Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
Top News
The FUND (Friends of the University of Notre Dame) has become an official sponsor of Notre Dame Athletics.
Former Notre Dame running back Logan Diggs has transferred to LSU.
Former Notre Dame linebacker Prince Kollie has transferred to Vanderbilt.
Former Irish safety Paul Moala is transferring to Georgia Tech after a year at Idaho.
Former Notre Dame offensive lineman Caleb Johnson has transferred to SMU.
The so-called “Magnificent 7” ACC teams (Clemson, Miami, FSU, UNC, NC State, Virginia, Virginia Tech) are looking for a way to break the current grant of rights within the league and possibly come up with a new distribution plan among the teams.
Kansas State football coach Chris Klieman got a new contact worth $5.5 million per year through 2030.
Texas has a plan to put natural grass back inside Darrell K. Royal Stadium.
USF has plans for a $340 million on-campus football stadium.
Cincinnati has agreed to a 2-year deal with Nike while their men’s and women’s basketball teams will wear the Jordan brand.
Tennessee has unveiled plans for a new entertainment district (similar to LA Live) that will be built next to Neyland Stadium.
Uniform of the Week
I’m not usually dipping my toes into the NFL waters with uniforms, but it’s also rare that we get to see a fresh new uniform set unveiled among the 32 teams. This off-season the Arizona Cardinals got a new look courtesy of Nike and when we got a full appreciation I could hardly believe my eyes. Now, the Cardinals had among the worst uniforms in the NFL. These are maybe better but not by much.
They introduced silver, kind of out of nowhere. That’s led to plenty of comparisons to a Budget Ohio State look. Or, maybe even Rutgers. I really want to focus on the red home uniform. It’s hideous. The chest script is too low, the silver trim looks silly, and there’s no striping anywhere. They look like Christmas pajamas!
Recruiting
Notre Dame picked up linebackers Teddy Rezac (0.8659) and Bodie Kahoun (0.8900) recently.
The rich get richer as top quarterback and top overall 2024 recruit Dylan Raiola (0.9995) committed to Georgia. It’s been a wild ride so far for Raiola who left Ohio State’s class, was rumored to be leaning toward Nebraska then USC, and now picks the Dawgs.
Athlete Ju’Juan Johnson (0.9107) committed to LSU.
California athlete Aaron Butler (0.9531) committed to Colorado.
YouTube Channel
Hockey players these days can straight up dangle. Magic mitts. I don’t love the shootout rules in the NHL today but it’s undeniably allowed us to watch the sport develop more and more breakaway beauties. I think it’s a very specific skill-set. Even players who are naturally great stick handlers or shooters can’t always put it all together for great shootout success. Back in my hockey days, I was like that. Even as an offensive and crafty center I hated shooting high on breakaways and usually resorted to a quick low shot or a fake shot with a quick move to either my forehand or backhand.
Sam Gagner (starting at 0:45 seconds to 1:38 seconds in this video) gives us absurd shootout filth. To my point, you’d think judging by his skills he has been a major goal scorer in his NHL career. But no, he’s only scored 192 goals in 1,015 career games. Someone who can dangle like that has never scored 20 goals in a single NHL season. It’s amazing.
Tunes
There was hope that The Strokes were going to be a massive group who spurred on a rock revival in the United States and across the world. Their debut album Is This It landed like a bomb in 2001 and the group never recovered from or could sustain that level of fame. Now 22 years later, they’ve only made 6 albums total. Six! I thought the massive success of their single “Last Nite” made me not like them that much and early in their career I really had a hard time accepting the extreme compressed and distorted vocals from Julian Casablanca.
After many years, I came around to enjoying The Strokes a lot more. Their 2nd through 5th albums did okay but none got really amazing reviews. Their most recent album The New Abnormal from 2020 got very good reviews from critics and one of the singles “Bad Decisions” is a fun rocker (with a weird music video). I always thought it had some similarities to “Dancing with Myself” and turns out the band credited Billy Idol as co-writer.
Trivia
Notre Dame has lost by exactly 1 point 17 separate times in school history. Can you name the last 1-point defeat?
