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

Top News

Former Pitt Panther (heavily recruited by Notre Dame) and current Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field Monday night against the Bengals. I’m sure everyone has seen the story and is watching his recovery. Here at 18S we pray he keeps improving.

Georgia is 12.5-point favorites over TCU in the upcoming National Championship.

In the rumors department, Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren is being considered as the new president of the Chicago Bears. Also, several NFL teams are interested in Jim Harbaugh (you can’t lose bowl games in the NFL).

Alabama stars Will Anderson and Bryce Young are off to the NFL.

Clemson defensive tackle Bryan Bresee is headed to the NFL.

Kansas State running back Deuce Vaughn has declared for the NFL.

The MAC leading rusher Carson Steele is transferring from Ball State to UCLA.

Navy is hiring Kennesaw State offensive coordinator Grant Chestnut to keep the triple option alive in Annapolis.

Sad news as BYU freshman offensive lineman Sione Veikoso passed away recently after a retaining wall collapsed on him while working on a construction site.

Uniform of the Week

I had been waiting to see what Mississippi State would do to honor the recent death of head coach Mike Leach. The team played Illinois on Monday in the ReliaQuest Bowl and unveiled a pirate flag logo on their helmets. At first, I thought this was a really classy and neat touch to honor Leach. Then, I thought should they have done more?

Strictly in the universe of uniforms I say yes. For one, the flag was only on one side of the helmet. But also, going with black for mourning instead of maroon opened up the Raiders-esque color scheme. It was sitting right there! Also, this game had a crazy ending (especially for Vegas) as the Bulldogs took back a failed pitch (Illinois trailed by 3 with a 3.5 point spread) for a touchdown to win 19-10. One last laugh for the Dread Pirate.

Recruiting

Former Notre Dame recruiting targets from the 2022 class in receiver CJ Williams (USC) and defensive lineman Anthony Lucas (Texas A&M) are transferring with reported interest from the Irish.

The only recent big 2023 commit was Floridian wide receiver Raymond Cottrell (0.9375) signing with Texas A&M.

In the 2024 class, Chandler, Arizona quarterback Demond Williams (0.9157) committed to Ole Miss.

Also, Michigan State dipped into Murfreesboro for wide receiver Jaylen Thompson (0.9102).

YouTube Channel

Last week we featured the world’s largest sports stadiums (including cheese rolling, we have to bring that up again) and now it’s time for this YouTuber to give us the 15 Weirdest Football Stadiums in College Football. I was prepared to be disappointed with the list, but actually they did a pretty good job.

For those who would like a list typed out (they didn’t go in any sort of order):

Idaho State
Idaho
Boise State
Eastern Washington
Coastal Carolina
Central Arkansas
Northern Michigan
Maryland
Northwestern
Grambling State
Colorado State
South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
UTSA
James Madison
Murray State

Yes, 4 of those programs are on there for their silly little turf colors and that’s fine. Some of these are actually fantastically weird. The Superior Dome looks like an absolute trip to play inside. The South Dakota Mines circular parking on multiple levels is the coolest things I’ve seen all week. I love the way Murray State’s whole package looks, too. There’s some surprisingly interesting stadiums out there.

Tunes

It’s Michael Jackson time. Thriller was the first album (on vinyl no less!) I remembering listening to as a kid, only because I remember handling the distinctive jacket cover of Jackson in his white suit, sitting at my parents tall record/radio system, and trying not to be scared by the Vincent Price talking sequence at the end of the album’s title track. We’re talking core early memories in my life somewhere as a 3-year old. By the way, thinking about how much slower the world turned back then, Thriller the album came out on November 29, 1982 and the “Thriller” video wasn’t released on MTV until December 2, 1983.

Of course, this album had 7(!) top 10 singles with “Thriller” being the last and final released so in that way it makes more sense why the video came out so late. “Wanna Be Startin’ Something” was also another top 10 hit and opened the album. It’s famous drum machine intro is always stuck in my head. The disco-ish feel doesn’t fit the album that well, and that’s because it was originally slated for Jackson’s previous disco-heavy Off the Wall record.

Trivia

How many Notre Dame quarterbacks have been drafted in the 1st round in the Super Bowl era? Can you name them?

