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

3 News Stories

#1 Whether the SEC stays at 8 regular season games per year or potentially increases to 9 games is under the spotlight as the planning for the future of the College Football Playoff format rages on. Reading the reports, it looks like we have the following camps coalescing on each side:

9 Games: Pushed largely by administrators and athletic directors who want to increase the amount of SEC games played but with the cushion of automatic qualifiers for the SEC built into the playoff system.

8 Games: Preferred largely by the coaches who would rather bet on themselves and are pushing for a 5+11 system.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey brought up this 5+11 model which would grant automatic spots to the top 5 ranked conference champions and then 11 at-large bids. I must say…I don’t hate this idea. Doesn’t this make the most sense and is as close as we’ll get to the process of the NCAA Basketball Tournaments? It’s simple, will have far fewer issues than granting multiple auto-bids to conferences, and at least puts more focus on strength of schedule–as imperfect as that can be sometimes.

The SEC coaches also want to line up a scheduling agreement with the Big Ten, as well. That would make sense if you’re sticking to 8 games in the SEC. You’re playing one fewer team to cut you out in the conference, you can plead the case that your conference lineup plus the road game at Iowa was really super tough slate to play, and then you can schedule a bunch of easy games around that with the feeling that no one can criticize you for the buy-games. This is dangerous for Notre Dame (USC of course won’t want a full Big Ten schedule + a SEC game and also face the Irish) but it’s really bad news for the ACC and Big 12 programs.

#2 The video game College Football 25 came out last year as chronicled on our site and ended up becoming one of the best-selling titles of all-time and the largest selling video game in US history by overall dollar sales. As expected, the newest title is set come out later this summer on July 10th and EA Sports has unveiled the deluxe and standard edition covers. I’d like to remind everyone that Michigan running back Donovan Edwards made last year’s cover, had a terrible year, and went undrafted. Ouch.

Here are the new covers for College Football 26:

Both covers are a big upgrade from last year. You have to love Jeremiyah Love smack dab in the middle with Marcus Freeman right behind him on the deluxe cover. Plus, a very present Notre Dame logo on the standard cover. As always, Michigan remains a joke for these covers. Not only do we get a random fat Denard Robinson taking up way too much space, they also added 17-year old true freshman Bryce Underwood. Disgusting and pathetic.

They also dropped the trailer this week, as well:

#3 Hey, we have some real football stuff to talk about as Marcus Freeman held a random late May meeting with assorted beat media on campus this week. It’s like a little early Christmas present in the dark doldrums of post-spring football. Here’s a recap:

  • As you’d expect, Freeman wants the USC rivalry to continue and said all the right things about the situation. Any place, any time. We’ll be ready. Will USC be willing?
  • Much praise was lavished upon Jeremiyah Love.
  • Freeman felt like they didn’t find the right guy (in addition to Ty Washington) to add more depth to the tight end group. He said he likes what they have now and that maybe in the past they had too many tight ends anyway. I noticed he mentioned Jack Larsen is a development young guy (probably true but no one wants to hear that about themselves).
  • He teased a battle at safety between Luke Talich, Jalen Stroman, and Tae Johnson. That should be a great fall camp competition to watch.
  • Karson Hobbs, more or less, is the backup nickel but Freeman is looking for more consistency.
  • Freeman will announce where Tyler Buchner is playing when fall camp begins–surely back to quarterback otherwise why not just say he’s sticking to receiver?
  • Despite not having an experienced quarterback in terms of games played, Freeman was pretty bullish on the quarterbacks having experience practicing and working with offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock. It’s not, not important!
  • All of Jordan Botelho, Ashton Craig, Boubacar Traore, and Malachi Fields he expects to be ready for the first game of the season.
  • Freeman favors one transfer portal in the spring only. Or, if he had to choose between the fall and spring portal(s) he prefers the latter.