The Other Football
Manchester City smoked Real Madrid 4-0 (5-1 on aggregate) in front of their home crowd on Wednesday to clinch an appearance in the Champions League Final. After years of frustrating exits, this will be City’s first appearance in the UCL final.
Inter Milan is headed to the Champions League Final to face Man City as they beat AC Milan 1-0 and 3-0 on aggregate this Tuesday. They will be looking for their first UCL title since 2009-10. The UCL Final will be played on June 10th at the Ataturk Stadium in Istanbul, Turkey.
The logo for the 2026 World Cup in North America was unveiled on Wednesday. It’s perhaps the worst sports logo of all time for an event this big:
FIFA has approved Folarin Balogun to play for the United States. The 21-year old Arsenal product has been on loan at Stade Reims this season and has scored 20 goals in all competitions.
Brentford striker Ivan Toney has been suspended 8 months for illegal betting.
CONCACAF has released new club rankings and 7 out of the top 10 teams are from Mexico, led by Monterrey.
Streaming
AI is certainly having a moment right now. Whether it’s going to take over the world quickly I cannot speak to but I do know that one of the best things in AI consumption is re-doing movie trailers with different directors. Today, the YouTube page Curious Refuge gives us Lord of the Rings by Wes Anderson. You know I’m a Wes Anderson apologist to the fullest.
Going through the cast is funny as hell. I think I would like a whimsical Lord of the Rings! Quick story, Viggo Mortensen is an alumnus of my college and he came to speak prior to a showing of one of the LOTR movies in the university auditorium. Except, it was the evening of the annual Snow Bowl (basically a school sanctioned party on a ski slope) and I was absolutely not watching a 3-hour movie in a dimly lit auditorium an hour after an all-day party.
A Look Back
I was thinking back to late 2014 when Malik Zaire showed some spark in the ugly loss to USC and then did some good things (12 of 15 passing and 96 rushing yards) in the win over LSU in the bowl game. Remember how everyone loved Zaire’s outgoing personality? Everyone was going to rally around him! Then, the team came out in 2015 and absolutely humiliated Texas with Zaire having one of the best games in Irish history finishing 19 of 22 for 313 yards, 3 touchdowns, and no interceptions. Following that game, Zaire stock was through the roof with people all across the country gobbling it up.
If it were a real stock, everyone would’ve gone broke. Things looked iffy the next week at Virginia and we know the story of the leg injury that shut Zaire down for the rest of the 2015 season. He’d never again become the starter at Notre Dame. Prior to that trip to Charlottesville, Zaire was 40 of 57 (70.1%) for 579 yards in his short career. He’d finish his college career–including a 2017 transfer to Florida where he played sparingly–going 50 of 97 (51.5%) for 586 yards, 2 touchdowns, and 1 interception. Zaire is a good example of how fleeting these college careers can be especially when there’s an injury involved.
18S Paddock Club
Formula 1 was hoping to have a record-breaking 24 races in 2023 but thanks to Covid policies and Mother Nature we are now down to just 22 races as the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix was cancelled on Wednesday morning.
Nearly 7 months worth of rain fell over 36 hours from the coastal city of Rimini all the way northwest to the city of Bologna with the Imola circuit nearly halfway between both places. As of this writing, 9 people have died and 13,000 people have been forced from their homes.
Round 6 of 23
Emilia Romagna Grand Prix
Date: May 21st
Race: 9:00 AM ET
TV: ESPN 2/F1TV
Location: Imola, Italy
Circuit: Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari
Laps: 63
Tire Compounds: C3, C4, C5
Track Evolution: 3 out of 5
Asphalt Abrasion: 3 out of 5
Far less amounts of rain were expected to fall throughout the weekend but Formula 1 made the wise decision to cancel the event. With all of the chaos in Italy, bringing thousands of fans plus emergency personnel in and out of the circuit across 4 days would’ve been gross negligence.
This was supposed to be the first of 2 Alternative Tire Allocation weekends where teams would use hard tires during Q1 of qualifying, medium tires during Q2, and soft tires during the final Q3 session. We’ll see if that gets pushed to a later race.
