Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.
Top News
There’s a stipulation in the new 7-year media contract for the Big Ten that includes an increase on their annual revenue should Notre Dame join the conference. The Irish are the only program with that specific stipulation.
Tight end/fullback Davis Sherwood earned a scholarship for Notre Dame with the medical retirement of receiver Avery Davis.
The plucky underdog Nick Saban has been extended at Alabama through the 2029 season with an average annual salary of almost $12 million. That contract will take him through to 79 years old. If he plays out that contract and averages 11 victories per season he’ll be sitting 5th all-time in wins and 3rd among Power 5 coaches. He’d need more than 13 wins per season to surpass Bobby Bowden in 2nd among the P5 crew, but Saban could always coach longer.
Drake Maye has been announced as the starting quarterback at North Carolina, as expected.
Quinn Ewers has been named the starting quarterback at Texas. USC transfer Kedon Slovis won the QB job at Pittsburgh while Indiana transfer Michael Penix, Jr. won the starting job at Washington.
Running back Rasheen Ali from Marshall (Notre Dame’s opponent on September 10th) has stepped away from the team. The rising redshirt sophomore led Conference-USA in rushing yards per game last year and scored 24 total touchdowns.
LSU running back John Emery has been suspended for the first 2 games of 2022.
Miami has a proposed new football stadium seating 60,000 in Tropical Park, just 4 miles from their campus.
A look at the proposed stadium for the Miami Hurricanes.
60,000 seats. pic.twitter.com/vU33k5uit5
— Unnecessary Roughness (@UnnecRoughness) August 23, 2022
There’s conflicting reports that Ohio State will wear 2002 throwbacks in the season opener against Notre Dame.
Urban Meyer is back in the college game, returning to the Fox broadcast team this season. Former Texas head coach Tom Herman has joined the CBS Sports crew, as well.
Mario Morris is leaving Notre Dame in his role as Executive Deputy Athletics Director to become the NCAA’s Vice President of Administration and Chief Financial Officer. Maybe good news for Notre Dame on the NIL front, perhaps? Morris won a National Championship in 1992 as a linebacker with Alabama and had been at Notre Dame since 2019.
Uniform of the Week
Long Island University made the jump up to the FCS level recently and it has not been going very well. They were 0-10 their first season, 2-2 during the 2020 Covid year, and 2-8 last year with wins over Central Connecticut (previously featured in our Summer of FCS series) and Wagner College. Two wins is better than zero wins, I suppose.
The Sharks (hell yes with this nickname) more than make up for their futility on the field with these gorgeous uniforms. I’d love to see a shark on the helmet but at the moment their shark logo needs some tweaking if it’s going to make on to this part of the uniform. Either way, they are rocking the baby blue, good for them.
Recruiting
Notre Dame just recently flipped defensive end Armel Mukam (0.8578) from Stanford. Commit post HERE for your reading pleasure.
Alabama got a verbal from Kansas City defensive lineman Edric Hill (0.9256).
Cass Tech defensive lineman Jalen Thompson (0.9229) committed to Michigan State.
Defensive lineman Zavion Hardy (0.9340) and Xzavier McLeod (0.9297) committed to South Carolina.
Ole Miss picked up blue-chip receiver Ayden Williams (0.9464).
YouTube Channel
In another life I’d work in advertising or be a graphic designer for corporations. This aspect was about 70% of why I liked watching Mad Men. I’ve always been drawn to logos and pick up quickly when they’ve changed. I used to force my older brother when we were little to see who could guess the company of a commercial the quickest which provided an excellent training ground. Kids these days, they are barely watching commercials! How will they know when a company slightly changes the pantone on a sign?
Did they know Pringles recently changed their logo again? Kellogg’s really went barebones with my boy Julius Pringle, I don’t like it. He doesn’t deserve to be bald. Also, I have a Pringles hot take for your life. I do really like the de-branding of several of the logos featured in this video, especially Warner Brothers. That’s really cool how they can tweak it to fit different movie themes. I generally don’t like this trend for car companies, though. The VW logo is one that I really liked before they simplified. In general, I don’t think auto manufacturers should have flat and basic logos. That’s one area of industry where you should have detailed, metallic, glittery logos should be with auto sector.
Tunes
I’ve always liked the Rolling Stones but didn’t really like them with a passion until my early 20’s. For me, the good stuff started with Aftermath (1966) and ran through Some Girls (1978) while my investment stopped once the 1980’s began which was the case for a lot of other bands from this era. I was just a little lad when the reverberations from Tattoo You (1981) kept going for a while but the Stones didn’t really enter my life in any meaningful way until their large Voodoo Lounge (1994) posters started being plastered all over my job. Suddenly, they were back in the limelight. At least a little bit.
