Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
Top News
Michigan has suspended a staffer accused of breaking all sorts of rules surrounding illegally taping opponents in an attempt to learn their team signals. It keeps getting worse by the hour.
Not surprisingly, the NCAA is ready to trial coach to player helmet communication during this bowl season with an eye to make it permanent for 2024.
A Michigan State University hearing officer has found Mel Tucker guilty of violating the school’s sexual harassment policy.
USC head coach Lincoln Riley was treated for pneumonia this week.
Per reports, Army will be joining the AAC next season.
Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers has a shoulder joint sprain and will be missing a few games.
Virginia is the Cheez-It National Team of the Week.
Maryland co-OC Kevin Sumlin was arrested on suspicion of DUI this past weekend.
Arkansas has fired offensive coordinator Dan Enos following a paltry 3 points scored this past weekend against Mississippi State.
Uniform of the Week
I found out that many Washington fans do not like their purple helmets. Wearing this color has gone back decades, although they’ve been worn rather sparingly in recent times. Coming into this past weekend, the Huskies wore them for a couple games in 2017-18 but hadn’t gone back to them since. Although, for 1995-98 they wore purple for every game, right as the program was beginning a downturn. So you can imagine how worried fans were when Washington decided on this all-purple look on Saturday against visiting Arizona State.
Sure enough, they played terribly. Although the purple power wasn’t enough to bring a loss. Still, Washington only gained 288 yards, converted just 3 times on 3rd down, and didn’t score a touchdown on offense. Should fans be worried the Huskies are showing too many cracks? Or was it a let down from the win over Oregon? Either way, I doubt we see the purple helmets again any time soon.
Recruiting
Notre Dame picked up the commitment from 2025 legacy tight end James Flanigan (0.9418) over the weekend.
Texas added 5-star wide receiver Ryan Wingo (0.9880) on Wednesday.
Elite defensive lineman Armondo Blount (0.9904) committed to Florida State.
Florida added defensive lineman LJ McCray (0.9721) this past Saturday.
Edge rusher Booker Pickett (0.9197) committed to Miami.
Elsewhere in the 2025 class…
Colorado added quarterback Antwan Hill (0.9671) out of Georgia.
Athlete Kendarius Reddick (0.9597) committed to Auburn.
YouTube Channel
At around the 4-minute mark of this video there is the LG Styler Steam Closet which is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen. It seems futuristic but really dumb, and also perhaps something I would use. I bought an armoire from IKEA over a year ago and waited to put it together as my 4-year old moved into her new bedroom–and kicked me out of the closet I was using for a lot of clothes. I put the armoire together this past weekend (bye week work, baby) and my goodness there is not enough space.
I’ve been purging old clothes for several years, too. I donated another 2 garbage bags on Sunday and must’ve removed 7 or 8 bags over the last 7 or 8 years. A huge problem is that I usually wear a shirt/tie every day, transition to polos for the summer, and it’s a lot of stuff on hangers. Making things worse is a whole collection of size 34 pants, then a set of size 36 pants, and now we’re back to 34 and I’m not sure if I should donate the larger ones just yet. Good times.
Tunes
I’ve had a bunch of videos pop up recently showing how Axl Rose sounds like Mickey Mouse these days. I feel like some of the videos are edited to make him sound even funnier because in the 2023 video below it’s not quite that bad. Anyway, Rose’s voice when he was young was utterly crazy. It’s surprising, given his history with one of the most hardcore bands of his generation, that he can even perform these days. I’m mostly appalled by many of the older acts (Rose is 61!) that perform these heavy metal songs–it’s just not for me. But they still want to make money and perform so good for them.
I’m also not a huge Guns N’ Roses fan. They are one of those bands where I’ve heard “Sweet Child O’Mine” and “Welcome to the Jungle” so many times that I have to check out of the rest of their music. It’s not fair, but that’s how it goes sometimes. I got that way with the Dooby Brothers, Tom Petty, and a few other acts. I liked them for many years, you hear a couple of their songs way too many times, and you check out for good, never to return, and always changing the song when they pop up.
Trivia
As of this writing, Notre Dame is favored by 20 points over Pitt this weekend. Name the last season in which the Irish beat the Panthers by 20+ points inside Notre Dame Stadium.
The Other Football
I am pleased to announce that Tottenham are top of the table in the Premier League following their 2-0 home win over Fulham. Cross-town rival Arsenal came back from a 2-0 deficit to draw Chelsea on Saturday but now Spurs are now 2 points clear in 1st place.
