Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
In the News
As expected, Notre Dame’s season opener at Florida State will kickoff at 7:30 PM ET and be televised by ABC. Remember, this is a Sunday game!
By the way, if you’d like to attend a Notre Dame football home game this year you’ll need a smartphone.
Yesss, ssssirrr! Arkansas has extended head coach Sam Pittman through 2025.
Sam Houston State won their first National Championship last weekend beating South Dakota State 23-21 on a super rainy afternoon.
Duke hired the first woman of color to be an athletic director in the country. And she’s a Notre Dame alum!
The SEC dished out $23 million to each of its schools to help with Covid shortfalls.
Northwestern and Nebraska will open the 2022 season in Dublin, Ireland.
From the Archives
Late last December we ranked the top linebackers of the Brian Kelly era.
The Portal
Notre Dame is reportedly looking at Tulsa corner Akayleb Evans and San Jose State defensive back Tre Webb to bolster the Irish secondary.
Former USC running back Stephen Carr left Los Angeles and quickly committed to Indiana. The Hoosiers also picked up Auburn defensive lineman Jaren Handy.
Former UCLA (and Oklahoma) wideout Theo Howard is headed to Utah. The Utes also added Washington safety Brandon McKinney.
Georgia corner Major Burns is transferring to LSU where he once committed during high school.
Alabama defensive back Brandon Turnage has transferred to Georgia.
Michigan State linebacker Devin Hightower is leaving the Spartans after one year.
Former Penn State defensive end has chosen Marshall as his new home.
Auburn corner Kamal Hadden is headed to Tennessee. Michigan linebacker William Mohan is transferring to Tennessee, as well.
Helmet Talk
Discussing the variety of Maryland’s football helmets could have us here for a while. During their Under Armour relationship they’ve welcomed the Maryland state flag like they were being paid extra from the government to display it in the most different ways possible.
Give me this simple Terps, helmet though. They have a more traditional white version of this helmet but I really dig this red version. Plus, Terps is a really cool word. Terps.
Recruiting
Defensive tackle Marquis Gracial (0.925) committed to in-state Missouri.
Inglewood athlete Clint Stephens (0.899) gave a verbal to UCLA.
Offensive tackle Jacob Allen (0.952) has committed to Rutgers.
House of the Week
This week we are taking a trip to the Pacific Northwest in Seattle for a 4-building compound on the eastern shore of Elliott Bay in the Magnolia neighborhood right next to Discovery Park.
This is one of the more impressive homes we’ve highlighted so far in the Rambler. The outdoor space and views are incredible and the main house kitchen and living room windows are outstanding. But as we often see, no television in the living room!
What do we think about trams? For a home like this, isn’t it better to walk through the manicured yard and get some exercise? Trams are overrated.
Tunes
Pink Floyd has held steady as my 3rd favorite band* of all-time. Like many, I was initially wooed by The Dark Side of the Moon then Wish You Where Here and finally The Wall. I enjoy most of their early work, although their 1969-70 years are definitely strange as they began coping without Syd Barrett in the group. Here’s one of the coolest videos from the era:
I actually listened to “Echoes” for the first time off their 2001 compilation album Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd that I had in college. Only years later did I circle back to the album Meddle which this song came from, and it’s one of my favorite ever from the group–a complete underrated gem from the 1970’s. A couple weeks ago, Polyphonic made a terrific video about this song that you should check out.
*Top 5 Bands for Me:
- The Beatles
- Led Zeppelin
- Pink Floyd
- The Doors
- The Rolling Stones
On This Day in Sports
An all-English UEFA Champions League final is coming soon. On this day in 2008, the first all-English final was played when Manchester United got past Chelsea on penalties.
Book Nook
Speaking of footy, I started reading Jonathan Wilson’s book Inverting the Pyramid: A History of Soccer Tactics and I got such a sensible chuckle out of the historical footnote that it was considered unmanly to pass the ball in the early days of soccer at a time when players would line up en masse and charge forward with little thought about movement and tactics.
Hot Take
I guess my chicken pot pie hot take wasn’t spicy enough last week. Maybe this will hit home for some of you in the Notre Dame orbit: Chicago deep dish pizza is a crime against humanity. Actually, this isn’t even a hot take.
Trivia
Who led the 2018 Notre Dame team in kickoff return yardage?
Check out my super original top 5 bands!
Good bands are good. Nothing embarrassing by agreeing with a lot of other people.
I 100% feel the same way about Meddle. It’s crazy that more people don’t like it. I put “More” and “Obscured by Clouds” close behind it, but those are my favorite 3. Also, anything after “Momentary Lapse of Reason” should be ignored and not considered part of the discography. Terrible.
Seconded – highly underrated. I love “Fearless” and have more recently become mildly obsessed with “San Tropez”, which is sort of a “Boogie With Stu” toss-off that also turns out to be a super great deep track. And in the right environment, “Echoes” is the best bang-for-yer-buck jukebox play at 23+ minutes.
Am I the only Animals fan here? I think for me it’s Animals, Wish You Were Here, The Wall, Dark Side. Am I overthinking it or trying to hard? Maybe but I love Animals. Such a tight, economical, but hard hitting album. I think The Floyd are my second favorite after Zeppelin. I’m not as big on their psychadelic stuff tho.
1) Dark Side of the Moon
2) Wish You Were Here
3) Meddle
4) Animals
5) The Wall
That’s my top 5.
