Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
In the News
Frank Solich is stepping down as the head coach at Ohio due to health reasons. The former Nebraska head coach had been with the Bobcats for 16 seasons.
Nebraska has hired their new athletic director, former Huskers All-American Trev Alberts (who you may know from his past media duties).
Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables added one year and $100,000 more to his annual salary. He’ll now be making $2.5 million per season through 2026.
Anyone covering Notre Dame athletics in a media capacity on campus will need to be vaccinated.
The MLB Draft could be wooing Clemson and Penn State commits away from college football.
Terrelle Pryor and other Ohio State players want their records back, following the new NIL rules.
The civil lawsuit against Arizona State continues to look bad with more whistleblower allegations.
From the Archive
In case you missed it, we celebrated our 5th anniversary last week. Here’s a recap of our brief history.
The Portal
Notre Dame lost commit Darren Agu (0.879) to the transfer world this week with former Irish defensive coordinator Clark Lea picking up his new commitment at Vanderbilt a few days later.
Our former friend Demetris Robertson has transferred to Auburn from Georgia.
Former starting left tackle Dare Rosenthal left LSU recently and is headed to Kentucky.
Louisiana Tech picked up former Oklahoma quarterback Austin Kendall.
Veteran corner Jarvis Ware is transferring from Missouri to UCF.
Helmet Talk
Do certain single letters look better or cooler than others? Or, do they grow on us over time and slowly become acceptable as some of the best helmet logos in the sport? I present the case of Eastern Michigan:
Now, as you may expect “E” is my favorite letter. But, this helmet has always looked odd to me (forget about the dumb chrome diamond plate aspect) and the only reason why is that I’m just not used to seeing it all that much. If EMU were a traditional power is this an iconic logo? If Nebraska had always sucked do we think their tiny “N” is absurd?
Recruiting
Notre Dame has added 4 new recruits since our last update. The biggest was linebacker Jaylen Sneed (0.970) out of Hilton Head. The Irish also added commitments from a pair of defensive backs in Jayden Bellamy (0.883) and Devin Moore (.890) to add to Marcus Freeman’s arsenal. The latest commitment was another for the secondary in Arizona prep star Benjamin Morrison (0.895).
Rutgers recruiting continues to cook adding linebacker Moses Walker (0.941) to their class.
Texas picked up a verbal from safety Austin Jordan (0.922).
Arkansas wideout Isaiah Sategna (0.914) has committed to Oregon.
Virginia Tech secured a verbal from top running back Ramon Brown (0.924).
House of the Week
I really only have one topic to cover in this section this week. Of course, this is a beautiful home from Tyrese Gibson and it’s really charming. There’s a nice mix of traditional and modern design on the interior that fits really well with the motif and structure of the house on the outside.
Does Gibson have way more money than I thought, though? A 25,000 square foot mansion with 6 floors seems mega expensive in Atlanta. However, according to his Wikipedia page this home only cost $4 million to purchase. Is this the greatest deal in the history of real estate? Maybe we need our lacrosse writer ND-Atl to help us out on this one. Something doesn’t seem right about that price.
Tunes
This is one of my favorite song intros of all-time and in general one of the classics from 1970 that has always given me this weird sensation that I was alive when my parents were in high school. Music has a way of creating that freaky sensation if you listen to it enough.
I feel like I’m very knowledgeable about music but had no idea this was originally written and released by Randy Newman, released by Eric Burdon and the Animals in the same year Three Dog Night sent this out a single. The Newman version has a Grateful Dead vibe to it, while the Animals version is what Three Dog Night used more for inspiration with the similar time signature switch for the chorus.
On This Day in Sports
July 16, 1902 manager John McGraw took over control of the New York Giants and would hold this position with the MLB franchise through 1932!
At the Cinema
How does everyone like Mr. & Mrs. Smith as a movie? It’s among my wife’s favorite movies, although I’m not sure why. Should I be worried I married an assassin? I do enjoy this flick, though.
