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

Top News

Notre Dame lost special teams coach Brian Mason to the Indianapolis Colts and is expected to hire Ole Miss’ Marty Biagi (previously a GA for the Irish) soon. Notre Dame also officially announced the hire of offensive line coach Joe Rudolph.

Michael Mayer, Isaiah Foskey, Jarrett Patterson, and Brandon Joseph completed their NFL Combine workouts recently. Our NFL scouting reports will be coming soon this spring.

USC offensive lineman Andrew Voorhees tore his ACL during the NFL Combine but still set the record this year for most bench press reps at 38.

UCLA head coach Chip Kelly has signed a contract extension through 2027.

D-III Finlandia is closing their football program after 8 competitive seasons.

Gary Patterson is no longer working at Texas as a special assistant.

Uniform of the Week

Do you remember the company Apex One? The company rose to fame in the early-to-mid 1990’s primarily in the NFL and college football worlds through their uniforms and apparel like jackets and hats. For a while, they even rivaled Starter as the cool brand of the decade. I even owned THIS Notre Dame jacket from Apex One. The company really turned heads when it supplied the Dallas Cowboys uniforms culminating in the infamous Double Star uniforms (HERE and HERE) for the 1994 season and 75th celebration of the NFL. I still think those jerseys are really cool.

That style then made its way to college football which resulted several teams getting the huge shoulder treatment, including these Wisconsin jerseys:

Unfortunately, Apex One went out of business (more accurately they were later bought up by Converse) in 1995. However, Wisconsin decided to move forward with wearing this Apex One design uniform, except they put the Starter logo on the sleeve after signing a new deal with that company. The Badgers were demolished at home 43-7 by Colorado in the 1995 season opener and never again worse this jersey.

Recruiting

Crystal ball predictions are coming in for 2024 top overall recruit and quarterback Dylan Raiola (0.9996) to USC. Cool, cool, cool. He was previously committed to Ohio State for a while.

Maryland offensive lineman grad transfer Mason Lunsford, who was briefly looking at Notre Dame, committed to LSU this week. Linebacker Kolaj Cobbins (0.9250) stays in-state with LSU, as well.

Quarterback Marcos Davila (0.9033) committed to Purdue.

Running back Davion Gause (0.9142) committed to North Carolina.

Running back Tovani Mizell (0.9203) decommitted from Georgia on Thursday.

YouTube Channel

Today’s video looks at the most visited websites from November 1995 to present. Back in the day, I was on my family Hewlett-Packard playing things like Theme Park, Sim City, or Myst. I don’t think visiting websites really became a thing for me until a couple years later when I became glued to espn.com and nhl.com for several years. I can remember a time when it felt like espn.com was going to take over the world (I guess it kind of did for a while) and now I’m visiting their site maybe 10 minutes per year, at least for editorial content or news stories. I still like their scoreboard webpage for college football.

Fast forward to February 2023 and I’m visiting Google, YouTube, Twitter, and Reddit quite a lot on a daily basis. Facebook, I’ve phased out beyond a very quick daily check. I am spending more time on Instagram. While I use Amazon at work so I’m ordering things quite a bit from the office and also from home, too. I wonder, does Yahoo have a 3rd comeback in them??

Tunes

I was in the common room of a dorm in Potsdam College when I first saw the music video for “Mo Money Mo Problems” in July 1997. I’ll never forget the awe of watching this video and thinking it was one of the greatest things I’d ever seen. With the spoof on Tiger Woods and his sky-rocketing career I absolutely loved the production. Things started to subside a little bit once you heard this song damn near everywhere for about 4 months into the fall. Looking back, this video may be peak 1990’s.

Puff Daddy was also damn near everywhere in 1997. He was featured on Biggie’s first no. 1 single “Hypnotize” back in March 1997 in addition to being a songwriter and producer on that track. He then wrote “I’ll Be Missing You” after Biggie’s death which spent 11 weeks(!!) atop the Billboard Hot 100, only then to be replaced by “Mo Money Mo Problems” at no. 1 for 2 more weeks. He also co-produced “Honey” by Mariah Carey which was the next no. 1 single for an additional 3 weeks.