Pink Floyd is my #1 band. Thank you for the call on Echoes. It is unique track on a hodgepodge (but quality) album, and carried me through many a late night study session.
As to ranking the best PF albums, I find it very mood and context dependent.
What the heck is the Meddle album cover? Do I need to hit the mushrooms first?
They say it’s an ear, but yeah.
I remember the only time I played the Pink Floyd drinking game freshman year (think LPs). Didn’t even make it halfway.
People from Maryland think getting their ugly state flag plastered on as much as possible, Old Bay seasoning and ignoring all rules of the road makes for a complete personality.
Am I the only one who thinks Old Bay doesn’t really taste like anything? I bought a thing of it once out of curiosity and was surprised that it’s just kinda slightly salty and that’s about it.
Old Bay is the only thing about Maryland that isn’t terrible. Low key worst state in the country.
St. Michael’s is pretty nice.
Major Burns has to be the worst name ever for a DB.
Only could be outranked if Nikki named his kid “Giveup Sixx”
This might be the toughest trivia question yet. There was one year where it seemed like we took a knee on just about every kickoff, and I think that may have been 2018 (we also didn’t give up many points that year, so I think there were very few kickoffs anyway).
I’m going to go with Jafar Armstrong, with about 5% confidence.
It is very tough.
That is a HOT take sir, but a borderline casserole that lives in the pizza taxonomy, what’s more midwestern than that?
Call me pithy, but I’ll take all pizza any way I can get it whenever.
within that, here’s a counter hot take: detroit style square pizza tops NY and chicago style as lord of pizza mountain
Your hot take isn’t hot enough because you didn’t leave it in the oven for 75 minutes, as one does with Chicago Deep Dish.
Chicago deep dish is (or can be) just fine, but it’s definitely not pizza. It’s a distant cousin of a pot pie. Personally, I would pretty much never order it if pizza is available, so I’m not really sure what the appeal is.
Pequod’s is burnt garbage beloved by tourists from Iowa.
Gotta be honest, I think it’s weird people have strong opinions about pizza at all. Crispy thin crust, Chicago deep dish, New York hand-tossed, pineapple or no pineapple…who cares? Why do people care? I don’t get it.
Does this mean you have no preference? Whatever anyone slings onto your plate is fine by you? I don’t get not caring.
in the spirit of Mare of Easttown, you guys should check out Portnoy’s Barstool reviews of Delco pizza. Delco, baby! These were produced before the show.
I totally get loving one style over another, sure. But I don’t get tribally _hating_ the style one doesn’t prefer. I don’t get evangelizing one’s pizza preferences.
You’ve clearly never had St. Louis Style pizza
(Or, conversely, you grew up in the STL area and are a staunch defender)
EDIT: Just saw your down-thread comment – definitely an STL’er
all glory to provel
I really hate Chicago deep dish pizza because it’s gross and not pizza.
But, my standards for all other pizza are not high. For example, I enjoy the hell out of Pizza Hut.
I don’t understand how any combination of those ingredients could ever be considered “gross”, at least on its face. There’s obviously bad NY style, bad Chicago style, etc. But I’m for a well-crafted and cooked pizza of any stripe, and although I have preferences, I agree with oneill that the hysterics that people devote to the topic are rather silly.
I am with you on this. I have never had a bad combination of carbs, cheese, and tomato sauce.
I’ve had Chicago style once, not memorable, but I love pizza, and honestly none of it is particularly memorable to me. It’s just good.
The only thing that stood out about Chicago style is that it was way too much food. I think I had a second slice because two slices of pizza is normal. Huge mistake.
Full disclosure. I absolutely love tomato sauce. When I was single, I regularly made myself rice with tomato sauce and cheese. I will blend San Marzanos and salt and eat with a spoon.
As someone who grew up just outside of Chicago, I like deep dish, but I’ve prob only had it between 8-12 times in my life. True Chicago-style pizza for me is Chicago style thin crust. Square cut slices with a thiccc layer of cheese, like 6 toppings (real italian sausage, peppers, shrooms, black olives, and spinach is my go to), and juuuust the right amount of grease. That’s what I’ve eaten hundreds of times in my life and holds a special place in my heart. Chicago deep dish is a novelty; Chicago thin crust is what truly tastes like home and can’t be replicated.
Sounds like St. Louis style pizza
No, it has actual, human-grade cheese on it
This is correct. I like deep dish a good amount too but your run of the mill pizza place in Chicago a tavern cut thin crust. I’m not even sure where the nearest place I could get deep dish is but there are multiple thin crust spots in the neighborhood. Growing up in Chicagoland, we almost never had deep dish but regularly had thin crust.
I miss tavern style pizza a lot after moving from Chicago.
2019 I would go Michael young. Don’t think it was him in 18. Don’t remember dexter returning at all and wouldn’t have been any of the wideouts. Will go jafar Armstrong
I think you have your years mixed up.
I remembered just the usc kick return from 2019 so I assumed that plus half of the starts before he transferred would be enough. I remember 0 other kick returns from 2018 or 2019. (Or 2020 for that matter)
You were so close!
TRIVIA ANSWER:
Michael Young
9 returns
191 yards
I tried to give him a push over the finish line.
Here’s a maybe hotter take: If not pizza, what is Chicago good at?
Recruiting to Notre Dame
-1949
Blues. At least that’s where I learned them.
Architecture, choo-choos, comedy, shootin stuff….
All fair. Great architecture, for sure.
Cow fires.