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:

  1. The Beatles
  2. Led Zeppelin
  3. Pink Floyd
  4. The Doors
  5. 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?