In the streaming era, I’ll put on a Stones album and just let it go to work in the background. Today’s song “Little T &A” comes off Tattoo You and is a rare Keith Richard-sung tune for the band. The studio version is really good and is quintessential rockin’ Stones from this era. This live version from Hampton Coliseum was the first of 2 concerts that closed out this tour. It’s, uhh, quite different and is something else to watch. You really understand why people from my parents generation didn’t think Richards would be around much longer. Here we are 40 years later and he’s still ticking. He defies all logic and understanding.
Trivia
Jack Coan had negative rushing yards in 11 games for Notre Dame last year. Against which opponent did Coan gain the most rushing yards?
The Other Football
Just when you thought it was about to get really dark for Man United, they turn around and defeat Liverpool 2-1 on Monday night. Now, Liverpool is reeling with just 2 points from 3 games while sitting in 16th place. They’re in an early relegation battle with rivals Everton!
Manchester City came back to draw Newcastle 3-3 on the road, which keeps Arsenal (3-0-0) atop the Premier League.
Absolute bonkers scenes for Leeds as their American-powered attack dominated Chelsea 3-0 on Sunday.
There’s still a week to go in the transfer window and the Premier League has already broken their summer record of money spent, sitting at nearly $1.8 billion now.
The rest of Europe is just getting started with their seasons but Bayern Munich is already +14 in goal differential through 3 games atop the Bundesliga. What a fun league.
The UEFA Champions League draw was announced on Thursday:
Tough groups include C, G, H, and possibly E. Barcelona and Bayern is awfully spicy.
Easy groups include D, F, and B.
Streaming
I don’t watch baseball much and haven’t for years and years. Yet, several baseball movies would make it into my all-time favorite list. Ah, Americana! Perhaps my most watched movie in my life is Major League from 1989 that was one of the most worn out VHS tapes among me and my friends in the early 1990’s. This film has it all for a kid–humor, ball-busting, terrible language, some romance, and really great baseball scenes. Elite baseball scenes.
I was watching the last third of this movie recently, enjoying it as always, when it dawned on me how impeccable most of the baseball work is throughout the film. Besides the Chelcie Ross character throwing 39 mph heat (kind of the point I guess) there really isn’t a flaw in the actors playing ball. My favorite is the Yankees slugger absolutely smashing homeruns. The choreography is insane, I wonder how many takes some of the scenes took with all the precision.
A Look Back
Last year was not for the faint of heart when it comes to FCS upsets. Each of Washington, Vanderbilt, Florida State, and Arizona fell to FCS opponents from 12 losses total among FBS teams. UMass, well they lost twice to FCS teams. Are they even embarrassed? However, none of these may have stung more than UConn losing to Holy Cross.
Technically, this wasn’t much of an upset. UConn was only a 3-point favorite and Holy Cross are no slouches in the Patriot League having won their conference 3 years in a row. Still, it’s really funny to see UConn drop this game and then Holy Cross turns right around and drops their next one to Merrimack College.
18S Paddock Club
Formula 1 enters the 14th race of the season this weekend in the Spa circuit in eastern Belgium to kickoff a jam-packed triple header with Zandvoort and Monza coming over the next 2 weeks. Then, the series will be off for 3 weeks for a mini-late summer break (RIP Russian Grand Prix).
Is this the last race at Spa for a good long while? Let’s hope F1 comes to its senses and realizes the mistake it would be making to pull this one off the calendar. For now, hope is it’ll stay for 2023, at least.
Belgian Grand Prix
Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps
FP1 8/26 8:00 AM ET
FP2 8/26 11:00 AM ET
FP3 8/27 7:00 AM ET
Qualifying 8/27 10:00 AM ET
Race 8/28 9:00 AM ET
Coming off last year’s debacle* of a race fans will be hoping for a really memorable weekend, although rain is threatening once again for Saturday and Sunday. Also, parts of the track have been resurfaced for better grip but there are some other new features made to the circuit, including the addition of several new gravel traps that are closer to the asphalt and a widening of the run-off area on both sides of the famous Eau Rouge to Radillion run up the hill at turns 3, 4, and 5.
Hold on to your butts.
*Last year’s Belgian Grand Prix saw qualifying delayed for a bit by rain. Rain then picked up once things got going during Q3 and Lando Norris had a huge crash. Max Verstappen grabbed pole with a jubilant George Russell 2nd in a crusty Williams car. On Sunday, the race was delayed due to rain. During the formation lap Sergio Perez crashed with all the rain. The race was delayed again due to even more severe rain. Three hours(!) later, the race began with the grid following the safety car around Spa for 2 laps before the FIA decided to end things and award half points to the Top 10. No one was happy, except George Russell who scored “2nd place.”
