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

Top News

Marcus Freeman announced that 5th-year senior linebacker Bo Bauer will be out for the rest of the season following a knee injury suffered earlier this week.

Notre Dame corner Tariq Bracy is questionable this weekend against Stanford with a grade 1 hamstring strain. Marcus Freeman said he expects defensive tackle Howard Cross to be in the lineup after an ankle injury suffered recently.

Terrible news as former Notre Dame defensive lineman Ethan Johnson has been missing since Friday, October 7th and was last seen in Vancouver, Washington.

Kennesaw State is in final talks to move up from FCS and join the Conference USA beginning with the 2024 season.

NC State quarterback Devin Leary was injured against Florida State and may be out for a while.

Kansas quarterback Jalon Daniels is unlikely to play this weekend against Oklahoma.

Alabama’s Bryce Young and Arkansas’ KJ Jefferson are expected back under center this weekend.

Rutgers has fired offensive coordinator Sean Gleeson.

Former Baylor and Temple head coach Matt Rhule was fired by the Carolina Panthers on Monday. He’ll be in a ton of college coaching rumors.

The Pac-12 is suing Dish Network for a breach of contract.

Alabama and Minnesota have signed a home-and-home deal for 2032-33.

Uniform of the Week

Arizona State has been going through some stuff this season. Their program is under NCAA investigation, their coach was fired, there were reports that assistants were leaking information to get other coaches in trouble, and they generally have not been playing good football for a long time. It’s not great overall, let’s admit that. This past weekend, they wore these “Rising Devils” uniforms against Washington:

Full disclosure, these quickly shot up the list of the Worst Uniforms of All-Time for many people. I’m not going there because I respect the effort to be bold, particularly as ASU is going through some sort of Divorced Dad phase. The sweat stains are so terrible as to be kind of funny. The script logo on the helmet is difficult to read, too. But I have to say, I don’t hate this color combination. I really don’t. I also liked that it means Washington wore their purple jerseys on the road.

Recruiting

Georgia reached out all the way into California to pick up running back Roderick Robinson II (0.9088) on Monday.

Notre Dame faces Stanford this week and the Cardinal picked up edge rusher Tre Williams (0.8626) out of Texas recently.

Recruiting experts Tom Loy, Allen Trieu, and Sam Webb have all put in recent Crystal Ball predictions for running back Jeremiyah Love to Notre Dame. He’ll be visiting campus this weekend along with some other St. Louis prospects.

YouTube Channel

I have mixed feeling about Christian Bale. I was the weirdo who read American Psycho before going to see the movie in the theater (and enjoyed the book more). We covered The Big Short in this space earlier this year and he was outstanding in Vice, too. One of my biggest hot takes is that I didn’t like Bale as Batman and I didn’t really enjoy the Dark Knight trilogy that much, certainly not as much as everyone else.

It was all way too gloomy and zero fun. Even the posters for each movie make me roll my eyes. Batman Begins has a darkened tan sky with bats flying all around below a moody Batman. The Dark Knight poster has some erupting volcano sky about to envelope an office building with the Batman logo burned into the side, with clinched fist Batman below. Then The Dark Knight Rises has clinched fisted Batman standing below buildings about to collapse from an Armageddon fire hell in the sky. Sounds fun.

Tunes

Britney Spears is back on the musical scene. Well, sort of. Earlier this year it was reported that Spears was working with Elton John on a remake of “Tiny Dancer” and immediately I began to worry. For his part, John released a collaborative album The Lockdown Sessions during the pandemic featuring a popular hit “Cold Heart” sung with Dua Lipa. You’ve probably heard it if you’ve been anywhere near popular music radio or streaming in recent months.

If you’re like me and guessed this Brittney collaboration was going to more in the long line of disco-pop offerings you are correct. Is this song bad? No, but re-naming it “Hold Me Closer” and just the general vibe of trying to leech off the success of the original is enough to offend every musical sensibility. There’s also just 2 banal verses comprised of 49 total words surrounding the ‘hold me closer’ chorus. It doesn’t take much for a hit these days.

Trivia

Who are the top 3 Notre Dame pass catchers in order so far in 2022?

The Other Football

Programming note as we can confirm there will be a full World Cup and separate United States preview coming next month on the site. Things kick off in Qatar in a month.

In the Premier League this past weekend Arsenal beat Liverpool 3-2 to stay atop the table. Troubling times for Spurs fans, and the year from hell continues for Liverpool who sit in 10th place, a full 6 points back of a Champions League position.

For the 6th or 7th time in his career, Kylian Mbappe is unhappy and is demanding to leave PSG during the upcoming January transfer window. That could lead to one heck of a 6-week period for him while defending the World Cup with France.

