Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
Top News
Audric Estime was not named a Doak Walker finalist WTF?
The latest College Football Playoff rankings feature a top 4 of Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan with Washington now ahead of Florida State. Notre Dame lands in at no. 18 this week.
Florida State quarterback Jordan Travis’ college career is over following a leg injury suffered this past weekend.
Syracuse has fired head coach Dino Babers.
Utah quarterback Cameron Rising announced he’ll return for a 7th season in 2024.
Pittsburgh and Wisconsin will open the 2027 season Dublin, Ireland.
Washington and Washington State have signed an agreement to play the Apple Cup through the 2028 season.
FexEx founder Fred Smith has donated $50 million to the Memphis football stadium renovation project.
Uniform of the Week
We only have a couple more Notre Dame games before the clock starts ticking on a visit to College Station, Texas. As of this writing, we have 282 more days until the Irish invade Kyle Field and experience all of the Texas A&M weirdness that is to come. Back in 2020, the Aggies reverted back to a more classic look from the 1980’s and early 1990’s vastly simplifying their uniforms from the beginning of the SEC era as encapsulated by those Johnny Manziel teams.
I typically don’t like the imbalance of a home uniform like A&M that goes maroon-maroon-white starting from the top at their helmets. Last week, they wore their all-maroon set at home and it’s one of the rare monotone schemes that I kind of enjoy in college football. I also feel like the Aggies were among the first teams in FBS to adopt this monotone color uniform, I recall it being a popular choice among friends in the old days of NCAA Football on PlayStation at the turn of the century.
Recruiting
Quiet week for recruiting, a reminder that the early signing period for college football is less than a month away and begins on December 20th.
Notre Dame added the commitment from Brophy College Prep corner Cree Thomas (0.8826) in the 2025 recruiting class.
Lots of content this week about Colorado losing offensive lineman Talan Chandler (0.8647) to Missouri. He isn’t a top 1,000 prospect in the Composite which speaks to Colorado’s struggles as they have the 69th ranked class and only 9 commits. It’s not going great for Coach Prime against this much adversity.
YouTube Channel
We haven’t been posting much to our 18 Stripes Twitter/X account over the last couple weeks. Yes, the app seems like it’s slowly dying and being replaced by other platforms and that’s a part of it. But more accurately, we’re just being lazy. I’m not sure how important tweeting out articles for us remains these days in a shrinking user-base. It does make me realize that we often, especially during football games, communicate through memes.
We’re all just searching for those imaginary internet points. A well crafted meme is the chef’s kiss. Please enjoy the Casually Explained YouTube channel covering a brief history of memes. The internet is a pretty weird place, man.
Tunes
I have a theory that weird and irregular front men in a lot of bands make it hard for the group to have a lasting impact once they grow older and pass away. For a time, the band can be super popular and incredibly successful but their fame slowly fades away. I think that happened with a group like The Cars who were led by the extremely different looking Ric Ocasek. He died back in 2019.
I went through a phase where The Cars were heavy in my music rotation. Their debut self-titled album is elite and one of the best debut albums of all-time. Truly, it opens with “Good Times Roll”, “My Best Friend’s Girl”, and “Just What I Needed” providing a bevy of rock radio hits right off the bat. I particularly like “You’re All I’ve Got Tonight” the 6th track from the album. I’m sad that a band like this is slowly fading away from relevance.
Trivia
Can you name the 3 schools to ever win the NACDA Director’s Cup for the most successful college athletics program annually awarded?
The Other Football
The USMNT wrapped up the League of Nations quarterfinals by defeating mighty Trinidad and Tobago 4-2 on aggregate.
In a game marred by fan violence, Argentina defeated Brazil 1-0 handing the latter their first ever World Cup qualifying home loss. That’s an amazing stat.
Diego Maradona’s game-worn “Hand of God” jersey from the 1986 World Cup sold for $9.28 million through an auction at Sotheby’s.
Barcelona and Spanish star Gavi tore his ACL. Real Madrid and Brazilian star Vinicius is out 3 months with a torn thigh muscle. Real Madrid also lost French midfielder Camavinga until February with a hamstring injury. What an international break!
France beat Gibraltar 14-0 in a Euro 2024 qualifying match. So at least that happened.
Everton, of all teams, have been handed a 10-point deduction for Financial Fair Play breaches. At this rate, Man City will probably be given extra points.
