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

Top News

Wake Forest quarterback Sam Hartman and Oklahoma State safety Thomas Harper both committed to Notre Dame as grad transfers recently. Other transfer targets WR Ardel Anthony (Oklahoma), DE Anthony Lucas (USC), DE Rondell Bothroyd (Oklahoma), and DB Jalen Catalon (Texas) have chosen elsewhere.

Irish safety DJ Brown has announced he will return for a 6th season.

Defensive end Justin Ademilola will not be returning and is off to the NFL.

Long-snapper Alex Peitsch is transferring from Notre Dame.

Notre Dame finished 18th in the final AP Poll of the 2022 season.

Former Notre Dame linebacker Michael Stonebreaker became the 47th Fighting Irish player elected to the College Football Hall of Fame.

After losing to Notre Dame, Shane Beamer will receive a new contract more than doubling his yearly salary to $6.5 million.

Tulane head coach Willie Fritz signed a contract extension through 2030.

The NCAA is investigating Michigan for recruiting violations. May I suggest the death penalty?

Bobby Petrino is the new offensive coordinator at Texas A&M.

Quarterback Brennan Armstrong is transferring from Virginia to NC State and reuniting with his former OC Robert Anae who left Syracuse this past off-season after 1 season with the Orange.

Utah quarterback Cam Rising is returning to Utah for another season.

Ohio State left tackle Paris Johnson has declared for the NFL.

Pittsburgh top receiver Jared Wayne is headed to the NFL.

Clemson defensive lineman Tyler Davis is returning to Clemson for his 5th season. The Tigers’ wideout Joseph Ngata is off to the NFL.

South Carolina running back MarShawn Lloyd has transferred to USC. The Gamecocks got good news as quarterback Spencer Rattler is returning for 2023.

NBC has signed ESPN color commentator Todd Blackledge for their upcoming Big Ten coverage.

USC is bringing back defensive coordinator Alex Grinch which is certainly a decision.

LSU freshman quarterback Walker Howard has entered the transfer portal.

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey is calling for an end to the early signing period. The NCAA also voted recently to become more strict on undergraduate players who are asking to transfer for a second time and will rule on them on a case-by-case basis.

Former USC running back and Heisman winner Charles White has died.

Boston College has fired offensive coordinator John McNulty.

California athletics are leaving Under Armour and signed a 3-year deal with Nike.

Uniform of the Week

I’m always impressed with Missouri’s uniforms. They used to have these really terrible Nike template uniforms with the played out piping that looked dated after a couple seasons. They also were using a deeper gold (which as a Notre Dame fan I respect) and most of the time it didn’t pop real well set against their heavy black color scheme.

Since they’ve been in the SEC, things have been much better. In recent years, they’ve brightened the yellow, switched to a more classic set of striping patterns, all while introducing a ton of variation in the helmet and uniform combinations. Today’s look is from their bowl game against Wake Forest. That’s really sharp looking from head to toe.

Recruiting

We’re officially moving things over to the 2024 recruiting cycle unless otherwise noted. 

Louisville surprised folks by adding edge rusher TJ Capers (0.9951) out of Miami and I’m sure they won’t be losing him to NIL or other shenanigans later in the cycle.

Notre Dame’s top safety on the board Peyton Woodyard (0.9819) committed to Georgia.

Florida 2023 quarterback commit Jaden Rashada (0.9742) has reportedly refused to sign and report to Gainesville over NIL issues.

YouTube Channel

I was a huge cereal lover as a kid. In the morning I’d eat a bowl while watching Sportscenter (RIP to those pre-internet days) and I’d usually have one immediately after school. I went through a long phase starting in college and lasting about 15 years where I didn’t eat much cereal. At that time, I wasn’t eating breakfast and I started adopting just 1 banana late in the morning (usually around 9:30 AM) as my first food of the day. With kids in the home now, we have 3 to 4 cereals on hand at any given moment and I’m starting to get back into a bowl here or there, more so on the weekends.

I am going to attempt the impossible and rank my top 10 cereals of all-time. Some that I have to include as honorable mentions would be: Honey Nut Cheerios, Froot Loops, Honey Smacks, Kix, Corn Pops, Honey Comb, and Boo Berry.

Here’s my favorites:

#10 Apple Jacks – Among my favorite for when you have a taste for these, they are so, so good.

#9 Waffle Crisp – Perhaps the most underrated cereal in history.

#8 Frosted Flakes – An OG cereal that always delivers.

#7 Cinnamon Toast Crunch – The leftover milk is one of the joys of this world.

#6 Raisin Nut Bran – Sometimes you get a box without enough chewy raisins but when you get a lot, LFG.

#5 Honey Bunches of Oats – This is probably my most eaten cereal as an adult.

#4 Rice Krispies Treat – This debuted sometime in the 1990’s and legit is one of my favorite memories of absolutely crushing boxes of this as a teenager.

#3 Cap’N Crunch’s Crunch Berries – Your teeth and roof of your mouth pay a price that is 100% worth it.

#2 Frosted Mini Wheats – Nearly my champion but comes up just short. Also, try regular Shredded Wheat with peanut butter, some sugar, and eat that with milk.

#1 Golden Grahams – Pound for pound the best to offer. It’s great dry and great soggy. It always delivers.

