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

Top News

The D-I Board of Directors has issues new guidance on NIL. Now, the country awaits investigation and enforcement.

According to reports, Tom Brady will be joining the Fox Sports broadcast team for 10 years at $375 million once he retires from football.

The Liberty Bowl stadium in Memphis is getting a massive $150 million renovation.

The ACC is considering dropping divisions for football as early as 2023 with a model likely being adopted where teams have 3 permanent opponents and rotate through the rest of the league over a 2-year period.

Former Oklahoma defensive lineman Du’Vonta Lampkin was shot and killed in Dallas at the age of 25.

BYU was set to face Utah State in each season for 2023-26 but cancelled the games as they prepare to enter the Big 12.

The Longhorn Network will be no more once Texas moves to the SEC.

Uniform of the Week

Once upon a time, NC State had pretty standard uniforms. For most of the 2000’s the Wolfpack home uniform was a simple red jersey with white numbers outlined in black. On their white helmets, they used the block “S” which I believe we featured last year in the Rambler. By the second decade of the 2000’s they started mixing things up with red helmets, black helmets, and black alternate uniforms, too.

NC State has been an Adidas school for a long time. When Notre Dame fans are afraid of returning to the Three Stripes this is a good example of what they’d like to avoid. Starting in 2018, the Wolfpack debuted this bizarre striping shoulder pattern with the really bad script down the side of the pants. Their Tuffy helmets are cool no doubt, but these uniforms are amateurish.

Recruiting

Notre Dame picked up the commitment from defensive lineman Devan Houstan (0.9224) on Saturday. Commit post HERE.

Quarterback Gabarri Johnson (0.9045) is headed from Tacoma to Missouri.

Former Baylor quarterback Gerry Bohanon has transferred to USF after losing the starting job with the Bears.

Former Texas receiver Josh Moore has backed out of his transfer to SMU.

A quick look at 2024 where quarterback Dylan Raiola (0.9946) committed to Ohio State on Monday.

YouTube Channel

One of the more spur-of-the-moment trips I’ve taken was the nearly 6-hour ride through the back, back woods from my house to Gettysburg and at no point would you want your car to breakdown on any of this adventure with all sincere apologies to our rural western/central Pennsylvania friends. We’d eventually extend the trip for a little jaunt to Charlottesville and Monticello but prior to the history of the Civil War battlefield we stayed in a Ramada Inn just outside Harrisburg. On the outside the place looked completely normal, nice even. On the inside it was like entering a bowling alley in 1974. It still makes me shudder at the sights and smells.

Last week it was Hoover Dam, this week I have to promote Gettysburg and insist anyone who hasn’t been there absolutely take the time to experience it for as long as possible. Even if you’re not a history buff it’s really something to behold and take in with all of the artifacts and history they throw at you. I think we ended up staying for about 8 or 9 hours, it was easily something to return to the next day, too.

Tunes

This is one of the biggest bangers of the 1980’s, and maybe of all-time. In the pantheon of air drumming masterclasses our boy Phil Collins laid down one of the greatest efforts of music. You can’t not air drum to this song. Technically, this was a Philip Bailey (of Earth, Wind & Fire fame) song for his solo record Chinese Wall but I’ve always viewed it as a Phil Collins song in practice. It’s Collins on drums and keyboards with his Genesis live act guitar player Daryl Steurmer helping out, too. We all remember it as a Collins song, right?

I’m absolutely shocked this song didn’t make it to No. 1 in America. How could “Easy Lover” not make it? It was held out on 2 separate occasions in the No. 2 spot by Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is” which makes some sense. Most of the time when it comes down to these fights for the top spot the slower, sappier song will win. Or, in this case the more love-y, love song.

Trivia

Name the player who holds the Notre Dame records for most career tackles, most tackles in a season, and is tied for the most tackles in a game.

The Other Football

Manchester City have an agreement in principal to bring in Dortmund striker Erling Haaland this summer after paying his 60 million Euro release clause. It must be nice to get the best young striker in the world for 30 cents on the dollar. In response, BVB has signed Salzburg striker Karim Adeyemi for 38 million Euros.

EA Sports and FIFA could not come to an agreement on their 3-decade long relationship and starting in 2023 the popular video game will be called “EA Sports FC.” What a terrible name.

North London is white! Thursday brought us a 3-0 win for Spurs over Arsenal and now the Gunners are up just 1 point for the fight for the last Champions League spot with 2 games remaining in the season.

Barcelona is making Coutinho’s move to Aston Villa permanent.

Levante have been relegated from La Liga for the 4th time since 2005.