TV & Movies
If you’ve never done this, please go research Leslie Nielsen and his fart machine jokes. This guy was an elite fart joke legend who passed away back in 2010. The world has missed him. I grew up on his legendary performances on Airplane! and the Naked Gun films–pound for pound as much comedy as you can pack into movies with great writing and delivery. There was always something about Nielsen’s persona and comedic timing that made him extremely relatable and ‘real guy’ drop dead funny.
The baseball scene from the first Naked Gun movie has always been a childhood memory, seemingly this part of the movie would be on HBO endlessly throughout the day. Look at the faces Nielsen makes in this scene! My goodness he is hilarious. As a uniform nerd, I also appreciate these old school Angels and Mariners looks. I can’t not mention that.
A Look Back
What are we going to do with targeting in college football and in the sport at all levels? We are completing year 16 at the FBS level of having various forms and regulations of this rule and it still feels as messy and indecipherable as ever. The application from officials and replay seems as inconsistent as ever and in the defense of the people attempting to implement more safety measures, I’m not sure the general public agrees on what is targeting, and more precisely, what should be targeting.
That is not the case with Boston College safety and Arkansas transfer Khari Johnson who lost his damn mind on this hit against Pittsburgh this past Thursday. This was the most targeting you can ever target. I was waiting for the rules analyst to pop in and obfuscate about whether Johnson made contact with the shoulder first, or something stupid like that which helps to make this rule terrible to educate the public. Luckily, sanity prevailed. As the announcer mentioned, this ticked every single box of targeting. Honestly, I’d be okay with a 2-game suspension this is ridiculous.
18S Paddock Club
Things got off to a rocky start for the inaugural (new) Las Vegas Grand Prix weekend. Free practice 1 on late Thursday night was red flagged just a few minutes into the action after Carlos Sainz’ Ferrari hit a loose drain hole severely damaging his car. That resulted into inspections and construction work on other drain holes on the circuit leading to an extremely delayed 2nd free practice that only completed past 6 o’clock in the morning Vegas time. In the middle of the chaos, they kicked out fans from the stands in the middle of the night which has led to a class action lawsuit against F1. What a start!
Luckily, we ended up getting a banger of a weekend once Friday arrived. Plus, the reports afterward were really positive for the experiences for fans and the casino businesses. Despite starting the race at 1 AM eastern they still picked up 1.3 million viewers in the U.S. for the 3rd best rating of the season.
Yes, he won.
The Ferrari’s were extremely fast during qualifying with Charles Leclerc taking pole and Sainz finishing in P2. Due to his car damage from the drain cover accident, Sainz needed to take new engine elements and received a 10-place grid penalty, though.
At the start, Verstappen pushed Leclerc off track at the 1st corner and would receive a 5-second penalty.
McLaren did not have a good weekend as Lando Norris crashed hard on lap 3 bringing out a safety car.
Verstappen struggled with tire wear and was eventually passed by Leclerc for the lead–something we’ve rarely seen happen to Verstappen since the 2022 season began.
George Russell ended up turning into Verstappen (earning a 5-second penalty for the former driver) later in the race which was a mixed blessing. It damaged Verstappen’s front wing but brought out a safety car again and allowed him to save time during a final pit stop.
At the end of the race we saw an intense 3-way battle between Sergio Perez (started P11 and worked his way up to the front), Leclerc, and Verstappen. At first, Leclerc chased down Perez and passed him for the lead. Verstappen also passed Perez and then was able to overtake Leclerc for the lead. Sitting in P2, Leclerc ran wide turning on to the Strip. However, the race finished with Leclerc executing an incredible overtake for P2 passing Perez at the end of the Strip on the final lap.
Round 22 of 22
Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
Date: November 26th
Race: 8:00 AM ET
Location: Yas Island, UAE
Circuit: Yas Marina Circuit
The F1 season wraps up this weekend with a brutal back-to-back flying half way across the world back to United Arab Emirates after the long and time consuming Vegas festivities. Next year, they’re going to finish the season with a Vegas-Qatar-UAE triple header which is nuts.
This past weekend, Red Bull clinched their first-ever 1-2 finish in the drivers standings as Perez was able to hold off others for P2. The last race will determine several other placements for 2023, though:
- Carlos Sainz and Fernando Alonso are tied for 4th place with Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc 5 and 12 points behind, respectively.
