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

Top News

Michigan State has informed head coach Mel Tucker that they intend to fire him for cause. Tucker has signaled he will be suing Michigan State University.

ESPN College GameDay is headed to Notre Dame this weekend for the Ohio State night game. Any guesses on who the guest picker will be?

Notre Dame at Duke has been announced as a 7:30 PM ET kickoff on ABC for next weekend.

Matthias Farley has signed to the Carolina Panthers practice squad.

The USC at Colorado game has been announced as the Fox Big Noon kickoff which means a 10 AM local start in Boulder.

According to Ross Dellenger, Army are in talks to join the AAC. Their head coach Jeff Monken just signed a contract extension through 2027.

South Alabama was named the Cheez-It National Team of the Week after upsetting Oklahoma State.

Navy captain center Lirion Murtezi has medically retired from football.

Nebraska starting running back Gaber Ervin is done for 2023 with an injury.

FAU quarterback Casey Thompson has torn his ACL and is done for the season.

Georgia right tackle Amarius Mims is out indefinitely following ankle surgery.

Syracuse tight end Oronde Gadsen is done for the year after suffering a Lisfranc injury.

Arizona State quarterback Jaden Rashada is out 4-6 weeks.

Jalen Milroe is back to being Alabama’s starting quarterback again.

Phil Jurkovec will not be benched this week against North Carolina, head coach Pat Narduzzi announced.

Houston and Boise State have cancelled their 2024-25 football series.

Uniform of the Week

Another in a line of a million black uniforms graced college football this past week in the Maryland vs. Virginia game. This isn’t something new for the Terps. Of course, black is a part of their school colors and I know they had black uniforms stretching back to the Ralph Friedgen days, perhaps even longer ago. Maryland has used their state flag a lot in many of these black uniforms–and does anyone remember the time they wore bright yellow pants with black jerseys? That was quite the look.

Outside of the weird dots in the middle of the numbers these are really clean. Unlike many of Maryland’s other uniforms these are really simple yet effective. The 3 stripes on the shoulder sleeve are awesome. Normally, you’d put the white stripe in the middle but putting it up top and allowing the red and yellow next to each other with the black between looks amazing. Keep using that, Terps!

Recruiting

Notre Dame had a nice week picking up 2025 quarterback Deuce Knight (0.9674) and 2024 offensive lineman Guerby Lambert (0.9750).

Both defensive lineman Jerod Smith (0.9182) and brother edge rusher Jacob Smith (0.9161) decommitted from Michigan’s class and joined in-state Kentucky. Smart kids.

Linebacker Xavier Atkins (0.9147) committed to LSU.

Edge rusher Danny Okoye (0.9373) committed to Oklahoma.

YouTube Channel

Recently in our baseball Slack channel there was a kerfuffle about the decision making of notorious MLB umpire Ángel Hernández. I’m not paying attention to baseball much these days but I know that this umpire is perennially terrible at his job, perhaps the worst to ever do it. When I was a kid, I was shy and quiet playing sports until about 14 and then I turned into much more of a mouthy prick, especially against officials. I really struggled dealing referees when they made bad calls and screwed things up.

It got me thinking, sure baseball is America’s past time but is there anything more American than fans as a collective bonding over the terrible mistakes of an umpire with balls and strikes? Now that baseball has introduced a lot more technology to the process we can see just how bad the really poor umpires can be these days. I love watching videos of their mistakes, it’s so grating but satisfying to see such ineptitude with all of the chaos that ensues.

Tunes

For me personally, I might put Nas atop the list as my favorite rapper of all-time. I was flirting with embracing rap in 1992-93 and by 1994 we saw Notorious B.I.G. drop his debut album and Nas also released his 1st album Illmatic which received massive praise. Both those albums changed the game. Nas really took off in the summer of 1996 with It Was Written which found huge financial success and vaulted him into one of the best rappers of his generation.

The 3rd album I Am… didn’t come out until April 1999 and was incredibly anticipated after such a long wait. This was supposed to be a double album–and in an extremely turn of the century move–many of the songs leaked on this thing called the internet and forced Nas to quickly release a follow up album 7 months later in November 1999. Today’s song “Nas Is Like” is about as good as it gets from this artist.

Trivia

Who are the 4 Power 5 teams currently averaging over 50 points per game in 2023?

The Other Football

The Champions League group stage has begun! A reminder this is the last season before the UCL expands and changes the format. The first round of game this week included:

AC Milan 0 – 0 Newcastle
Leipzig 3 – 1 Young Boys
Barcelona 5 – 0 Royal Antwerp
Feyenoord 2 – 0 Celtic
Lazio 1 – 1 Atletico Madrid
Man City 3 – 1 Red Star Belgrade
PSG 2 – 0 Dortmund
Porto 3 – 1 Shakhtar
Copenhagen 2 – 2 Galatasary
Real Madrid 1 – 0 Union Berlin
Arsenal 4 – 0 PSV
Bayern Munich 4 – 3 Man United
Salzburg 2 – 0 Benfica
Napoli 2 – 1 Braga
Real Sociedad 1 – 1 Inter
Sevilla 1 – 1 Lens

Things are still really tight atop the Premier League with the top 5 clubs (Man City, Tottenham, Liverpool, Arsenal, and Brighton) having dropped only a combined 9 points.

In last weekend’s action, Arsenal beat Everton 1-0, Brighton beat Man U 3-1 (that’s only 6 points in 5 games so far the Red Devils whoa), and Spurs scored their latest winner ever in the Premier League in a 2-1 win over Sheffield United, LFG.

