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

Top News

Notre Dame moved up to No. 10 in the AP Poll this week.

Former Notre Dame tight end Kyle Rudolph has officially retired from the NFL. He caught 482 passes and 50 touchdowns with the Vikings, Giants, and Buccaneers.

Baylor quarterback Blake Shapen is out 2-3 weeks with an ACL injury.

It appears the Mountain West will try to add Washington State and Oregon State to their conference for 2024.

Florida State will have “Seminole Heritage” games in all sports where their teams wear turquoise uniforms. The school is also weighing a $275 million renovation to Doak Campbell Stadium.

New USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen is leaving the CFB Playoff Committee and is being replaced by Utah AD Mark Harlan.

Former Syracuse and NFL wide receiver Mike Williams in on life support after suffering a head injury on a construction site.

Uniform of the Week

Oh, no. Tennessee has unveiled new smokey grey uniforms and the results are mixed at best. Actually, they aren’t mixed they are really poor. They named the uniform the “Artful Dodger” after former player Condredge Holloway who was the first black athlete to start at quarterback in the SEC. Valiant effort. During Holloway’s day in the early 1970’s the Vols used to have these wide bib-like orange swath of color on their road jerseys.

The thinking was to include that orange bib on these gray uniforms for reasons, I guess. I kind of liked most of the past smokey grey uniforms from Tennessee and this one just looks bizarre. The long orange tights definitely sucks. The pants and jersey (from the chest down) are fine. I can’t get past that orange bib, and for some reason, the helmets are a much lighter grey which looks odd and out of place. The Vols will be wearing these uniforms this Saturday against Austin Peay–at least they’re doing it when they know they will win.

Recruiting

Texas A&M picked up the commitment of defensive lineman Dominick McKinley (0.9817) last weekend.

Mater Dei offensive lineman DeAndre Carter (0.9499) is headed from California to Auburn.

Washington state linebacker Brayden Platt (0.9249) committed to Oregon.

A few recent verbal commits from the 2025 include:

Wide receiver Dakorien Moore (0.9945) gave Brian Kelly and LSU a 5-star commit.

Oklahoma picked up a verbal from wideout Jaden Nickens (0.9491).

Edge rusher Jakaleb Faulk (0.9481) committed to Auburn.

YouTube Channel

My best friend in high school was from Wayzata, Minnesota and we met in the fall of 1998. His signature outfit was a pair of khakis with no shirt and if he was wearing a shirt it was often a far too small home Minnesota Vikings jersey. He loved this team as much as I’ve ever seen anyone love any sports team. Truly a die hard. When we met this was also the Randy Moss rookie season and the Vikings made it all the way to the NFC Championship Game.

Recently, the guys over at Dorktown have been embarking on a multi-episode series chronicling the history of the Minnesota Vikings. If you like misery, this one is for you! My poor friend watched the devastating NFC Championship loss with me and I was genuinely concerned for his safety for several days. I can’t even think about the Vikings to this day without going back to his mental breakdown after being let down again by his favorite team.

Tunes

When I think back to the 1990’s and especially the grunge/alt rock scene in the middle of that decade the Collective Soul song “Shine” always stands out. I was in a grunge phase and this was played on the local rock station approximately every 6th song. It certainly felt like that was the truth. You couldn’t go anywhere without hearing this song, it was blasted in the malls and in Blockbuster. Everywhere.

I eventually learned to hate the song from overexposure. The group also pretty quickly started sliding towards dad rock sounds by 1997 and by then I’d moved on and stopped caring about them anymore. Recently, I was listening to “Shine” again and I have to admit it’s a really great rock song and well crafted. I went a long time avoiding the song and it took many years to come back around again and love it. Good job, Collective Soul.

Trivia

I was on the 18 Stripes quarterback grad transfer watch list after last year and currently lead FBS in passer rating after week 1. Who am I?

The Other Football

The European soccer world is headed into an international break with Euro qualification games coming up this weekend. The United States men’s national team is also set to host 4 friendlies in the coming days with Uzbekistan (St. Louis, Sept. 9th) and Oman (St. Paul, Sept. 12th) the first 2 coming before the next Rambler will be published.