As a refresher coming off break, here are the drivers standings and their points for the top 10 coming into this weekend:
Verstappen – 258
Leclerc – 178
Perez – 173
Russell – 158
Sainz – 156
Hamilton – 146
Norris – 76
Ocon – 58
Bottas – 46
Alonso – 41
3 Questions For Belgium:
1) Will the new Technical Directive (TD) actually change the grid?
Long story short, some teams (i.e. Red Bull) have reportedly been using a “flexi-floor” system under the car in which the front portion of their plank pushes in to help with downforce and to stop bouncing. The FIA introduced new regulations taking effect this weekend to ban this approach. Some think it could hurt Red Bull, others think they’ll be fine.
2) How does Alpine move on after the news of Alonso’s departure next year?
We’re expecting some drama in the paddock, it is F1 after all. Fernando Alonso decided not to re-sign with Alpine and now the team is in shambles trying to figure out who to put in that seat for 2023 with the current Piasco™ situation awaiting a response from the FIA Contract Recognition Board and/or likely heading to court.
Also, McLaren announced on Tuesday that Daniel Ricciardo is in fact leaving the team after this season and they will pay him his 2023 salary to go away. More drama.
3) Will Ferrari have to hold off Mercedes?
Mercedes sent a little bit of a shockwave last race with George Russell snatching pole in Hungary. The Silver Arrows continue to look stronger on Sunday’s too, but Charles Leclerc did end up catching and passing Russell anyway (before strategy mistakes undid their race). Ferrari is expected to introduce an updated ERS (great!) that will come with a 5-place grid penalty (bad!) for being over the limit of power unit elements. Ferrari can still probably catch Mercedes but it opens the door a little more to a closer fight.
Trivia Answer:
North Carolina, 28 yards
If it came up elsewhere I missed it but I thought you might comment on the Netflix/Te’o stream this week. I found it a bit… frustrating.
I actually came here this week to comment on it as well, since I had a chance to catch it this week. I had lots of thoughts. might as well get them out here.
1. Happy that manti was able to get his story out there to a mass audience and have his redemption story. the last 2 minutes are incredibly powerful. also he really grew up to be quite handsome
2. The quote on why he picked nd over usc was awesome. can someone show that to keon?
3. I guess I get why the documentary was soft in Naya so she would be in the story and her side was probably more important to mantis redemption than manti. But she is a terrible person who lied, deceived and manipulated someone, almost ruining their life and definitely their career. The documentary wasn’t critical at all of her. and at the end she thought it was her redemption story. I was pretty annoyed with that but I would think most reasonable people picked up on that
4. those deadspin guys fancied themselves on the boston globe spotlight team. Screw those guys. They got a tip which is how they figured it out and then had irresponsible journalism in the article. they stated manti was in on the hoax and made him look bad. Wish the doc would have discussed that as well
Overall I liked it though and again was really happy for manti
edit: also thought they did a great job of setting up why manti was specifically susceptible to this hoax with his background and being at nd and how elaborate the hoax really was
It was hilarious seeing Tim Burke be like “I’m basically a super hacker” and his journalistic trick was… a reverse image search? I’m not sure if the documentarians are in on the joke or they really thought he was a super genius.
Also they spent multiple minutes stressing the importance of Deadspin getting the story out ahead of ESPN, but they didn’t ever say why that mattered. That was weird.
This very much mirrors my take on it. I was particularly frustrated that they didn’t challenge the Deadspin a-holes for claiming to be some sort of anti-media outlet that had done some serious fact-checking and then showing their faces on every main-stream channel being interviewed about their story and perpetuating innuendoes of Manti being complicit. F them and f the soft touch on (Ro)Naya.
I was thinking about watching it and developing a full story at some point.
Lovely issue of the Rambler! The baseball movie I had never seen, so the Wild Thing rendition took me totally by surprise. I assume they filmed this during a real game in Cleveland, like we filmed the Rudy Ga Tech game?
Also — thanks for the Stones clip. I managed to see them four times this summer (London, Brussels, Lyon, Paris) and Mick and Keith were not missing a single beat (Ronnie yes, but hey). Best part was all the young fans.
OK, it’s time to tee it up. We are due vs the Backeyes!
Poor Ronnie!
He is still having a good time being a rock star. It seems like he has a good lead moment every six songs or so, and otherwise Keith just keeps him engaged. Keith likes him and never wanted a genuine lead guitar, so like a good marriage, whatever works. Since you do deep dives into different music, check out the Out Of Control clip from the Stockholm gig (Matt Lee’s version) — you can see Keith doing that. Plus btw, some incredible moves from Mick (at 79!), and finally, about the 5:00 minute mark, the genuine bond he and Keith have, especially when Mick plays the harp.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7sVd6IoE8I
Thanks again for all the takes on F1 racing, about which I know nothing, but now am impressing my friends who are impassioned fans!