Imola was also supposed to be the biggest weekend of the season so far for major car upgrades. With the cancellation, teams are now faced with the tough decision on whether to debut these new car parts at the highest downforce track of the season next weekend in Monaco. Good luck!
Trivia Answer:
20-19 Loss vs. Georgia, 2017
TRIVIA: Georgia 2017?
Beating LSU in the Music City Bowl was one of the most, if not the most, unexpected wins of my ND fandom. I was 100% certain we were going to get creamed.
I don’t disagree, but beating LSU in ’97 was way more unexpected, it was 100,000 times more likely that LSU was going to dominate ND in the way that ND dominated LSU that day
Was that the no penalties and no turnovers game?
It was indeed. Then of course LSU blitzed us in the bowl game a month and a half later and no one cared about that game anymore.
@ACS yup, it was a work of art…Footbaw Bob must’ve shutup that week and let whichever assistants were competent just do their jobs.
@Andy yeah, but we shouldn’t have won the first time….especially on the road. Pulling it off twice was basically out of the question lol.
I was ready to #FireKelly after November 2014. Winning that game made no sense at all but definitely quieted the masses for a while.
Very interested to hear what this actually means, but clearly it has to be a positive development for the collective and school to be officially linked. I don’t think the next Dante Moore is getting $2 million to enroll anytime soon, but has to be a step in the right direction to get players the ends they should be getting.
Poor Zaire, loved his hype and buildup. We’ll always have 2015 Texas. That’s got to be on the Mount Rushmore of most fun/satisfying ND games in the last decade, if such an obscure subject were to exist.
I’d put it with definitely the 37-0 win over Michigan in 2014, the 2017 49-14 ass kicking of USC…And maybe the OT win ovr #1 Clemson in 2020? Last spot is iffy for me. I rather enjoyed the 2021 Wisconsin game too.
Last decade as in 2013-2023? I’d go:
2015 Texas was a blast, but it was apparent right away that Texas was just awful
2017 USC was one of the loveliest nights of my life.
2014 Michigan lives rent free in my heart forever;
First weekend off base at navy officer training, got my fresh khakis, feeling good, being hit on by french girls in rhode island, and I’m enjoying a cold narragansett lager remembering the 6. The perfect energy of the evening juxtaposed against the precious 2 months of insanity was delicious. For a brief moment, brian van gorder made sense
It’s a good five, but I’d flip the 2018 games, because we beat the hell out of Stanford and they were a putative top-10 team at the time. The Michigan game that year felt in doubt at points.
2022 Clemson was pretty damn satisfying too. Causing Dabo to swear in his postgame press conference was quite wonderful.
That would probably be #6. Very enjoyable game but Clemson just doesn’t move the needle much for me, apart from Dabo being annoying.
2014 Michigan is #1 for me always and forever, but man did scheduling them again take a couple swipes out of it. Never should have done that.
All those are so juicy, I see no fault.
Some low key underdog wins in the mix:
2013 michigan state, their ONLY loss of the year, no fanfare, no primetime slot, ugly ugly game, but the good guys won!
2020 North Carolina. The sexy upset pick, the high powered offense, got totally shut down, and without kyle hamilton!
2018 Syracuse. Another one of those sexy upset games we absolutely dominated.
2017 NC state. Another one of the we-humbled-the-sexy pick team such dominating fashion.
All very visceral wins that sort of get lost in time, but I adore
2013 MSU didn’t feel like a big deal at the time, but on paper it’s the best win of the Kelly era.
The 5 game stretch in 2017 of MSU – Miami (OH) – UNC – USC – NC St. was maybe the most fun 5 game stretch I can remember watching. Hell, even the two games prior, a blowout of Temple and the trivia answer UGA loss were also enjoyable. And then it all came crashing down in Miami – maybe the most disappointed I’ve been with a loss (or ’19 Michigan).
