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

Top News

College football has finally approved a 12-team playoff, set to begin in the 2024 season. The top 4 seeds will receive a bye with teams ranked 5 through 12 playing 1st round games on campuses. For 2024-25 bowl sites will be used for the quarterfinal (2nd round) matchups, although beginning in 2026 they are leaving the door open contractually to play those games on campuses, too.

Cam Hart has announced his intention to return to Notre Dame for a 5th season.

Luke Fickell is the new head coach at Wisconsin. The Bearcats are keeping Kerry Coombs on as interim head coach for their bowl game.

Nebraska has hired Matt Rhule as their new head coach. He’s reportedly receiving a $74 million deal for 8 years.

Oregon offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham is the new head coach at Arizona State. Will our good friend Dante Moore be looking around now?

David Shaw has stepped down as head coach at Stanford. Goodbye.

Jake Spavital has been fired at Texas State after 4 seasons.

Willie Taggart was fired as head coach at FAU following 3 seasons with the program. The program has since hired Tom Herman.

After being rumored for the Auburn job, Lane Kiffin is set to sign a contract extension at Ole Miss. Hugh Freeze steps up and takes the Auburn job after leaving Liberty.

Georgia Tech has promoted Brent Key from interim to full-time head coach.

Kansas head coach Lance Leipold has a signed a new contract extension.

UAB has hired Trent Dilfer to be their head coach. Well, alrighty then.

UNLV has fired head coach Marcus Arroyo.

Arizona head coach Jedd Fisch has agreed to an extension through 2027.

Michael Mayer is one of 3 finalists for the Mackey Award.

Michigan running back Blake Corum will have knee surgery and is out for the rest of the season. Elsewhere in Ann Arbor, defensive lineman Mazi Smith has been given a felony weapons charge.

Miami quarterback Tyler Van Dyke is staying with the Hurricanes. Michigan quarterback Cade McNamara is transferring to Iowa.

Uniform of the Week

The color-on-color uniform matchups proliferating college football in recent years is one of the best trends in recent memory. Out west, the USC-UCLA matchup has taken most of the headlines for doing this. However, as a certified hater of USC’s uniforms I’d argue they ruin everything and don’t belong in the same discussion with UCLA’s glorious duds. What about the Civil War?

They’ve been going color-on-color for a while and this past weekend’s game looked truly spectacular. Does this look like the perfect fall weather combination? It’s like pumpkins and apples smashing each other together. Maybe we can get the Beavers in orange helmets for the complete look?

Recruiting

Notre Dame has picked up a commit from wide receiver Kaleb Smith (0.8544) out of Texas. Commit post HERE.

Defensive lineman Daevin Hobbs (0.9565) committed to Tennessee.

Auburn picked up defensive lineman Darron Reed (0.9239) over the weekend.

Offensive lineman Caleb Lomu (0.9168) gave a verbal to Utah.

Wide receiver Jaren Hamilton (0.9109) committed to Alabama.

Athlete Collins Acheampong (0.9305) flipped from Michigan to Miami. You hate to see it.

In the 2024 class, safety Tavoy Feagin (0.9319) committed to Clemson, quarterback Jakhari Williams (0.9103) committed to Georgia Tech, athlete Garrett Stover (0.9322) committed to Ohio State, and wide receiver Tyseer Denmark (0.9547) committed to Oregon.

YouTube Channel

My first memory of seeing sports television cameras was in the late 1980’s inside Buffalo Memorial Auditorium. It was a small but very steep arena (it’s since been demolished) with great seats everywhere. However, the TV cameras were tucked in neatly to the middle of the 100-level seating areas and it always caught my attention how perfect the sight lines were from these areas. For a while as a kid, I wanted to be a cameraman and work those giant gray machines.

Football is much more difficult to film. I’ve been fascinated by the logistics and thinking behind how to get the best shot and how these cameramen move around the field. Especially outdoors with the sun and elements playing a part in the presentation. Being a producer controlling all of that must be a very fun and incredibly demanding job. I know we all have quibbles about football presentation from time to time, but man, most networks pull this together really well.