Did you know Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Donald Glover are starring in a reboot series on Amazon Prime? That should be interesting, for sure. Let’s never forget this line from Brad Pitt in the movie:
John Smith: I never went to MIT. Notre Dame. Art history major.
Jane Smith: Art?
John Smith: History! It’s reputable.
Hot Take
Fishing does not appeal to me in the least bit. Especially if you’re not on a boat. Can someone explain the allure of fishing? Do I have any anti-fishing allies? I once spent 3 hours fishing with a friend in Buffalo Inner and Outer Harbor and it was mind-numbing how boring it became.
Trivia
This is a tough one. Name the 6 players during the Brian Kelly era beginning in 2010 to intercept 4 or more passes in a single season. HINT: A corner hasn’t achieved this feat since 2014.
Kyle Hamilton, Harrison smith, manti, Farley, Cody Riggs?!?…. For a 6th, I guess kevarie in 2012, don’t think Bennett did it. I really don’t know
You have identified 4 out of the 6!
Bennett Jackson absolutely had at least 4. And some dude had 2 against Ball St. in 2018, but I can’t remember his name. He probably got 2 more somewhere right?
Jalen Elliott, I believe, is the name you’re thinking of.
I don’t recognize that name at all, but ok? The last 3 years have been a long 8 years.
and Cole Luke in 2014.
You seemed to combine recruiting and transfer portal here and make devin someThing and Darren agu Into 1 person, which I kind of enjoyed .
Notre Dame lost commit Devin Agu (0.879) to the transfer world this week with former Irish defensive coordinator Clark Lea picking up his new commitment at Vanderbilt a few days later.
Darren agu being the commit who flipped to vandy and devin something who left Nd after 1 semester and went back to cali
Funny thing is, I actually saw that and thought to myself, “Huh, we lost a Devin and gained a Devin.”
Tyrese has that sweet, sweet Fast and the Furious franchise money, I think he’s been in like every movie in the series. Pretty sure all the main actors in that cast do very well for themselves on the backend and they keep churning those dumb things out like every year.
He has a full service Benihana in his back yard and a full scale model of a Transformer. The dude has made some incredible movie franchise decisions by getting into the Fast and Furious and Transformers series. Absolutely incredible life choices.
F&F movies are, from what I understand, very fun, once you accept they’re going to be absolutely stupid. I’ve seen none of them, they don’t scratch my crappy movie itch. I am 100% in on the “Olympus/London/Angel Has Fallen” installments and Bosch, which probably aligns better to my #cooldad oeuvre.
True, I wasn’t trying to knock it and you’re right I think they even do lean into the ridiculousness and absurdity of what they’re doing, which is fun. Not for me either but I like other dumb things just as well. It’s such a machine and creates so much money, it’s just impressive.
Yep. There’s plenty of things I’ve never seen that are very popular (GoT, Breaking Bad, Mad Men) and some things I watch that I’m amazed aren’t/weren’t more popular (The Detroiters, Ozark, Norm MacDonald Has a Show, Narcos)
Ozark and Breaking Bad have a lot of similarities, if you get the time and really liked Ozark I would definitely recommend BB. To me, BB has a notch better of story/writing and while Jason Bateman is pretty good, Bryan Cranston gives an off the charts great performance.
And the perk of watching Breaking Bad is then you can watch the prequel, Better Call Saul, which in some ways is superior to the original!
After watching Ozark season 1, I’ve had to take a break. Just a dark, dark show every single minute.
It is dark, both in subject matter and weather. It does pick up in future seasons.
Also, they live in a 2 story house and NEVER is there any hint of anyone having ever gone up the stairs. After about 3.5 seasons of watching, I realized that and thought, “Hey, that’s weird no one even acknowledges there’s an upstairs in this house.” Next scene, someone comes walking down those stairs to the front door.
The most recent F&F movie shoots a car into space. They know what they’re doing.
Also, on fishing: more than anything it’s an excuse for (mostly) guys to create a hobby to mess around with motors –for the boat and the truck to pull it. It also helps you get away from the family for a bit and drink some beers, usually with friends. Kinda like golf, but perfected a step further to take out the pesky “walking” and “standing up right” and “looking through the woods to find your ball” aspects.