The 3rd games of the Champions League started up this week with the results:
Bayern Munich 3 – 1 Galatasaray
Man United 1 – 0 Coppenhagen
Eindhoven 1 – 1 Lens
Arsenal 2 – 1 Sevilla
Real Madrid 2 – 1 Braga
Napoli 1 – 0 Union Berlin
Inter 2 – 1 Salzburg
Real Sociedad 1 – 0 Benfica
Feyenoord 3 – 1 Lazio
Celtic 2 – 2 Atletico Madrid
Dortmund 1 – 0 Newcastle
PSG 3 – 0 AC Milan
Leipzig 3 – 1 Red Star Belgrade
Man City 3 – 1 Young Boys
Barcelona 2 – 1 Shakhtar Donetsk
Porto 4 – 1 Antwerp
Bayern, Arsenal, Real Madrid, Real Sociedad, Feyenoord, PSG, Man City, and Barcelona are the group leader so far.
Luis Suarez is reportedly moving to Inter Miami to reunite with Leo Messi.
American midfielder Johnny Cardoso is on the move from Brazilian club Internacional to Real Betis in La Liga.
TV & Movies
I started watching the new Beckham documentary on Netflix for the nostalgia of when I was first becoming aware of European soccer and as a 14-year old pretty plugged into the sex appeal of the Spice Girls. It’s a nice time machine for me. Mostly, I shake my head at Beckham’s early part of his career with Manchester United and how his teammates witnessed him spending all of his money on clothes, watches, cars, and everything off the field. So many times in sports this just goes terribly wrong.
I know they’ve gone through some struggles but it’s pretty amazing that Beckham and Victoria have been together for such a long time and married for nearly a quarter century. I don’t think anyone believed they’d stick together for more than a couple years back in the 1990’s. Beckham also came up right when money for soccer players started to get really stupid and his lavish spending really wouldn’t matter by the time he was done playing. Today, he’s reportedly worth half a billion.
A Look Back
Did you watch the end of the Clemson-Miami game this past weekend? I’ll provide a quick recap from where today’s video begins:
- Trailing 17-7, backup quarterback Emory Williams throws a back shoulder fade for a touchdown on 3rd down capping off a 9-minute drive.
- Clemson goes 3 and out.
- The Tigers give up a 16-yard pass on 3rd & 13 then a 25-yard pass on 3rd & 8. They finally get a stop and Miami settles for a field goal to tie the game 17-17.
- Clemson goes 3 and out.
- With just over 1 minute remaining, Miami runs the ball on 2nd down two separate times and lets the game clock wind down with no attempt for a game-winning field goal. The home crowd is booing.
- A Cade Klubnik run on 3rd down fails and Clemson settles for a field goal in overtime. Miami gets stuffed on 3rd & 1 and settles for a field goal, too.
- Miami punches in a touchdown with a little help from a horse collar penalty. They convert the 2-point play.
- Clemson gets down to 1st & 10 from the Miami 2-yard line and goes no gain, incomplete pass, 1-yard run, and Klubnik tries to get the edge on 4th down only to suffer the disrespect of being dragged down for a hilarious 8-yard loss.
That’s the type of ending where I’d be completely out on Klubnik. You can’t not throw the ball up as a last prayer in that situation. He also didn’t run the called play per Dabo Swinney, ouch. I have a new co-worker who grew up in South Carolina and is a really nice guy. But he just swears by Dabo Swinney and all these positive traits about the Clemson coach. I really hope we pound Clemson into the deep core of the earth next weekend.
18S Paddock Club
Well, another sprint weekend made sure people were angry once again. On Saturday, Max Verstappen took sprint pole and drove away for the sprint race win by 9.4 seconds.
However, on Friday the reigning champion had his lap time deleted in Q3 and fell down to P6 in qualifying with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc taking pole. Then the drama ensued:
- Piastri, Ocon, and Alonso all retired early-ish with mechanical issues.
- Lando Norris shot into the lead at the 1st corner but his tire degradation would prove too much. The same goes for Charles Leclerc whose tires fell off and Ferrari stupidly attempted a 1-stop pit strategy.
- Lewis Hamilton looked in the hunt for a win but Mercedes debated between a 1-stop or 2-stop race and followed that up with poor pit times when they finally decided to 2-stop. By then, Verstappen took over.
- Verstappen dealt with brake issues late and was being chased down by Hamilton. However, the Dutchman was able to hang on for his 15th win of the season by just over a second.
- Following the race, both Hamilton and Leclerc were disqualified for too much plank wear. This moved Norris up to P2 and Carlos Sainz up to P3.