Trivia

Can you name the top 5 most consumed drinks in the world in correct order?

The Other Football

It’s turning into a season from hell for us Spurs fans out there. First they drop a road game at Wolves on Saturday and then can’t muster a goal against AC Milan back at home to crash out of the Champions League. Meanwhile, Arsenal had a last-second 3-2 win over Bournemouth thanks to a goal from Reiss Nelson.

Elsewhere, Liverpool smashed Man United 7-0 and are making their way up the league table.

PSG also crashed out of the Champions League losing 3-0 on aggregate against Bayern Munich. The lack of success on the biggest European stage continues for PSG since they were bought by Qatar Sports Investment.

Despite their terrible season in England, we saw Chelsea come back and take out Dortmund 2-1 on aggregate to advance to the next round of the Champions League.

Streaming

I had a nice quiet day off from work last week and decided to clear some things off my Netflix list when I came upon The Sting from 1973. I’ve always had trouble keeping the Paul Newman movies straight not helped by him playing next to Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid a few years earlier. Well, I was delighted by this movie from start to finish. The very first con that sets the whole movie in motion tricked me, which was awesome. Well done to the writers.

Spoiler alert for the ending: The final twist involving the FBI was a masterclass. I didn’t see it coming at all. Although my biggest gripe with the movie is getting 30 different people to be in on the con for a period of days. I have to think Robert Shaw’s character has several tentacles within that group and someone would’ve been pressured into giving him info. I’m embarrassed it took me this long to watch the movie. Adjusted for inflation it’s still one of the highest grossing films ever and won a million awards, too.

A Look Back

I know this isn’t a particularly new or novel discussion, but imagine if Georgia held on to beat Alabama in the 2018 National Championship Game? The Tide would still be 74-9 since 2017 even with that loss but with just one title over that time frame. Georgia would also be 74-9 after that same time frame if this game was flipped but would have 3 out of the last 6 titles and the discussion within the SEC and nationally is even more tilted towards the Dawgs.

This is probably the best walk-off moment in college football history. Tua (coming in on relief of Jalen Hurts) to DeVonta Smith (before he was the DeVonta Smith) to win it all in overtime. I remembered the Alabama offense struggling but forgot they were shutout in the 1st half, as well. Georgia to this day has to be kicking themselves. I guess Jake Fromm just isn’t anything like the playmaker Stetson Bennett.

18S Paddock Club

Well, if you wanted a competitive title fight it’s not looking too good after the opening race in Bahrain. Max Verstappen took pole, and ended up pulling out nearly 1 second per lap gap in the early portions of the race before settling in to an easy victory. Stretching back to 2022, Max has won 10 out of the last 12 races and might challenge his record-breaking 15 wins last year, too.

The story of the race was old man Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll looking very competitive in their Aston Martin cars. The qualifying wasn’t really that hot (a struggle last year too) but Alonso ended up on the podium in 3rd place while showing off very strong race pace and numerous exciting overtakes like this insane one at turn 10 against Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton:

 

That podium for Alonso did come thanks in part to Charles Leclerc’s battery dying on his Ferrari, although Carlos Sainz in the other Ferrari was caught and passed by Alonso, too.

Mercedes seem to have thrown away another year trying to develop their car from last year. Their 5th and 7th place finishes were fine but they appear miles away from winning races and have to re-think their approach.

McLaren had a nightmare in the desert, retiring rookie Oscar Piastri with an electrical issue that shut down his car plus Lando Norris lost pneumatic pressure and had to pit 6 separate times.

We’ll see how things change in Saudi Arabia next weekend on a very different and less abrasive track. Ferrari may be able to qualify and challenge the Red Bull drivers on the tight and fast track where it’s difficult to pass.

Trivia Answer:

Water, tea, coffee, beer, and milk.