I’m like, let’s just mess with motors, get away, and drink some beers without the fishing.
Yeah to me fishing just seems like tailgating but without the chance to watch an ND game after.
I use to fish a lot when I was a kid. (long time ago) The pond was just down the street. I keep telling myself it would be a good hobby to pick up again. I know I never will.
I only think I know 2 of the trivia answers, woof. For as good as our defenses have been, it does seem like we never have anybody near the top of the interceptions leaderboard, other than Manti’s insane final season.
I like that EMU helmet, but I’m so sick of their gray/steel aesthetic. For those who may not know, their field is gray turf, so it looks like they’re playing in a parking lot. (With about as many fans in the stands as you’d expect in a parking lot.) They also knock down a small cement block wall every week before they come on the field. Their whole identity is a mess, to be honest.
Real estate sales are mostly all public information. Gibson’s house sold as new build in ’97 for $2,150,000. It was listed several times over the years on MLS for up to $7,250,000, but never sold until Gibson bought it in 2017. When he bought it for $4,000,000 it had a tax-assessed value of $4,450,000, which was decreased following the sale to just below market value at $3,992,900.
It’s a huge house for the land it’s on in a suburb made up entirely of late-90’s boom-era McMansions. These suburban “mansions” are, for some, a hot-button issue in the Atlanta area, and lots of areas have either out-right bans or NIMBY associations who crash zoning meetings to prevent more from being built in the area.
In conclusion, Gibson got a fine-to-pretty-decent deal on his place, but it was in line with market value for these houses in the area.
https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/3605-Tuxedo-Ct-NW_Atlanta_GA_30305_M50531-60804#photo0
This is the inside scoop we needed.
I think Georgia is a less expensive market than Miami, Aspen, LA, and Lake Tahoe (and any others we’ve gone through that I am forgetting).
“Tuxedo Court” feels very on the nose. Oh, Buckhead.
Where Peachtree meets Peachtree meets Peachtree meets Peachtree
Murtagh-
It’s a 4 million dollar mansion surrounded by 50 other 4 million dollar mansions of similar size. It’s in the arguably nicest neighborhood in Atlanta, but valuation wise, the short answer is Atlanta is not LA. I’ve driven by it 100s of times, it’s a nice pad.
Contrary to a comment by another of our readers, it is definitely not surrounded by mcmansions. Tuxedo Dr has some of the nicest and most architecturally significant houses in the southeast. There are lots of Atlanta neighborhoods filled with mcmansions, Tyrese’s is not one of them
I don’t think “McMansion” is a solidly defined term, but it was built for $60ish bucks a square foot in ’97. The stone on the front doesn’t wrap around the house. Gibson had to remodel the master bathroom already. The kitchen has steel-wrapped counter-tops. I’m not saying it’ll fall over, but the money invested in building the house was spent on making it big.
At the end of the day, it’s still in the dead center of Tuxedo Park. there isn’t a nicer neighborhood anywhere until you get to Miami. He’s a 9-iron to the governor’s mansion, half wedge to Loeffler, same to the pad Ironman stays at when filming in town, and a half dozen other houses on the NRHP (woodruff, bobby Jones, etc). A lot of questionable choices were made in 90’s construction, no argument there, and it wont crack my top 20 houses I’d love to have in that neighborhood, but it’s not some celebrity golf course house in Alpharetta, either.
Eric, I’ve been a vegetarian since 1973 so agree with you about fishing. I am not a Nazi about other people eating flesh. I was brought up on it. My grandfather owned a sporting goods store in South Bend until about 1971. I used to go fishing with him then and had a good time. I guess it is the thill of the hunt. These days I forage for fiddlehead ferns, mushrooms and herbs.to satisfy my hunting nature and get out in nature. I do live in a great place for that now – Alaska.
Congrats on being a vegetarian for so long, that’s impressive!
I saw 3 Dog Night and Alice Cooper in the early 70’s at the Boston Garden. It was the first real concert I ever went to.