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

In the News

To much anticipation, Notre Dame announced there will be full attendance, plus tailgating, for home football games this fall. Let’s get it.

The upcoming game against Wisconsin, a home game for the Badgers at Soldier Field, will be broadcast on Fox at Noon ET.

Former Notre Dame defensive lineman Justin Utupo was named Lakewood High School head football coach where he graduated from before arriving in South Bend. Former Irish quarterback Malik Zaire will be his offensive coordinator.

The University of Michigan may be removing the name of Fielding Yost from their hockey arena.

The HBCU created their own bowl game and will now hold their own Pro Day next January.

The United States Senate has introduced another bill aiming at making college athletes employees with collective bargaining powers.

The 2021-22 bowl schedule has been released.

From the Archives

Some games under Brian Kelly have been really, really boring.

The Portal

Former LSU quarterback TJ Finley is staying in the SEC and will transfer to Auburn.

Texas A&M receiver Camron Buckley has transferred to Indiana.

Top 200 defensive tackle Jay Tioa enrolled early at USC but announced he’s transferring.

Former All-MAC safety Tyrone Hill is leaving Buffalo.

Highly coveted guard Cain Madden is leaving Marshall as is receiver Artie Henry.

Helmet Talk

My original idea was to highlight one of the NC State alternate helmets of which they’ve used many in recent years. Then, I started looking over and over on their traditional helmet. It struck me that I’ve never really looked closely at their logo or cared enough to keep staring at it for a while.

Does this logo suck? The more I look at it the more it disappoints. I don’t hate the attempt to plop the “N” and “C” on top of the large “S” it just lacks execution. I think one of two things (or both together) could help the situation. Either make the interior letters smaller and/or re-work the outlining and colors.

Recruiting

It’s the calm before the storm next month when we should see a slew of commits both at Notre Dame and elsewhere.

Houston, Texas corner Julian Humphrey (0.945) committed to Florida.

Boston College pulled safety Siona Hala (0.893) out of California.

Virginia snagged big receiver Dakota Twitty (0.902) out of North Carolina.

House of the Week

We’re back in California this week almost exactly dead center in the Hollywood Hills due west of Hollywood Boulevard for this little love shack of 13,000 square feet. What will we find?

I’m a big, big fan of the “all lights on” button. Normally, if I come home to a dark house I turn on many lights right away and leave them on. That’s not super popular around the family but if I’m going to be in 3 rooms pretty regularly over the next couple hours, I’m just leaving all the lights on, sorry.

Italian water purification system. Does it shoot out Pellegrino? I don’t get it.

Tunes

My wife ritually listens to our local top 40 hit station in her Jeep, which is what we use to transport our kids which also means we’re all subjected to the trendy music of the day. Sure, I’m listening to some not great stuff but it makes me feel young and hip, still. Occasionally, you do get some gems like Doja Cat’s recent single “Kiss Me More” off her upcoming album Planet Her later this summer:

The beat and catchy guitar riff are undeniable in this song. I felt immediately on the first couple listens that this should be a No. 1 song (it’s made top 5 as of this writing). A couple days ago, I was working on painting some trim with my Beats in when I finally listened closely to the lyrics, and well, I decided to embed the clean version above. Great song though! I’m sure you’ll be hearing it a lot at the tailgating lots in September.

On This Day in Sports

On this day in 2006, Barry Bonds hit his 715th homerun to pass Babe Ruth for 2nd all-time in Major League history.

At the Cinema

Okay, technically not a movie but I went down a Voltron rabbit hole this week and it was awesome. This led me to go back and really research which cartoons I watched in the 1980’s and I included Voltron with Dennis the Menace, G.I. Joe, He-Man and Masters of the Universe, Inspector Gadget, The Jetsons, Muppet Babies, Thundercats, and Transformers.

I feel like out of all these shows I watched Voltron the least and it looks like it was the shortest running of them all which makes sense now in my brain. I don’t even remember much about what went on in these episodes but of course the formation of Voltron (18:00 mark of the video) was my absolute favorite as a kid. It still gives me goosebumps. Long live the 80’s!

Hot Take

Pine tar on baseball helmets should be illegal. It should be required to be cleaned off after every game. We don’t have quite the problem with caps anymore compared to 10 years ago but those also should be fresh and clean every game.

Trivia

This player, whom Notre Dame faced in 2020, led the country in sacks by a player with freshman eligibility. Who was it?