Chelsea drew Bournemouth 0-0 and incredibly the Blues have only won 6 out of their last 34 Premier League games. It almost can’t be real. ESPN is also reporting that Chelsea are close to a $500 million investment from U.S. firm Ares Capital to rebuild Stamford Bridge or help build a new stadium in West London.

TV & Movies

I’ve always had a soft spot for Arnold Schwarzenegger due to his movies in the 1980’s having a huge impact on my childhood. From Conan the Barbarian, Commando, and Predator, to The Terminator, Twins, and Total Recall. That was a legendary acting run for him. To this day, I think Terminator 2: Judgement Day is the most enthralled I’ve ever been watching a movie outside of the theater. I saw it n some random central Ontario hotel during a hockey trip and was amazed at what I was seeing.

Netflix has a new, pretty long, documentary on Arnold that’s worth a watch. He has always struck me as a very complicated person but at the same time really simple and straightforward. I’ve always hated weightlifting for the most part and have found bodybuilding really weird and fascinating. What do our resident gym bros have to say?

A Look Back

Okay, let’s talk about Drew Pyne. He transferred to Arizona State this off-season which drew some questions about his decision making and why didn’t he prefer something a little more manageable at a smaller school. After a late enrollment, true freshman Jaden Rashada won the quarterback job and Pyne didn’t see the field in the Sun Devils first 2 games. Prior to game 3, Rashada was ruled out with his injury and ASU then turned to senior Trenton Bourguet who threw a pick on his 1st series and later injured his leg. Then, they turned to Drew Pyne. He was sacked and lost a fumble on his very first snap–you can’t even make this stuff up.

In a terrible-no-good-very-bad day the Sun Devils were shutout at home for the first time since 1988. Pyne was sacked on his next 2 pass plays, losing another fumble again. He threw an incomplete pass on 4th & 1 for the next series then was intercepted 2 plays later on the next series, intercepted on the 2nd series in the 3rd quarter, and then hurt his foot and ASU finally moved on to another quarterback. In total, the Sun Devils punted 3 times, lost 3 fumbles, threw 5 interceptions, and turned it over on downs once. What a day!

18S Paddock Club

Finally, the reign of Max Verstappen terror ended. Well, at least for one weekend. The Red Bull cars weren’t suited well to the Singapore street circuit and they completely fumbled the car set up leading to both Verstappen (P11) and Sergio Perez (P13) missing out on Q3. It was a bizarro F1 world for a couple days.

Carlos Sainz in his Ferrari took pole by just under a tenth from Mercedes driver George Russell, and it would become one of the most dominant non-Red Bull weekends in recent memory. Ferrari went 1-2 in all 3 practice sessions and Leclerc narrowly missed out on a front row start in P3 after a solid qualifying.

The race seemed exciting at first but settled into a dull affair until Logan Sargeant crashed and brought out a late virtual Safety Car. The race finished with both Mercedes chasing Lando Norris and Sainz with Russell dramatically crashing into the barriers on the final lap. It was a wire-to-wire win for Sainz and his 2nd career F1 victory.

Testament to the survival cell durability, that’s a proper crash. 

Other notes from Singapore:

  • Norris had upgrades to his McLaren and they look awfully good. He’s still searching for his 1st career victory but now has a trio of 2nd place finishes in 2023.
  • Leclerc got screwed on a bad double stack pit stop for Ferrari and could never claw back the time to finish P4.
  • Verstappen only managed P5 with Perez in P8.
  • It was a nightmare weekend for Aston Martin who came away with zero points. Lance Stroll binned his car hard in qualifying and ended up not racing on Sunday due to the after effects. Fernando Alonso qualified P7 and suffered minor suspension damage, a terrible pit stop, with a 5-second time penalty while finishing P15.
  • In just his 3rd career race, Liam Lawson scored 2 points in the AlphaTauri. His teammate Yuki Tsunoda didn’t make it 1 lap after picking up heavy sidepod damage from Perez and retiring his car.
  • In addition, Valtteri Bottas retired to due engine overheating and Esteban Ocon went out with a gearbox problem.

Now on to the island of Japan…

Round 16 of 22
Japanese Grand Prix
Date: September 24th
Race: 1:00 AM ET
Location: Suzuka, Japan
Circuit: Suzuka International Racing Circuit

Formula 1 makes the 7-hour flight northeast up to Japan for a tough back-to-back weekend on a track that couldn’t be more different from the tight streets of Marina Bay. If you’re expecting Red Bull to struggle they were really confident about their car in the simulator at Suzuka so we’re likely back to more Verstappen winning this Sunday.

In recent days, Guanyu Zhou was confirmed as keeping his seat with Alfa Romeo for 2024 which leaves us just 3 more seats open for next year. Oscar Piastri also signed an extension with McLaren through the 2026 season earlier this week. The media are reporting Yuki Tsunoda will sign an extension through at least 2024 this weekend in his home Japan and the currently injured Daniel Ricciardo is rumored to be staying with AlphaTauri through 2024, as well.

That leaves Logan Sargeant as the lone question mark. The American has strung together some terrible results but it appears Williams is ready to give him 2 full years on the grid. If not, there are rumors Aston Martin reserve driver Fillip Drugovich could sign with the team.

If this Japanese Grand Prix is another win for Verstappen we’ll see how tight the next tier will be with Mercedes, McLaren, and Ferrari. Additionally, a lot of evidence is stacking up that Aston Martin’s progress is stalling for a car that was once solidly the 2nd best on the grid. Can they improve?

Trivia Answer:

USC, Oregon, Oklahoma, Ole Miss.