2013 MSU, especially being their only loss, is a personal favorite. I know they aren’t really considered by most to be one of our major rivals, but I hate them more than anybody else we play. Their smug, idiot coaches. Their annoying, godawful fanbase. Everything about them. That win, especially with the way their season played out after that, makes me smile every time I think about it.
Concur on all fronts about Michigan State. No doubt it belongs on the big win scale, especially like nd09 said for what MSU ended up doing the rest of the season.
But this type/style of game wasn’t what I was talking about, it’s pretty much the opposite really ha. 2013 ND/MSU wasn’t a very satisfying game to sit down and watch, despite the great result- it was a slogfest of 2 crappy QBs, limited offense due to strong defenses. Low scoring.
Very meaningful win but not prime for a list like this where you can revel in an “everything’s clicking and life is grand” style that was intended. Unless you’re just a glutton for Big-10 punishment.
That game was U-G-L-Y ugly but seeing Sparty fans whine about how their own conference’s refs dared to call their illegal style of pass coverage illegal was great fun.
Awful fanbase.
I was at the NCSU game so it gets bumped up notches for me. That was a heck of a fun day. As I recall MSU upset Penn State that same day, and a couple days later we were somewhat unexpectedly ranked #3 in the first CFP rankings. The world seemed like it was our oyster.
The response TD after they scored to open the game… right down the field, TD pass to smythe(?)
I remember thinking “oh yeah THATS what great teams do, respond to adversity”
That’s awesome you got to see it in person. The first 2/3 of 2017 were such an excellent time, maybe the most optimistic I’ve been about irish football, especially juxtaposed against the previous season
I know it’s a combination of recency bias, being there in person, and my sibling rivalry, but beating the crap out of Clemson (my sister’s alma mater) last year was one of the best sporting events I’ve ever attended.
Also a worthy pick. Down a notch for me because I don’t think Clemson is truly Clemson anymore, but always great to not just beat them but dominate them.
I never quite got why The Strokes got so much hype. Is This It peaked at #33 on the charts! Last Nite wasn’t even that big of a song! Wikipedia is not helping me here with its overall charting, but it was a “top 5 U.S. Modern Rock Track” at its peak and it was never in the Billboard Hot 100! Yet, as you say, somehow they got treated like a huge deal.
I guess I always liked The White Stripes more and viewed them to some degree in competition.
It was the beginning of a mini rock revival, to be fair. But #33 does seem really low compared to how much it seemed like the song was everywhere.
The top 10 artists on the Hot 100 from November 17, 2001:
Mary J. Blige
Jennifer Lopez
Enrique Iglesias
Alicia Keys
Usher
Nelly Furtado
Ginuwine
Ja Rule
Nickleback
Enya
The other rock or rock-ish groups in the top 100:
Staind, Lifehouse, Train, Five for Fighting, Alien Ant Farm, 3 Doors Down, Creed, U2, P.O.D., Incubus, Linkin Park, Puddle of Mudd, Fuel.
Dark times.
Just because “Last Nite” didn’t chart well, doesn’t mean it isn’t an absolute stone cold classic. Song is an all timer.
I never would have guessed Zaire ended his career with less than 100 pass attempts. Has any player in recent ND history (post-Ron Powlus) generated as much excitement and buzz as he did in such a short amount of time? The South Bend Tribune or Indy Star or some midwest paper was talking him up as a Heisman contender after his first career start!
You can’t spell Bizarre without Zaire
Zaire is yet another example of TNSTAAQBP: There’s no such thing as a QB prospect. Stolen from the baseball saying TNSTAAP(itching)P.
For both pitchers and QBs, it’s that combination of showing it on the field as opposed to just at practice, plus durability.
Anyway, I feel like 2015 was our most recent best shot at a national title if Zaire stayed healthy. If we beat Clemson, we most likely end up with the #1 seed, crush MSU, and get the winner of Clemson/Alabama.
I think that team was better with Kizer at QB. (There’s something ironic about the fact that Kelly’s best team, IMO anyway, was probably his best in part because starters Zaire and Tarean Folston got knocked out early and paved the way for better players to get on the field.) The what-if for 2015 is if we had anything resembling competency at the defensive coordinator position.