Tunes

Huey Lewis & The News, criminally underrated? Properly rated? Overrated? They had started to fade by the time I began buying cassettes and CD’s as a kid. Still, they have some of my favorite car music. For a period of time in the early to mid 1980’s they absolutely dominated hit music. Their 1983 album Sports was big enough that several songs received tons of airplay on MTV for many years and I definitely remember this video:

I always wondered if this band looked different (they all seemed like middle-aged dudes even early in their careers) or had a different name if their legacy would be a little different. They’ve still sold over 30 million records, though. That’s one heck of a career.

Trivia

If Michael Mayer sits out the bowl game he’ll finish 3rd all-time at Notre Dame in receptions. Who are the 2 players above Mayer in the Irish record book?

The Other Football

All the latest from the 2022 World Cup:

Group A
Senegal 3-1 Qatar
Netherlands 1-1 Ecuador
Senegal 2-1 Ecuador
Netherlands 2-0 Qatar

As expected, the hosts Qatar are bounced from the tournament with zero points, 1 goal, and 7 surrendered against them. Senegal scored in the 70th minute to beat Ecuador and finish 2nd in the group with Netherlands taking the top spot to move on.

Group B
Iran 2-0 Wales
England 0-0 USA
England 3-0 Wales
USA 1-0 Iran

The odds for the United States went up with the Iranian upset over Wales, then the Americans played well while tying England. A 38th minute Christian Pulisic goal against Iran puts the USA through to the knockout stages where they’ll face the Netherlands.

Group C
Poland 2-0 Saudi Arabia
Argentina 2-0 Mexico
Argentina 2-0 Poland
Mexico 2-1 Saudi Arabia

Bye, bye Mexico. They tied in the group with Poland but fail to qualify for the knockout rounds due to goal differential. After that historic upset last week, Argentina moves on and could potentially end up facing the United States in a couple games.

Group D
Australia 1-0 Tunisia
France 2-1 Denmark
Australia 1-0 Denmark
Tunisia 1-0 France

The socceroos are through! Australia will join France in making the round of 16 knockout stage. I feel bad for Denmark who had the cool protest kits and go home with 1 goal scored from a super disappointing tournament.

Group E
Costa Rica 1-0 Japan
Spain 1-1 Germany
Japan 2-1 Spain
Germany 4-2 Costa Rica

Germany is out! Their opening loss to Japan put them in a tie with Spain on points but they’re out on goal differential. It’s the Japanese at the top the group in a bit of a shocker.

Group F
Morocco 2-0 Belgium
Croatia 4-1 Canada
Belgium 0-0 Croatia
Morocco 2-1 Canada

Canada bombed out and played terribly while Belgium suffered locker room discontent on their way to finishing 3rd in this group. Morocco wins this group in another World Cup shocker.

Group G
Switzerland 1-0 Cameroon
Brazil 2-0 Serbia
Cameroon 3-3 Serbia
Brazil 1-0 Switzerland

The final games in this group wrap up today, with Brazil already punching their ticket through to top the group.

Group H
South Korea 0-0 Uruguay
Portugal 3-2 Ghana
Ghana 3-2 South Korea
Portugal 2-0 Uruguay

Portugal has already advanced to the knockout phase with the last round of games coming today.

Streaming

It’s Christmas movie season. My family used to have a large Christmas Eve party on my mother’s side and since my grandma passed away a few years ago (and I now have my own kids to contend with during the holiday season) we’ve been going through different get together plans and foregoing the huge party with everyone (many live out of state now too). Now, I love most Christmas movies and I love Christmas in general. However, during these large parties my uncles would keep A Christmas Story on the TV every single year as it repeated on TNT and TBS. We’d usually get through 2 viewings before it was mercifully switched.