- Mercedes only has a 4-point advantage for P2 over Ferrari.
- Aston Martin trails McLaren by 11 points for P4.
- The bottom of the grid isn’t settled yet with Williams in P7 coming into the final weekend with 16 more points than Haas in last place.
Trivia Answer:
North Carolina, Stanford, and Texas.
Too bad about Dino Babers. He was like Clay Helton east, slowly running a program into the ground, but a win still helped you in the polls because some voters still thought maybe they didn’t suck as bad they really did.
Pulled a CB commit from the same high school as Benjamin Morrison. I’ll take it.
Wonder how much money the FedEx guy has given to the actual University of Memphis?
The targeting discussion… oh man. Strong feelings on that one. I’m a father of 6yo and 9yo boys who seem to want to play football, and also husband to a lovely wife who is a doctor and is pretty strongly against it.
Several years ago I told her that the rules-makers and refs would figure out how to write and apply targeting rules consistently because how could they not? But I see little to no progress. It’s maddening that the powers that be have had 16 YEARS and aren’t even close to applying the rule consistently yet.
At this point I’m resigned to the fact that my kids aren’t going to play. It’s so frustrating to watch every potential targeting situation, because I see my kids out there whenever they’re fumbling around with the call or don’t even take a look when the guy is freaking unconscious (Devyn Ford).
What are we even doing with targeting?
This is really the reason I won’t let my 9 year old play. He is a bit frustrated with me about it, but when I see a hit like the one showcased from the Pitt game, how do I reconcile my son’s desire to play with an obligation I have to protect him? Also the hit on Rico Flores in the WF game was such a dangerous hit, even if it wasn’t technically targeting, (I do believe it wasn’t the defenders fault.)
With targeting it seems like both players should have to go and be checked for a concussion (at least when its helmet to helmet). With how much we have learned about brain injuries I am surprised this isn’t already the case.
Amen. I have a couple thoughts that have been swirling in my head and maybe they might spark some discussion here. If they’re terrible LMK!
1. Intent is a red herring. Calling it “targeting” was a mistake from the beginning. “Targeting” implies intent and there’s no intent in the rule and there shouldn’t be. We need to get announcers to STFU about intent. I don’t care if the *offensive* player lowers his head, that’s a natural defensive motion and it shouldn’t nullify a targeting call. Defensive player launched in such a way that a helmet blow was reasonably foreseeable.
2. Glancing blow is a red herring. Again, a term that announcers are happy to throw around that has no bearing on the rule.
3. The player safety discussion seems to be moving on to hip drop tackles because of Jordan Travis. My heart goes out to the guy, shades of Jaylon Smith with the late-season brutal injury. I agree with hip drop being outlawed but I think we should keep our eye on the ball and get targeting sorted out first.
Suggest the kids take up boxing instead.
I played for 9 years and loved it, like it was my entire identity or at least a massive chunk of it
I 100% wouldn’t let my kids play.
I finished most of a PhD in Counseling Psych (long story but I’m chronically ill from COVID so finishing is unlikely), and the neuropsych training and working with TBI patients was enough to convince me.
Also my body is beat up from it in ways that can’t be undone; aches and pains that are more appropriate for 50-70 year olds than 30 year olds. Kids can get all the fitness and learn all the things they do about team work and competition and self-development from other sports that don’t put so much torque on the body.
Also the hitting from football was very intoxicating in ways I don’t think is healthy, like the sport itself was drug-like. I don’t think I would’ve had some of the adjustment issues I had in early adulthood if my core childhood pursuit were non-violent.
I’m sure the culture changed some since I was in HS but still the football field was where there was shitloads of racism and misogyny and homophobia that were really shocking looking back.
I’m glad I stopped when I did (got recruited by smaller schools but decided to stop at the end of HS). If I could go back I would’ve taken up music or theatre more seriously and played either basketball or volleyball as my sport of choice and skipped football entirely. But alas, Notre Dame football was a more religious dedication than church in my Irish catholic family, so I got deep into football for the first part of my life, and now I’m stuck hangin round here with y’all 😉
So I just added the PAC12 Now App to my Roku. The Game is listed as being on it Saturday. You need a TV provider, I stream with Charter/Spectrum but other carriers work too. There’s no charge.
Hopefully it works on Saturday. Probably too good to be true.