The Other Football

The biggest news in world football has been the signing of Cristiano Ronaldo as a free agent by Saudi Arabian club Al-Nassr. There were reports that Ronaldo was close to a long-term deal with Sporting Kansas City in MLS which would’ve been absolutely wild.

Al-Nassr, based in Riyadh, are currently leading the table by a point. I can’t help but think of their shirt manufacturer Duneus and how they may be the most happy group out of everyone. According to reports, Ronaldo’s contract includes commercial pay and is rumored to be as much as $200 million per year.

Quite the dichotomy to see rival Leo Messi winning the World Cup and two weeks later Ronaldo chasing endless bags of cash in one of the lowest leagues in club football.

The world also lost Pelé last Friday, the Brazilian legend was 82 and passed away from colon cancer. Certainly for my generation (and he’d been retired for 5 years before I was even born) Pelé was synonymous with soccer and famously connected to a sport in a way that I don’t think we’ll ever see the likes of again. In our recent YouTube video section he was listed as the most famous Brazilian and I don’t see that changing for many more decades to come.

Streaming

I don’t know where Home Alone stands among the greatest movies of all-time (it has to be way up there I assume) but for me it’s an A+ all-time keeper. It also seems to be on cable during the Holiday season more than any other Christmas movie which is helpful. So far, I haven’t grown tired of it. The older I get, the more silly and skeptical I grow of the ways preventing the Water Bandits™ from chasing down Kevin, though.

Marv falling on the Christmas ornaments is among my favorite scenes. He straight up smashes his feet on the ground from 18 inches and then proceeds to continue walking across the ornaments after standing up. The unlocked window part of the movie kills me. The whole sequence and the screenplay to complete it was so genius.

A Look Back

We can’t ignore mighty Tulane coming back to upset USC in the Cotton Bowl. The Trojans had several comfortable leads and blew them all, including leading by 15 points with 4:30 remaining in the game. Our grad transfer wish list (he’s staying at Tulane) quarterback Michael Pratt completed just 8 passes but for 234 yards as the Green Wave ran for 305 yards on USC. What really gets me excited though, is America’s team right now the TCU Horned Frogs:

Ohio State beating Georgia to go on to win it all, despite losing to Michigan, would’ve been objectively the funniest scenario of the decade. I would’ve cackled for years (for those saying Ohio State is worse, you are wrong). However, God bless TCU and noted Notre Dame fan Max Duggan taking down Michigan for all of us. Watching them win the National Championship would be such an amazing story.

18S Paddock Club

Previewing each team on the grid for the 2023 season…

Team: Alfa Romeo
Founded: 1993 (as Sauber)
2022 Result: 6th
Base: Hinwil, Zurich, Switzerland
Owners: Sauber Group
Power Unit: Ferrari
Team Principal: TBD
Drivers: Valtteri Bottas (11th season) & Zhou Guanyu (2nd season)

The Good: People were actually paying attention to them again! The droll Kimi Räikkönen and quiet Antonio Giovanazzi left for the grid’s favorite Finnish bro Valtteri Bottas and a new interesting rookie Zhou Guanyu. Their car was the lightest on the grid to start 2022 and paired with the Ferrari power unit brought some really promising results.

The Bad: Once the rest of the grid starting car shedding weight, things didn’t go so well for Alfa. Zhou experienced one of the worst crashes in recent years at Silverstone and was lucky to come away unscathed. They were plagued by too many reliability problems and eventually sank back into the bottom half of the midfield teams with no hope to claw back into contention.

2023 Hope: Alfa becomes one of the most talked about teams of the off-season thanks to the news that Audi will be buying into the Sauber Group and joining the grid as a works team (making their own power units in Germany) in 2026. After 2023, the Alfa Romeo badging will be removed–and while the team is likely to be called Sauber for 2024-25–it’s possible Audi money and technology start impacting the team sooner rather than later. The team did lose team principal Fred Vassuer to Ferrari in recent weeks which plunges them into a bit of chaos. But, with Audi lurking this becomes a fun team to follow.

Trivia Answer:

Brady Quinn, 2007
Rick Mirer, 1993