Through match week 4, we have Man City sitting atop the Premier League with a perfect 12 points then 4 teams all sitting on 10 points including Spurs, Liverpool, West Ham, and Arsenal. Man United (6 points) and Chelsea (4 points) have come out struggling while Everton picked up a draw over the weekend to grab their first point of the season. That moves the Toffees up to 18th place.

The Glazer family has decided against selling Manchester United. Their stock took a hit after the news was posted.

We have our first firing in La Liga as Villarreal axed manager Quique Setien.

TV & Movies

Bill Russell passed away in July 2022 and it has felt weird in the NBA going into another season soon without his presence. Perhaps more than any other pro sports player, Russell was always around and a figure of reverence in basketball greater than anyone else. I’ve been making my way through his documentary on Netflix recently and his humble beginnings, to the University of San Francisco, and the early years with the Celtics are really fascinating.

They played it up like Russell couldn’t shoot when he got to Boston, which is an exaggeration. I can’t believe his first year with the Celtics started all the way back in 1956, though. The documentary does a good job of showing the racial struggles that Russell dealt with as a kid, then at college, and maybe even the worst while living in Reading, Massachusetts. To come from that and grow into what Russell became as a pioneer was damn impressive.

A Look Back

This past weekend, Boston College trailed Northern Illinois 14-0 into the 3rd quarter in front of their home crowd. The Eagles were straight up not having a good time. On the day, they really struggled moving the ball through the air and it’s no secret that Phil Jurkovec made a good decision leaving Chestnut Hill, especially with star receiver Zay Flowers looking for Rookie of the Year honors with the Baltimore Ravens.

Boston College trailed 21-7 with just under 9 minutes to play in the game, as well. Then, on 4th & 5 we saw some video game magic in real life. Quarterback Thomas Castellanos takes the snap and is immediately under pressure. This dude takes the snap at the 46 yard line, runs back to the 15 yard line, changes course again back to the 11 yard line, then runs back up field to the 27 yard line to complete a 10 yard pass to move the chains. They still lost in overtime, though.

18S Paddock Club

Alert! Alert! Max Verstappen was made to actually race and had to sweat a little bit from Ferrari this past weekend at Monza in Italy. The Prancing Horse cars took all new engine components in a bid to impress their home crowd and for the most part it paid off.

Carlos Sainz took pole and Ferrari boxed in Verstappen in P2 with Charles Leclerc in P3. The pace for Sainz was really good for the first quarter of the race, but inevitably the tire degradation just couldn’t hold up for much longer. Verstappen poked and prodded into turn 1 several times but couldn’t get the overtake done until Sainz eventually locked up on lap 15.

Sainz’ lock up into turn 1 on lap 15 doomed his chances.

Thereafter, Verstappen was able to get past Sainz and go on to his record-breaking 10th straight grand prix victory. Red Bull have won every single race this season as a team.

Other news & notes from Monza:

  • Sergio Perez fought his way from 5th to 2nd place. That’s podiums in 3 out of the last 4 races for the Mexican. That’s more like it.
  • Ferrari held on to P3 and P4 but both Sainz and Leclerc fought each other really hard until the very end. It’s unusual to see, but delighted the Italian crowd.
  • George Russell and Lewis Hamilton claimed P5 and P6, respectively while Fernando Alonso couldn’t only manage P9. Without help from Lance Stroll (again) finishing P16, there’s no hope of Aston Martin catching Ferrari, let alone Mercedes.
  • Yuki Tsunoda’s car failed on the formation lap, causing a 20-minute delay.
  • Alex Albon shined yet again with a P7 finish, ahead of both McLaren cars.

Formula 1 is off this week and will return to action in Singapore next weekend. Red Bull has been very open about the fact that the Marina Bay Street Circuit could be the one race where Verstappen’s streak could end. Last year, Verstappen had a fuel level issue during qualifying, started P8, and could only rise up to P7 at the finish. It’s his worst non-mechanical and/or car damage result in several years. It’s really difficult to overtake in Singapore and qualifying will be massively important.

Trivia Answer:

Tulane QB Michael Pratt (14 of 15 for 294 yards, 4 TD, 0 INT, 345.97 rating)