- Sergio Perez breathed a sigh of relief being able to move up to P4 and with Hamilton’s disqualification should be able to hold on to P2 in the driver’s championship. Perez leads Hamilton by 39 points with 4 races remaining.
- With the DSQ penalties, Logan Sargeant moved up to P10 and picked up his first point in F1. America!!
- McLaren had just 16(!) points through the first 8 races this season while Aston Martin was the talk of the sport for their improvements. McLaren are now into 4th place, moving past Aston Martin by 6 points, with a total of 242 points.
Round 19 of 22
Mexican Grand Prix
Date: October 29th
Race: 4:00 PM ET
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
Circuit: Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez
It’s the 2nd of a fun triple header as F1 moves down to Mexico City for a location that I feel like comes across really well on television but there is growing unrest with the track itself. The converted baseball stadium section is visually one of the coolest places on the F1 calendar but it’s slow corners really hamper the ability overtake down into turn 1, even after a super long straight.
In general, this track struggles to provide overtaking opportunities.
The promoters also want to find a new space somewhere in Mexico that allows them the ability to increase their gate for the weekend, too. For now, F1 remains huge in the country especially with Sergio Perez’ presence in the sport. Still, it feels like eventually they will make a change if it’s possible with the current contract running through 2025. If Perez isn’t in the sport in 2026 will they look for a new venue to spice things up?
Trivia Answer:
1996, 60-6 win.
Get a trainer for that bike and stay on it all winter. Throws those 36’s in the SA box.
We are a month into the Zwift Hub with the new single cog + virtual shifting. It’s awesome, I love it.
Zwift is a game changer.
It really is!
Interesting article concerning the Pac 2/12, an scheduling alliance with the Mountain West and how the CFP is affected. How a new ‘alliance’ proposal involving Washington State, Oregon State could impact College Football Playoff (Ross Dellinger,Yahoo Sports, Oct 24)
The CFP Governance Committee will make the final decision. The Pac 12 representative on the CFP Governance Committe is Kirk Schultz, Washington State’s Athletic Director. Washington State filed a lawsuit in Pullman, WA with Oregon State for the court to confirm that the departing members lost their Pac Board seats following their notices of withdrawal from the conference and that the existing Pac Board for decision-making consists only of Oregon State and Washington State.
The problem with Or St./ Wash St. argument is that when Vanderbilt, Wake Forest etc… are kicked out of their conferences because they are not value added to TV revenue, the respective Power programs will not want to recognize them as Power teams. If the Power teams recognize Or/Wash St. as power teams, then it sets a precedent for the future. Lets be honest, these two were left behind because they aren’t value added, they may be having some good seasons this year, but historically, who follows these programs other than alumni.
Based on the evidence OSU/WSU have presented to the court including Pac bylaws, the notifications to USC, UCLA and Colorado they could no longer serve on the Board to determine the conference directions, decisions and disbursements after they announced leaving by the remaining schools, A WSU/OSU’s case is convincing (see limk below)
OSU, WSU ask court to strip all departing Pac-12 schools of board seats (ESPN)
The conference currently has over $40 million in the bank plus properties that the Board controls. To me, it would be the heart of duplicity – and against the Pac bylaws and history – to have schools that no longer are members dividing up the spoils from the dissolution they caused.
I expect the two schools to win their lawsuit and as noted above, the CFP Governing Board has little likelihood of changing the format with a unanimous vote needed and the Board containing the WSU AD.
This isn’t really news so it wouldn’t end up here and I assume most people on here saw it somewhere between irishillustrated, twitter, or nfl network but the freeman o’malley exchange about their kids flag football was just great. Freeman is so damn likable and seems to just get it. Juxtapose that against BK “bring your jacket, columbia” joke and it’s not even close. Obviously as fans it’s be awesome to see freeman win big at nd but especially for him.
Shout out to O’Malley, too. He does a really good job on the beat and people don’t talk enough about him.
Apparently he won a flag football championship, too (just not the team with MF’s kid). So pretty good coach, too.
O’Malley for ND OC??
Dude called a red zone double reverse pass… at least we’d keep it unpredictable
but why?
Moving more and more towards the pro game.
I think the rollout and implementation is going to be really, really rough for college football teams, though.
For sure – Kent State and Georgia aren’t exactly going to have the same resources for that. But more to the point, I’m an old fuddy duddy at this point and hate the idea of diminishing crowd noise / home field advantage.