Streaming

I’ve got some issues with Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory from 1972. The film experienced a renaissance in the 1980’s when I was a kid and for me was similar to Wizard of Oz in that it’s one of those movies that will always sit in my childhood consciousness. It was one of my favorite movies for a long time and Gene Wilder’s performance was fantastic. Recently, we sat down and watched it on HBO Max as I was trying to hype it up after my daughter saw this scene on YouTube where Violet turns into a blueberry. Violet, you’re turning violet, Violet!

I know all of our attention spans are destroyed these days and I knew the beginning was a little slow. I prepared everyone for it knowing it might not go well. I failed to remember that we don’t even meet Willy Wonka until 45 minutes into the damn movie. The door to the chocolate room isn’t opened until exactly 52 minutes into the movie. And even the chocolate room isn’t as fun as I remembered it. I know they’re re-making the movie as Wonka as a young man with Timothee Chalamet, I hope it’s much better than Charlie & the Chocolate Factory debacle from 2005.

A Look Back

This road win at Penn State in 1989 has always been one of my favorites in Irish history. In many ways, it was the end of an era. Well, not so much an era as an end to the school-record winning streak that began on September 10, 1988 with a 2-point win over Michigan and lasted through this 11-point win in Happy Valley on November 18, 1989.

This game was a great example of what an impressive athlete and runner Tony Rice was for the Irish. Many believed this was a classic let down spot for Notre Dame with the game against Miami looming the following week (not talking about that one) and Penn State had the top scoring defense in the country with only 83 points allowed in 9 games. Instead, the Irish rumbled for 425 yards (imagine doing this today), Rice rushed for a career-high 141 yards, and Penn State lost 34-23.

18S Paddock Club

The first-ever Miami Grand Prix ended up being a smashing success. Outside of some catering issues for the moneyed folks in the Paddock Club and some moaning about the obsessive attention to off-track entertainment this was a huge win for Formula 1 who came away with the largest F1 audience in American history, and had better numbers than the NASCAR race in the 18-49 year demographic.

There were also some track surface problems that would eventually get ironed out and a pretty strong aversion to the slow and awkward chicane in sector 2, as well. Other than that, it’s clear the drivers and teams love Miami and are taken by the “Super Bowl” atmosphere. It’ll be interesting to see how this track evolves over time, especially as F1 attempts to establish even stronger roots in Las Vegas starting in 2023.

The weekend began ominously for Max Verstappen as he scraped the wall in free practice 1 leading to some repairs then suffered a hydraulic leak early in free practice 2 provided him no laps. During qualifying, the defending WDC sat on provisional pole but screwed up his final lap at turns 4-5 which opened the door to a Ferrari lockout of the front row.

On the start, Verstappen took a bold move to the outside to get past Carlos Sainz in the Ferrari and the chase between the 2 champion hopefuls began. Biding his time, Verstappen passed Leclerc for the lead at turn 1 on the start of the 9th lap. Sergio Perez in the other Red Bull was close to hunting down Sainz for 3rd before a sensor issue brought a brief loss of engine power. From there, we settled into a bit of a boring race until lap 41.

Moments after being hit by Fernando Alonso’s Alpine (1 of 2 penalties on the day!), we saw Pierre Gasly in his Alpha Tauri losing speed only for Lando Norris in his McLaren to cause a collision that brought out a safety car.

The top 3 all refused to pit and stayed out on their older hard tires while Perez switched to mediums with enough buffer to stay in 4th ahead of Valtteri Bottas in the Alfa Romeo. We picked things back up with 11 laps remaining and on lap 52 Perez made a late lunge through turn 1 on Sainz but locked up and couldn’t hold on for the overtake. Leclerc briefly challenged Verstappen on the re-start but the Red Bull race pace was just too strong.

That’s now Verstappen’s 3rd win on the season and continues his run of either winning or not finishing. Leclerc’s once healthy lead in the championship is now down to just 19 points. After another up-and-down weekend, Mercedes continues to be way off the pace of the leaders but tightens their grip on 3rd place with a 5th (George Russell) and 6th (Lewis Hamilton) place finish in Miami. Also, Sebastian Ocon picked up 4 points after starting 20th (cracked chassis led to no qualifying), Alex Albon drove a heck of a race for 2 points in his Williams, while Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin (thanks to Alonso’s second 5-second penalty) finishes 10th for 1 point in the 2nd straight race.

We’ll have a preview of the Spanish Grand Prix next Friday where traditionally teams debut their biggest early-season upgrades which should include Ferrari who looks to regain their momentum from the first few races.

Fantasy Update: For the 2nd time this season Bang Bang (flying the Ecuador flag so I’m not sure he/she is even a 18S reader!?) wins round 5 with 242 points.

Trivia Answer:

Bob Crable (521, 187, 26)