Recruiting

I’m not sure what’s going on with Oregon recruiting this cycle but they’ve been plagued by decommits this year and the Ducks took another hit recently as defensive end Richard Wesley (0.9909) left their class after just 17 days as a verbal pledge. The Sierra Canyon edge rusher reclassified from 2027 to 2026 and has Ohio State, Texas, Texas A&M, and Tennessee in the mix. Right now, the Ducks’ 2026 class sits at just 7 commits.

Wide receiver Ryan Mosley (0.9277) committed to Georgia from nearby Carrollton.

With a slow recruiting week, here are some recent 2027 commits that we have to catch up on:

Quarterback Trae Taylor (0.9749) out of Carmel Catholic in Illinois committed to Nebraska.

Tight end George Lamons (0.9629) gave a verbal to Texas A&M.

Eli Diane (0.9640) is staying in-state with the Minnesota Golden Gophers.

Linebacker Taven Epps (0.9579) committed to Texas.

Florida State added cornerback Bryce Williams (0.9255) and safety Mekhi Williams (0.9359).

Wide receiver Khalil Taylor (0.9645) out of Pittsburgh committed to Penn State.

Corner Kenton Dopson (0.9713) has joined Miami’s class.

Uniform of the Week

Unfortunately the Notre Dame men’s lacrosse team couldn’t complete 3 straight National Championships this spring as the boys bowed out in the quarterfinals to Penn State in painful fashion. At least we got to see Cornell win their first lacrosse title in 48 years instead of the Nittany Lions or Maryland taking home the crown. In the National Lacrosse League (the indoor league, not to be confused with the outdoor Premier Lacrosse League PLL) the championship trophy stayed in New York as the Buffalo Bandits completed a 3-peat last weekend.

Uniforms in the NLL are wild. There’s a rule that everyone needs to wear a chinstrap with a chin cup firmly attached but as you can see they all leave them hanging down off their chin and the rule isn’t enforced. The Bandits have been in my life for over 30 years and the combination of shorts with a huge bulky jersey is still jarring. Everyone wears different shoes and socks combinations and it’s all a big mess. The Bandits have a great primary logo with purple in it and it’s an official team color, too. But in a weird twist neither the primary logo or purple feature on the uniforms.

TV & Movies

I’m not a foodie and I have a life-long picky eating ordeal that I’ve been slowly working on as an adult. I am a sucker for a food + travel special like the Anthony Bourdain series (some of my most favorite television ever, RIP) and over the Memorial Day weekend started digging into the new National Geographic series Tucci in Italy that is available on the Disney+ streaming service. This is my first experience with Tucci in the food area (I think he’s written a book and done some other stuff in this area, no?) and so far I’m a little underwhelmed.

Watching Anthony Bourdain spoils you. It seems like Tucci just stands around nodding and then says the prepared food for him is delicious. The program opens up in Tuscany and the beauty of Italy is really what we’re all here for isn’t it? If anyone has traveled to Italy extensively can we get a ranking of the regions and an explanation of how that intertwines with visiting the cities?

Tunes

The 1965-66 Bob Dylan era is my favorite by far, and while I can dabble in his earlier work or anything later in his career, the transition from folk to rock music and the studio musicians around him is amazing to me. Although his 1965 song “Positively 4th Street” could be about anyone in particular I’ve always preferred to listen to it as an attack on the hippie folks who didn’t like his move to electric music. My only complaint is that this song was released as a single and didn’t feature on that summer’s Highway 61 Revisited–perhaps his greatest album.

Yeah, this song is repetitive and musically isn’t that complex. That’s part of the Bob Dylan charm. The organ work and the guitars pack a nice little punch though. Speaking of which, the quick drop of the beat as this song begins is among my favorite in music. The song shares so many similarities with “Like a Rolling Stone” which did make it on to that summer’s album and the intros are similar, too. Except “Like a Rolling Stone” has a snare and bass drum hit intro, “Positively 4th Street” punches right away into the downbeat.