpool won Wednesday 4-1 against Luton Town and push their 1st place lead back to 4 points.

In the Champions League round of 16, a late stunner by Porto saw them past Arsenal 1-0 during the 1st leg. In other action, Barcelona and Napoli drew 1-1.

Liverpool foward Diogo Jota is out several months with a leg injury.

USWNT winger Mia Fishel has torn her ACL. The Americans opened up the Gold Cup on Tuesday with a dominant 5-0 win over the Dominican Republic.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s deal for a controlling stake in Manchester United has finally gone through.

TV & Movies

I finished Full Speed on Netflix last week and immersed myself in the NASCAR culture with some college football overlap thanks to reporter Marty Smith to make me feel comfortable. I enjoyed the documentary and randomly lucked into seeing the end of the rain-delayed Daytona 500 on Monday night, won by former sim racer William Byron. As I watched the show, I felt like NASCAR was trying to achieve two things to project to a wider audience.

One, they wanted to make the drivers seem cool and personable. That’s pretty normal and I think they did an okay job with that angle. The second part is that the documentary seemed like one long infomercial trying to explain the sport’s complicated playoff format. Denny Hamlin really took center stage as they juxtaposed all of his race wins but without a championship title to his name.

A Look Back

The 1992 season came up in this week’s edition of the Best Decisions in Notre Dame Football History as the movie Rudy was filmed using gameday footage from a couple home games that year. That led me to search out some 1992 stuff. I found this season recap video and I do believe that’s Tom Hammond voicing everything. The announcer GOAT had just taken over the play-calling duties on NBC for 1992 only (at first) but as we know he would come back to the booth in the coming years.

This season was so loaded at the top. Would Notre Dame have been a championship option if they hadn’t tied Michigan? That loss to Stanford certainly will sting forever. Alabama went undefeated for the title, Florida State lost only once with an Orange Bowl win over Nebraska, Miami beat Florida State but lost to Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, Michigan never lost but tied 3(!) times, and Texas A&M didn’t lose until meeting Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl.

18S Paddock Club

Alert! We have cars on track as Formula 1 testing began in the wee hours (American time) Wednesday morning and will continue through Friday afternoon. Next weekend the 75th season of F1 officially begins with the Bahrain Grand Prix, held 1 day earlier (Saturday) due to Ramadan coming up soon. The upcoming Saudi Arabian Grand Prix will also be on a Saturday, too.

Now for some 2024 predictions…

2024 Driver Champion – Max Verstappen

Red Bull have introduced some impressive and aggressive upgrades to their 2024 car so far and while it’s bold and potentially a leap that could backfire it’s also likely the car remains well above the rest of the field. With Verstappen behind the wheel–and looking awfully comfortable so far during testing–it seems super unlikely anyone will stop him from becoming the 4th driver to win 4 F1 championships in a row.

2nd Place Constructor – McLaren

I’m basing this on a few things. One, the trajectory that McLaren showed in the 2nd half of 2023. Two, their driving duo of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri is young and super talented with comfortable long-term contracts. Three, they might benefit from the driver drama at Ferrari and Mercedes who need to find someone for their seats in 2025.

Last Place Constructor – Haas

This is not a serious F1 team.

The Red Bull RB20 looks like yet another beast from the team.

Biggest Improve in Points Per Race from 2023 – Yuki Tsunoda

I would pick Danny Ricciardo here but it would be cheating since he didn’t get a full season last year. Either way, the revamped Visa Cashapp RB team will probably be the most improved car on the grid and I think both Ricciardo and Tsunoda are going to be a pain in the butt for other midfield drivers.

Driver Move that Won’t Go Away – Fernando Alonso

He’s going to spend this entire season stoking the flames that he’s an option to move to Mercedes.

If There’s a Mid-Season Driver Firing – Guanyu Zhou

Logan Sargeant having a 2nd season at Williams and then being tossed is the too easy pick here. I’ll predict Kick Sauber cave under the pressure from a very underwhelming 3rd season by Zhou and decided to promote promising 20 year-old French driver Theo Pourchaire who just won F2 last year and still doesn’t have a seat in F1.

Most Anticipated Race – China

This race hasn’t been held since April 2019! I’m not even sure what the Covid situation is like currently in Shanghai or if this race will take place again but it’s only a couple months away.

The Next Circuit Cut from the Calendar – Imola

Currently, there are no circuit contracts up after 2024 following the signing of a new deal at Silverstone in England which was a foregone conclusion. However, a few are up after 2025 and the Imola track in Italy is definitely first on the chopping block to get removed as F1 seeks to expand the calendar to other places of the world.

Trivia Answer:

Michael and John Shea.