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

3 News Stories

#1 No Supplemental

Of course, the drama with Brendan Sorsby isn’t over yet. On Tuesday, the National Football League elected not to hold a Supplemental Draft which means the disgraced quarterback Sorsby won’t be able to play in the NFL for 2026. Citing numerous issues like integrity of the game and too many distractions, the NFL would rather not have to deal with Sorsby’s drama. That’s probably a smart move.

Will it hold up in court? Sorsby’s lawyer would like to find out, but the decision making from their side of things hasn’t been great in recent weeks, we must say. Jeffrey Kessler (Sorsby’s attorney) told ESPN that the NFL’s decision to not hold a supplemental draft “is a violation of the CBA and the law. We will pursue this immediately with the NFLPA.”

I was imagining Sorsby getting picked up by the Cowboys, now that seems impossible.

#2 All in the Family

Notre Dame’s recruiting freight train continued this week as coveted wide receiver Julius Jones, Jr. committed out of St. Thomas Aquinas in Florida. He’s a top 100 overall player in the 247 Composite, and yes, the son of former Notre Dame star running back Julius Jones.

But wait, there’s more! The younger son Andre Jones, a low 2028 4-star safety also out of Aquinas, gave a verbal to Notre Dame at the same time.

Some significant beef was added to the roster this week as defensive lineman Segun Alexander committed, as well. The near 300 pounder comes from northwest Georgia near the borders of North and South Carolina.

#3 Goodbye Redshirts

The much-discussed 5 for 5 rule has been passed and is set to go into effect immediately for the 2026 season, although there will be legal challenges of course. From henceforth, all players will have 5 years to play 5 seasons. Effectively, redshirts are no more.

Right now, we know a significant amount of Notre Dame players have gained an extra year of eligibility:

RB Aneyas Williams
WR Jordan Faison
WR Quincy Porter
OL Anthonie Knapp
DL Elijah Hughes
DL Bryce Young
DL Loghan Thomas
DL Francis Brewu
LB Drayk Bowen
LB KVA
LB Madden Faraimo
CB Christian Gray
CB Leonard Moore
CB Dallas Golden
CB Mark Zackery
CB Jayden Sanders
S Luke Talich
K Spencer Porath
P Erik Schmidt

This will be good info for our next roster article in the future!

Uniform of the Week

Get your pitchforks ready, Adidas has messed up Nebraska uniforms. This off-season I made the case that Wisconsin could use a brand re-fresh and instead their neighbors to the southwest also in red and white ended up making changes instead. What you see today may not be the worst refresh we’ve seen in a while but I think this is a clear downgrade for the Cornhuskers in most areas. At least, the helmets are left unchanged for the 2026 season. Now that would’ve been bold. The current helmet has been the same materially since 1970 outside of a switch in 1981 to red facemasks.

Truncated stripes on the pants, oh no. 

The away uniform is the reverse of the home set, as per usual. The updated and unusual looking player numbers are a noticeable change and probably would’ve been fine by themselves if that was the only difference. The two white wide stripes on the shoulder look bad, and as many people have pointed out already, brings intense NC State vibes. Because of those large stripes, the TV numbers are moved to the shoulder (which I tend to prefer). I didn’t notice until now that Nebraska didn’t have anything at the base of their collars. Now, they’ve removed the “Winning Tradition” patch from the front left chest and that’s a huge mistake. I bet they bring it back in 2027. I used to really like the 1990’s Nebraska teams with plain white pants. Switching to a 2010’s era truncated red stripe is also a terrible decision.

Media

In the long history of Irish football, the 1970 team was so close to immortality. We probably don’t talk enough about how good this team was back in the day. They were wrecking teams on their way to a 7-0 start, survived a close game against Georgia Tech, survived a close game against no. 7 LSU, and then suffered maybe the most devastating regular season finale loss by any team in college football history. Exaggeration, perhaps by only a little bit.

When I published the infamous Top 75 losses in Notre Dame history to wide acclaim and controversy, the 1970 loss at USC came in as the #2 worst of all-time for the Irish. Here’s my excerpt from that article on the loss:

Following a touchback, Notre Dame breezed down the field for a touchdown to take a 7-0 lead. USC was not deterred and answered with their own touchdown as rain began pounding the Coliseum playing field. The rest of the first quarter belonged completely to the Trojans. They scored on a short run and missed the PAT but quarterback Jimmy Jones threw a 45-yard touchdown pass that bounced off a Notre Dame defender and into the hands of Trojan receiver Sam Dickerson. USC converted the 2-point play and led 21-7. Irish quarterback Joe Theismann threw a 9-yard touchdown to close the gap, but USC tacked on a field goal before halftime to lead 24-14.

The third quarter would be too much to overcome for Notre Dame. The Irish fumbled deep in their own territory and USC recovered. A few players later USC was poised to score, but fumbled the ball into the end zone. It didn’t matter as Trojan Pete Adams smothered the ball for 6 points. Less than a minute later on the next Notre Dame drive it was Theismann who was in his own end zone and lost a fumble. USC recovered the ball and led 38-14.

The Irish would continue to move the ball in the second half and score a pair of touchdowns, but they just couldn’t overcome the large USC lead. The Trojans would hang on for the upset as Theismann threw for a school record 528 yards, a mark that still stands to this day. However, the two fumbles and Theismann’s 4 interceptions were a disappointing black mark for the offense.

This Notre Dame team would go on to defeat No. 1 Texas in the Cotton Bowl and finish No. 2 in the country.

There’s zero doubt in my mind that the 1970 Notre Dame team wins a National Championship if there was a playoff that season. Then again, if there were a playoff the loss to USC probably wouldn’t have mattered that much. Such is the dichotomy we’re dealing with these days in the college football regular season.

Tunes

I found the worst song of 2026. Perhaps the worst song this decade or longer. I am known as a certified bro-country hater but even Luke Bryan is taking things to unforeseen pathetic levels with his new single “Fish Hunt Golf Drink.” Just having to type that out pissed me off. You simply cannot release a worse song than this right now. If you dare, click on the video and prepare to have your day ruined and the feeling like late stage capitalism is poisoning all of us.

As luck would have it, Bryan is performing in town on Friday. The poor souls who are going to this concert and will genuinely be happy to sing along to “Wake up, coffee, camo, climb tree” and just be having the time of their lives. Luke Bryan should be pelted with empty beer cans and never allowed to make or perform music ever again.

One More Thing

I am not a handy man at all. I wasn’t really taught how to fix things nor did I grow up with much of an interest in understanding how things worked. I also didn’t understand or care about math in school and thus became someone who was as far away from becoming a mechanical engineer as possible as a young adult. Then, as time goes on your forced to fix things and the wheels start turning. Thank goodness for the internet to help. This past winter, I built up my own road bike and that’s when I really began an interest in cool and useful tools. But more than that, quality tools that will last or feature something neat that makes fixing something or putting something together faster or easier.

I’m a Wera fanboy now.

Let me know if you have any really cool tools that you use around the house or for building stuff. How about electric screwdrivers?

I’ve recently picked up some tools from German manufacturing company Wera and their hex keys are delightful. They have so many other cool tools with amazing engineering that I wish I had a purpose to use them, but the hex keys have been noticeably more solid and effective over my previous Husky set. A new 3/8 drive ratchet worked perfectly for me this week and I’m lining up buying the 1/4 drive Zyklop speed ratchet set, it’s going to be like Christmas morning.