I hate A Christmas Story and always have. The overexposure didn’t help, for sure. I can’t stand the dorky main character kid. The dad is like 65 years older than his kids. I dislike the pre-WWII vibes of the story. I especially cannot stand the weird lightning that plagues the movie. A Christmas Story sucks.

A Look Back

Brady Quinn’s NFL career is partly responsible for the existence of this website today. I grew up an agnostic NFL fan (but you know I’m jumping on that Bills bandwagon right now) and was only really invested in Notre Dame players in the pro ranks. When Brady Quinn was drafted by the Browns I was way, way, way too invested in his success. It sparked my interest in writing about such things on the internet and here we are today.

In hindsight, it’s pretty cringe to think of some of the defenses I made for Quinn. At least I learned my lesson. Remember when very briefly people thought DeShone Kizer was going to compete with Deshaun Watson as the top quarterback in the 2017 NFL Draft? Nope, stayed away from that. Poor Brady Quinn…his NFL career was straight up terrible. 24 games, 20 starts, 4 wins, 53.8% completions, 3,043 passing yards, 12 touchdowns, and 17 interceptions. He’s great on TV now though, and that pays good money for a long time.

18S Paddock Club

2022 Season Recap, Driver Rankings:

#1 Max Verstappen – A record 15 wins with 7 pole positions says it all. Verstappen crushed teammate Sergio Perez 18-4 in qualifying with a nearly 4 tenths pace advantage. A couple mechanical failures, a and couple spins were the only blights from an otherwise flawless season.

#2 Charles Leclerc – He led F1 with 9 pole positions and finished with 3 race wins. Leclerc showed blistering one-lap pace that allowed him to beat teammate Sainz 15-7 during qualifying. A few mistakes (like the crash in France) made the championship race far too uninteresting. He still came home to finish 2nd in points.

#3 George Russell – The good lad lost a razor thin qualifying battle 13-9 to Lewis Hamilton separated by 0.028 seconds on pace. However, Russell showed remarkable consistency in his first season with Mercedes, picked up his first career pole, and picked up his first career grand prix victory.

#4 Lewis Hamilton – Hamilton trailed Russell by 35 points in 2022, although the case could be made he drove even better especially after dropping the experimental setups part way through the season. In addition to winning the qualifying battle with his teammate, Hamilton was picking up a ton of points before Russell’s triumph in Brazil.

#5 Sergio Perez – Not being able to secure 2nd place in points with the best car on the grid drops Checko down our rankings. Still, he secured a pole in Saudi Arabia, won a pair of races, and showed a lot more consistency in his 2nd year with Red Bull.

#6 Carlos Sainz – Nearly being passed by both Mercedes drivers while driving the 2nd best car on the grid showed how up and down 2022 was for Sainz. He suffered 5 retirements–and a year after barely beating the unlucky Leclerc to question who was the no. 1 driver at Ferrari–Sainz was swiftly defeated by his teammate in 2022. But, he picked up his fist career pole and grand prix win, all the same.

#7 Lando Norris – Norris just turned 23 and could arguably be higher in these rankings finishing comfortably 7th in points in the 5th best car. He dominated his teammate in qualifying 20-2 for the biggest gap of the season and was the only non-Big 3 driver to pick up a podium this year. His future is both blindingly bright but also a huge question mark if he can’t get into a better car.

#8 Fernando Alonso – Technically, Alonso finished 11 points behind his teammate but we know that’s not a great representation of the season. He led F1 with 6 DNF’s and was plagued by bad luck and poor strategy from Alpine. With average luck, Alonso probably pushes towards Norris in the fight for points and he did beat Ocon 12-10 during qualifying.

#9 Esteban Ocon – In contrast, Ocon only had 2 DNF’s compared to Alonso and displayed better luck and consistency for Alpine in 2022. His P4 finish in Japan was also the highest finish of the season from either Alpine driver.