In the UCL Tuesday action this week Chelsea beat Milan 2-0, Shakthar tied Real Madrid 1-1, Kobenhavn tied Man City 0-0, and Juventus were embarrassed 2-0 by Maccabi Haifa. On Wednesday, Barcelona and Inter tied, Liverpool destroyed Rangers 7-1 (Salah with a hat trick in 6 minutes what), and Tottenham beat Frankfurt 3-2.

The Basketball Tournament folks are launching a soccer tournament version with a $1 million winner-take-all prize.

Streaming

Netflix recently dropped the Redeem Team documentary about the 2008 United States Men’s Basketball Team’s triumph in Beijing winning the gold medal. This crew had a +161 point differential in their 5 preliminary round games then beat Australia by 31, Argentina by 20, and Spain by 11 in the gold medal game. It was a fun ride to make up for the 2004 debacle.

It’s still amazing to look back and see Emeka Okafor on that 2004 Olympic team, what a decision by everyone involved. I had a heated discussion in college with a friend who was convinced Okafor was going to be a superstar. I was like, he’s not that good. Even still, that group lost 3 times(!) at the Olympics which still brings eternal shame. By the way, the header photo today is not from 2004 but from the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. I thought it was funny. That looks like Ralph Lauren made the polos and was in his 1990’s power mode where no one dared question the design of something so hideous.

A Look Back

I have the Shamrock Series on the brain coming off this weekend’s win over BYU. Today we flash back to the 2012 game at Soldier Field against Miami. Some would say this was the first real Shamrock Series game complete with the full new uniform. This game reminds me distinctly of two things. One, is this office picture after the uniform unveiling with Te’o, Kelly, and Eifert. Honestly, when I think about the Brian Kelly era in general that’s one of my top 5 photos.

The second is the play that starts at 1:41 in this highlight video. Everett Golson escapes the pocket, stiff arms a defender just past the line of scrimmage, leaves another defender wearing his jock in the open field, and heads towards the sideline like he’s going out of bounds. NOPE. Then, he makes a hard cut back up field, splits 2 defenders only to fumble the ball out of bounds. I love and miss you, Ev.

18S Paddock Club

If you wanted confusion, anger, and exasperation to complete a race and crown a champion F1 has you covered! The sport dealt with mostly wet practice sessions in Suzuka before a dry qualifying saw Max Verstappen barely edge out Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz for pole position. However, the heavens opened up again for Sunday’s race, and despite fears from many, the cars blasted through the rain on inter tires with Verstappen holding on to the lead through turn 1 in a brave and aggressive move against Leclerc.

The race didn’t last more than a minute before Sainz in 3rd place aquaplaned coming out of the sector 2 hairpin leading to a Safety Car, and eventual red flag. Drama ensued after a tractor was quickly brought on track to get Sainz’ car, in poor visibility without warning to teams, leading to some unsafe and highly controversial moments with cars driving by.

The race was re-started after a lengthy 2-hour delay with a rolling start behind the Safety Car. Due to the 3-hour race time limit, they were able to complete only 28 total laps before time ran out. Showing his domination in 2022, Verstappen would easily cruise to a 27-second win.

However, the drama didn’t end there.

Verstappen grabs the lead thru turn 1 and Leclerc cuts the chicane on the final lap. 

As has been the case so often this year, Leclerc’s tires on his Ferrari started to deteriorate and Sergio Perez in the other Red Bull began to catch him in the dying laps. Eventually, Perez caught up but was continually unable to get past Leclerc in the rain.

Note: The championship for Verstappen was on the line in this chase down by Perez, although due to confusion from just about everyone believing only half points would be available with the shortened race, it wasn’t part of the media narrative. It led to a bizarre scenario where the clinching championship was barely mentioned. 

Coming down to the Casio triangle, Leclerc braked too late on the final lap and cut the chicane while maintaining his lead in 2nd place. Following the race, Leclerc was given a 5-second time penalty and dropped down to 3rd place. While full points were officially given, the margin difference was enough to crown Verstappen as back-to-back world champion. Everyone was confused afterward and Verstappen was told no, yes, no, yes a dozen times before it became official.

For the rest of the grid there was plenty of pit strategy as the track began to dry out over the sprint-like distance. This led to some big points for Sebastian Vettel (6th place in his final Japan GP) and even Nicholas Latifi (9th) picked up a couple points. Alpine grabbed 18 points as Esteban Ocon finished a season-high 4th place for the team and Fernando Alonso placed 7th by mere inches behind Vettel. With Lando Norris finishing in 10th and Danny Ricciardo in 11th, Alpine jumped back ahead of McLaren for 4th place in the Constructor’s Standings by 13 points.

F1 is off this weekend as the reports of Red Bull breaching the cost cap now take center stage for the rest of the season with the championship already decided. Will Red Bull be given a large fine? Reduced wind tunnel time? Actual point reductions either last year or this year?

After the week off we’ll be back in Austin, Texas for the Circuit of the Americas track, a fan favorite.

Trivia Answer:

Michael Mayer, Lorenzo Styles, and Chris Tyree.