What does that mean, a TV provider, for we who are overseas?
Noise to be honest, I’m not sure it’s going to work for me. I watched part of a Live BB game last night but other content was not available with my provider (Spectrum). I’ll see what happens Sat. at 7pm. Download the app and see what you get , I guess.
Wow I can’t believe the Doak Walker award snubbed Brock Bowers like that.
Huh? What? Mackey Award ? …..Estime wasn’t a semi finalist for the Doak. The 3 finalists will be named the 28th.
Ah, I forgot the sarcasm tag. Like fightin_eyewash mentioned below, Bowers somehow got on the finalist list for the Lombardi award, which is a head scratching decision to include a large slot receiver as one of the best linemen in college football. If he wins over Alt I will be apoplectic.
Seeing who posted, I thought it might be a joke but, I didn’t get it. Thanks for explaining.
I heard Bowers somehow got nominated for the Lombardi award for best lineman. You know how they say “Never assume malice when incompetence will suffice?”
I’m beginning to suspect malice in the way of $$$. Something along the lines of “spend $250K on marketing campaigns to be named for awards and get your draft spot moved up enough to more than make back your $$$.” Plus your school gets the hype.
But then again, Marist got nominated as a Butkus semi-finalist and he’s not even the best LB on his own team, so maybe the voters are just lazy and stupid.
Apropos of nothing, here’s an excerpt from a part of Priscilla Pressley’s autobiography that didn’t make it to the film that I think all of you would appreciate 😉
My wife is an MD with a PhD in neuroscience, and most definitely not a football fan. And I’ve studied enough biology to find myself in the awkward position of walking around neuro-anatomy lab holding a human head in each hand. So once the CTE/TBI stuff started coming out, never a question of whether our kids would play football. For my part, I didn’t mind hitting people and getting hit in junior high football as part of being an O and D lineman, but I switched to tennis in 9th grade when I realized to be successful in football you had to LIKE hitting people.
Which makes me think about the moral hazard of watching football.
In economics, a moral hazard is a situation where an economic actor has an incentive to increase its exposure to risk because it does not bear the full costs of that risk. For example, when a corporation is insured, it may take on higher risk knowing that its insurance will pay the associated costs.
You may remember the overseer character from 12 Years a Slave who almost tried to help the slave buy his freedom but then sold him out. The overseer turned to alcohol to deal with the moral hazard of making more money than a common sharecropper by being cruel to Black people . So I do get queasy when I see a TBI, knowing I enjoy football but wouldn’t let my kids play.
Like you opivy, I’m like the guy who keeps saying “I just don’t know how to quit you” to football.
Appreciate it eyerash. Yeah there’s just a lot of ambivalence for me, and I welcome all of it. Also holy cow an MD/PhD you got a keeper there!
Rather than an individual watching football with little (I assume) economic benefit from the activity, how about a head coach who has long-time experience playing college and professional football? This person would have personal knowledge of the impact of TBIs and know of teammates who have died of CTE. Dave Duerson with the Bears is a regrettable personal tragedy that all who played with him (1983-90) would know.
Shouldn’t someone with this knowledge of the long-term effects brain injuries continue on to become a Head Coach at a prestigious university such as Stanford, for instance, accept a moral hazard based on his prior knowledge to increase risk to others for his economic benefit and because he does not bear full responsibility for that risk? He benefits by higher salaries, job promotion and more opportunities.
He might move on to coach in the NFL and he could move back to college to coach at his alma mater at which he further accepts a moral hazard disregarding the risks he knows others may well suffer.
If he coaches at another hightly regarded university like Michigan and engages in practices that may benefit him because in the end others including the university will pay the price for his risk-taking, isn’t that more a moral hazard?
Just a quick check-in: are we all betas with wives who are more successful?
I’m non-monogamous 😉
Tbh I hang out in several different sub-cultures and football is probably the most normal one.
I assumed it was a prerequisite to joining.
Working on my masters now just to make up some of the difference.
The Car’s debut album was outstanding.
Another great song was Moving in Stereo.
That song also has a special place in cinematic history.
One semester (fall 77 Spring 78?) at UMass the Cars played some gigs Thursday nights at the Blue Wall campus bar. We thought they were rather dull, live. That summer I started hearing songs on the radio that I’d heard them play at the bar. I found it funny that they had hit it big.