#10 Sebastian Vettel – The retiring former champion hangs it up without challenging much in the midfield. He had a rough start to the year missing the first 2 races with Covid, followed up by a DNF in Australia. But, the Aston Martin developed pretty nicely and Vettel finished 2022 on a high note with points in 6 out of the last 10 races.

We say goodbye to the 2022 grid. 

#11 Valtteri Bottas – Our favorite Finn came out of the gate on fire in his first season transitioning to Alfa Romeo earning points in 7 out of his first 9 races with an impressive P5 finish at Imola. He also beat his rookie teammate Zhou 14-8 in qualifying and would finish with 8 times as many points. However, Alfa really struggled to develop the car and the latter half of the season was a huge grind with only 3 points from the British Grand Prix through Abu Dhabi.

#12 Kevin Magnussen – K-Mag’s season mirrored Bottas’ in a lot of ways. Both came out of the gate really strong (Magnussesn finished a surprising 5th in the season opener) and then faded as their car wasn’t developed like some of the other midfield teams. But, 25 points from a Haas driver feels like a miracle given where they were on the grid a year. Plus, he’ll always have the pole from Brazil.

#13 Pierre Gasly – This would be a huge drop from last year where Gasly dragged the AlphaTauri to some impressive results. The 2022 car never seemed to suit Gasly very well and he slumped to a decent but not that impressive 13-9 advantage over Tsunoda in qualifying. Although he appeared to check out later in the season after signing a new deal elsewhere, Gasly did nearly double up his teammate in points for 2022.

#14 Lance Stroll – The grid’s most forgettable driver just hangs around picking up points in the most forgettable ways. Like in the season finale race while his teammate was on his much publicized swan song, Stroll somehow finished 2 spots higher with almost no TV coverage. He did pretty well in qualifying against his teammate (13-7 in favor of Vettel) and somehow is still only 24 years old.

#15 Alex Albon – Was this the best 4-point season in F1 history? Albon was in the worst car on the grid and finished P15 or higher during 15 races, with 4 DNF’s thrown in there plus a missed race due to his appendix surgery. He also trounced his teammate 18-3 in qualifying and breathed life into a Williams team that lost George Russell to Mercedes.

#16 Zhou Guanyu – The grid’s only rookie acquitted himself pretty well with a point in his first race while nibbling on the edge of more points for most of 2022. Still, he only picked up 6 points (including just 1 point over the final 13 races) and didn’t typically come close to Bottas in qualifying. Although, expectations weren’t very high for him and he exceeded them for a lot of folks.

#17 Yuki Tsunoda – Last year in his rookie campaign Tsunoda was dominated 21-1 in qualifying by Gasly and he ended up closing that to just a 13-9 disadvantage in 2022. So, despite 20 fewer points than last year this felt like an improvement for the diminutive Japanese pilot. But, the AlphaTauri car was so much worse this year and Tsunoda only scored 1 point over the final 16 races. It looked like his contract may not be renewed but ultimately he signed an extension with the Red Bull family.

#18 Daniel Ricciardo – It got really dark for Danny Ric in 2022. Was he just comically ill suited to the McLaren car? Is Lando Norris just that good right now? He did end on a bit of a high note with P5, P7, and P9 finishes over the last 6 races. There’s just not a lot to say about finishing 85 points behind your teammate in the 5th best car on the grid.

#19 Mick Schumacher – If you had learned Mick was going to score 12 points in 2022 earlier this year I’m guessing everyone thought it was a great season. Alas, it wasn’t good enough for Haas leadership. It looked like things may be turning around with those back-to-back points in Britain and Austria but the gap to teammate Magnussen was just too large and the handful of wrecks too costly for the team.

#20 Nicholas Latifi – It seems Williams finally realized their car isn’t quite as bad as Latifi made it seem. The Canadian finishes his career losing the qualifying battle to teammates 54-5 with 3 points finishes across 61 races. In 2022, Latifi finished higher than 15th in only 3 separate races.

Trivia Answer:

TJ Jones (181 receptions) and Michael Floyd (271 receptions).