Plus, plenty of people worry that most college quarterbacks wouldn’t be able to handle the volume of information, the complexity of plays, and use the headset the way it’s used in the NFL. But they’ll have to figure it out.
Remember, they ain’t here to play school
Headsets are more complicated than hand signals?
I think he’s figuring plays that are told over the headset would be more complicated than plays signaled in.
But I don’t see why they couldn’t just keep it the same system – however simple – or if they call the play quickly can continue to explain the play to the QB if it is more complex before the mic cuts off.
That’s right, it’ll have to be a dumbed down version of the NFL where the plays are more complex, and crucially, the QB’s are getting more than one play and/or audible calls for them to switch to after the radio shuts off and they’ve seen the defense.
Some coordinators will probably try this and it won’t work very well. I’m thinking about guys like Johnny Manziel who barely knew the playbook despite being great. There are a lot of quarterbacks who can’t sniff the NFL-level of sophistication.
That, plus I’m sure there will be tons of communication breakdowns and radios not working properly across dozens of games each week.
Isn’t that just on the coaching staff to make sure the offense isn’t more complex than the players can handle? I don’t see how head sets would change anything around information.
For GnR, try Knockin on Heaven’s Door from the 1992 Freddie Mercury tribute. You either love or hate the voice. Slash wearing a Stones T Shirt is a nice touch.
On reddit I’ve been enjoying the Buckeye threads lapping up the Michigan tears. Got on a tangent about the 2015 Fiesta Bowl. Outside of Oscar Tavares for the STL Cardinals (RIP Oscar) I can’t think of another athlete I’d have like to see play a full, injury free career in the pros.
Last summer was the “how did that happen series.” Maybe this summer you could do an alternate what could have been series where Jaylon is still in the league and racking up pro bowl appearances.
Good idea. What if Rocket went straight to the NFL?
I’d like to see if Brady could’ve made it if he hadn’t gotten drafted by the Browns.
I’ve always thought that if you are a QB, you go to the Browns to end your career. Pray they aren’t in any position to draft you.
Drafted QB’s:
There were tons of Checo fans in Austin last weekend. I was surprised at how international the crowd was for an American race – not just Mexican Checo fans, but French, British, Aussie, German – I heard tons of languages and accents.
Also, at 6(!) octaves, Axl had a better vocal range than Robert Plant or Freddie Mercury. That doesn’t mean you have to like GnR, but it’s a pretty good bit of trivia.
Let’s hear a COTA visit recap!
The plus here is that he hasn’t gone the way of Milli Vanilli and just lip syncing over his old recordings.
On that Klubnik final play, the defender grabbed his right arm pretty quickly, so in real time I’m not sure if he had a chance to make any type of last minute throw. Now, his decision making of choosing that option for that play can definitely be questioned
Agreed about the Klubnik play. It looked like it was supposed to be a run too in which case there wouldn’t have been anyone really to throw to.
Question about soccer leagues — how do they have so much money to pay the stars? I’m not a big soccer fan, but I am in the middle of season 1 of Ted Lasso and the stadium looks somewhat small. Is his team in the show at a lower (minor league) level?
I believe the AFC Richmond in the show is supposed to be a small Premier League team. Some of the weaker clubs will have pretty cozy and small stadiums for sure.
They aren’t too different from the NFL, a lot of their funds come from prize money and TV money. This was the money from last season in the EPL:
1. Manchester City – £161.3million
2. Arsenal – £159.8million
3. Manchester United – £152.1million
4. Newcastle – £151.7million
5. Liverpool – £151.6million
6. Brighton – £150.2million
7. Aston Villa – £142.1million
8. Tottenham – £134.0million
9. Brentford – £131.5million
10. Fulham – £130.6million
11. Crystal Palace – £128.2million
12. Chelsea – £124.3million
13. Wolves – £123.3million
14. West Ham – £121.0million
15. Bournemouth – £120.4million
16. Nottingham Forest – £116.1million
17. Everton – £113.3million
18. Leicester – £106.1million
19. Leeds – £104.6million
20. Southampton – £100.3million
The better teams will earn more as they progress in other competitions, like the Champions League, but also from massive sponsorship deals.
The top teams in Europe are getting $60 million to $80 million PER YEAR just for their main shirt sponsor.
I feel that pant size dilemma. Recently felt like my pants were on the small side but was stubborn and attributed to dryer shrink since “I know I have a set of 34s that fit me really well”. After a couple of confusing purchases I finally found the well fitting pants only to realize they were 36s. And thus a new pant wardrobe needed to be purchased.