Tunes

In my time digesting and reading comments about American bands no one seems to be slandered quite as often as the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Maybe, Eagles get more derision? I’ve never understood either angle to the degree they receive. Once RHCP blew up in 1989 I’ve been with them every step of the way and even if they aren’t your style, I think it’s undeniable their style and longevity without compromising or morphing into something weird and off the mark has made them American icons.

Three out of the 4 band members are now in their 60’s and they are still making good music! I’d argue RHCP haven’t put out a bad album in any of their last 10 stretching back to Mother’s Milk. This is some truly historic work for a band that many didn’t think was going to make it through the 1990’s. Guitarist John Frusciante re-joined the band in 2019 and they released 2(!) albums just last year. The first single “Tippa My Tongue” from their latest album Return of the Dream Canteen was released in August and became their 15th song to top the alternative rock airplay chart.

Trivia

How many red zone touchdowns did Notre Dame allow in 2022 from 34 attempts?

The Other Football

It’s been a quiet return to club football as the EPL is taking a small break as cup tournaments have been played over the last week or so. Recently, Man City crashed out of the League Cup 2-0 to Southampton. Actually, it’s a smart move to get rid of those games to be more healthy so they can chase down Arsenal at the top of the table. It’s going to happen, RIGHT?

Rumors are swirling that the Qatari ownership group at PSG are interested in buying a Premier League team with Tottenham squarely in the news for a $1 billion or more stake in the club.

PSG and Al-Nassr will be playing an exhibition game on January 19th which feels like an incredible troll job for Messi fans.

The Todd Boehly spending spree at Chelsea continues this transfer window as center back Benoit Badiashile ($38 million), midfielder Andrey Santos ($12 million), and forward David Fofana ($12 million) have been brought in with Joao Felix arriving on loan from Atletico Madrid for $11 million. Chelsea is also close to signing Benfica and Argentina star Enzo Fernandez for $100 million plus. Financial fair play, what is that!??

Streaming

Sean Payton is back in the news again as the Denver Broncos are reportedly interested in his services for their head coaching vacancy. He stepped down from coaching the Saints for 2022 but New Orleans still owns his rights. Payton just turned 59 so you have to think he will come back to a NFL job at some point, but the Broncos seems like a terrible idea right now. Nice play to live though. Today, I wanted to discuss the utter insanity of Payton agreeing to, green lighting, and starring in a cameo of Home Team about his life after the 1-year Bounty Gate suspension from the NFL.

I will never in my life spend time watching this movie. That they cast Kevin James in the role of Payton should’ve shut down production before principal photography even began. The movie is so unbelievably cringe in every respect and so bad that you can barely get any thorough plot of the movie, probably because it’s wafer thin. No doubt, this was one of the worst movies released so far this decade. If anyone has watched it, please let us know.

A Look Back

I was recently reading an article from The Athletic going through the top 50 most memorable college football games of 2022 and things started off with the Nebraska-Northwestern game in Ireland back in week 0. Hey, Notre Dame will be playing in this spot next time the Fighting Irish suit up. I look forward to the morning game in the eastern time zone. That was a great aspect to the 2012 game, taking care of business and sitting back for an entire day of college football without worry.

This game was hilarious for both teams. Northwestern exploded for 528 total yards, their most in 2 seasons against a Power 5 team, then didn’t score over 30 points in any game the rest of the season on their way to a 1-11 record. And as we know well, Scott Frost didn’t end up surviving the season and was ultimately fired. Too bad, it was such a fun opening game to the season and not so much for either of these programs on the whole of 2022.

18S Paddock Club

Previewing each team on the grid for the 2023 season…

Team: McLaren
Founded: 1966
2022 Result: 5th
Base: Woking, Surrey, UK
Owners: The McLaren Group (and other investors)
Power Unit: Mercedes
Team Principal: Andrea Stella
Drivers: Lando Norris (5th season) & Oscar Piastri (1st season)

The Good: Lando Norris continued his ascent in the sport and picked up a bunch of accolades as one of the best drivers on the grid. The team continues to stabilize with its finances and sponsors while pushing forward with an appeal to American fans. Despite being in the midfield, McLaren continue to be among the most popular teams in F1.

The Bad: It was mostly a not fun 2022 season if we’re honest. Serious brake issues completely derailed the first 2 months of the season and it appeared McLaren could never claw back that development time. The team spent most of the season dealing with the decaying skills of Daniel Ricciardo and if they’d get out from underneath his contract that run through 2023. They also lost team principal Andreas Seidel in recent weeks as he left to be the CEO of the new Audi project preparing to take over the Sauber team in the coming years.

2023 Hope: McLaren did end Ricciardo’s contract early and swooped in to sign the best young driver from the junior ranks in Oscar Piastri. The Mercedes power unit proved to be extremely reliable and if Piastri can start putting together some decent results in tandem with Norris then the team has a good chance to move up at least above Alpine in the constructor standings. More so long term, there’s a chance for an extremely bright future at McLaren. When the new regulations arrive in 2026, Norris will still be just 26 while Piastri will be 24 years old. That could be the best tandem in F1 by that point.

Trivia Answer:

27 touchdowns 🙁