Small information about LIU. So LIU has two campuses, Brooklyn and Post. Until 2019 both campuses had their own athletic departments and teams, LIU-Brooklyn the “Blackbirds” and LIU-Post the “Pioneers.” LIU-Brooklyn actually already competed in D1 for all sports, but did not have football, while LIU-Post was D2 and sponsored football. With the merger all teams merged, and those each campus had, but the other didn’t was kept. Therefore, the LIU-Post football was immediately elevated to D1, and the university unveiled a new nickname.
*I know this for some weird reason because LIU-Post used to play in the PSAC in D2 when I was in college, and attended a PSAC school.
This is why we have this article, here to learn!
In regards to your absolutely incendiary take on Pringles cans, have you considered this?
With a can of Pringles, you know exactly how many potato crisps you’re getting. With a bag of chips, you have absolutely no clue how badly you’re getting shafted until you open that damn thing up.
I like the guessing game (and easy access into the bag, baby).
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Absolutely thrilled with the prospects coming out of Group D. Man oh man, watching the CL draw was a-g-o-n-i-z-i-n-g-l-y slow.
4 trophies still on the table.
I spoke to Coach Chesney the week of the UConn gams and he was quite certain that HC was the better team. Merrimack beating HC in football was a much bigger upset. The Merrimack website called it the biggest upset in school history.
The MAC really let me down last night by not playing Thursday week zero conference games; seems like a missed opportunity for them.
I know, it didn’t feel right.
Is anybody else heading over to the Solid Verbal podcast meetup in Chicago on saturday. I’ll be there. Hit me up if you are going at “the last part of my screen name at the google mail dot com”.
Want to bet on the first pick in the fantasy things draft? I’d put money on a “new faces in college football this season” segments/mentions.
“Rumored to be the face of NCAA 24.”
Pringles Flavors Power Rankings
1. Sour Cream & Onion
2. Original
3. Pizza
4. Texas A&M
5. Salt & Vinegar
Not receiving votes: BBQ
Hard to beat those first two flavors.
Does TAM=Cheddar? If so, needs to be higher.
I read something the other day that suggested brand simplification was the result of the smart phone era. That the brand has to be recognizable in a short burst without a person having to concentrate on what they are seeing to much. However much of the art of branding seems to be lost this way. Form doesn’t always have to follow function, can’t it be embellished?
Yeah, I’ve read similar things.
The updated Kia logo is fairly flat and basic but it slaps.
I’ll give you that one. I have mixed feelings on their new logo but the old one was terrrible.
I just got a new Hyundai yesterday and maybe one of my 3 gripes is the logo
What did you get?
We’ve had a Sante Fe as a loaner while the Jeep gets a new back end.
Tuscon Hybrid. We’ve got a somewhat tight garage and a van already, so trying to squeeze anything larger in there would be tough. Very odd car market right now. Word of advice is, if you’re thinking about getting a fuel efficient vehicle of any type, you’re already months behind.
Maybe years behind 🙁
I’ll be going fully electric with my next vehicle some time in the next 2-3 years. The supply really needs to ramp up soon, and prices to drop.
Dealership was also a Ford dealer. They had an F-150 Lightning in the showroom. MSRP was $93k, they sold it to a broker for $140k after they had a sale fall through to a customer for $115k. No. Thank. You.
I had an in on an electric Hyundai Kona at MSRP recently but balked because it was going to be a lot of money up front (price tag isn’t killer but not cheap, plus paying off my Jeep) and I don’t super love the Kona to begin with anyway.
I want to see a lot of the newer models coming out and what they look like, plus longer range, but damn I hope it’s not 2024 and we’re still waiting months on new vehicles with predatory dealers smiling from ear to ear.
Yeah, those are a bit too smooth looking for my liking, as well. I’m not super thrilled about having to get the hookup installed in my garage and I’m not also super thrilled about being a first adopter of a new, expensive technology. Maybe in a few years when we’re looking to replace the van, we’ll look a bit more seriously at EVs. We don’t do a ton of long distance trips, so that wouldn’t be a huge concern. Hopefully the new legislation that went into place in California banning the sale of gasoline fueled vehicles by 2035 will have a swift impact on all auto manufacturers and their offerings.
106 mile round trip travel for me to work.
At current gas and charging rates from my house I could be saving around $3,000 per year 🙁
Why don’t you just buy an office tower closer to your house to move the 18S HQ into?
Pack everything up we’re moving!
Julius reminds me of the Oregon strength and conditioning coach. Some good FCS v FBS games this year with four of the top five in the FCS preseason ranking playing Power Five teams. North Dakota St v Arizona, Montana St v Oregon St are a couple. The FCS upset that struck me was Jacksonville St over Florida St by three. FSU had just lost to ND by three in OT. Even with UMass on the schedule, because of the loss, they needed to beat Florida to become bowl eligible. Lost by three.