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

3 News Stories

#1 Gambling Man

Texas Tech is in a bit of a pickle and I’m sure head coach Joey McGuire isn’t thinking too much about Notre Dame joining a conference this week following reports that quarterback Brendan Sorsby has been checked into a gambling addiction program. The dual-threat signal caller emerged as a top player with Cincinnati last season before an off-season transfer to Lubbock.

According to reports, Sorsby placed thousands of small bets on a variety of sports, including betting on his Indiana team during his 2022 season. Earning a NIL package worth $5 million this year with Texas Tech–and being named the no. 1 transfer in the country by ESPN–this should mean an immediate loss of eligibility for Sorsby.

It’s a potential disastrous situation for the Red Raiders football team. Redshirt sophomore Will Hammond saw plenty of action last year but has been out this off-season recovering from a torn ACL. Tech has redshirt freshman Lloyd Jones III on campus, brought in Tulsa redshirt junior transfer Kirk Francis, and signed 3-star Stephen Cannon. They are hoping Hammond is healthy for the opener and he was decently effective in 2025 with 680 passing yards, 299 rushing yards, and 12 total touchdowns. However, Tech’s only regular season loss came when Hammond started at Arizona State.

#2 Draft Recap

We’ll have a full NFL Draft review next week but for now a quick recap of last weekend’s events in Pittsburgh, including a very rare surprise pick for the Irish.

3rd overall – RB Jeremiyah Love – Arizona Cardinals
32nd overall – RB Jadarian Price – Seattle Seahawks
74th overall – WR Malachi Fields – New York Giants
95th overall – TE Eli Raridon – New England Patriots
160th overall – OG Billy Schrauth – Tampa Bay Buccaneers
210th overall – DT Gabriel Rubio – Pittsburgh Steelers

Rubio out of nowhere! Overall, it was a pretty great NFL Draft for Notre Dame–including Raridon going in the top 100, about 130 picks higher than I predicted.

Several other players signed UDFA deals in the aftermath, including: OL Aamil Wagner (Tennessee Titans), WR Will Pauling (San Francisco 49ers), DE Jordan Botelho (Minnesota Vikings), CB DeVonta Smith (Carolina Panthers), and S Jalen Stroman (San Francisco 49ers).

#3 Crootin’ Heats Up

Recruiting never really sleeps but the Irish are getting ready for a big push towards summer. California safety Khalil Terry (0.9138) decommitted from the program by mutual consent, according to the experts, only to give a verbal to UCLA within 24 hours.

Notre Dame moved quickly adding a pair of safeties from Florida, first John Gay (0.8750) out of Chaminade-Madonna on April 22nd and then Zayden Gamble (0.9300) out of St. Thomas Aquinas a few days later.

The state of Florida is expected to bring forth more talent this Friday as Vero Beach quarterback Wonderful “Champ” Monds (0.9132) is making his commitment.

Monds just turned 16 back in January and has reclassified from 2028 to the 2027 cycle. He broke his ankle and missed the majority of the 2025 season, as well. Monds was considered one of the top 2 or 3 quarterbacks in the 2028 class before reclassifying.

Uniform of the Week

We’re getting closer to the warmer months where college football programs will be unveiling new uniforms for the 2026 season. I was looking through some teams who I think need a re-brand and new look for their football program. This week, I present Notre Dame’s opening opponent of the season, the Wisconsin Badgers. I’m torn on the helmet logo, it’s fine I guess? It’s been around for 35 years and is up there in terms of overall identifiable logos in college sports. Looking at their pre-1990 uniforms with a basis block “W” helmet is truly weird. What about these current uniforms, though?

What can they change?

I thought about the Ron Dayne-era uniforms as being better, but they are even more generic–standard numbers, etc. and they looked even more like Nebraska’s little brother back then. Today, they have the rounded numbers and the subtle arrow on the shoulders and pant stripe in ode to the state motto “Forward.” If they aren’t going to do a wholesale color change (they’re in the top 5 teams that should, IMO) I’d have to argue for bringing in a lot more black to the uniforms since that’s part of the logo.

Media

I was just thinking how weird it was that there hasn’t been a modern re-make of the Flash Gordon movie. We’re talking about a comic strip that has been around for almost 100 years and the feature film is over 45 years old. That movie had an enormous budget but was successful. They even planned to do a trilogy but the idea was later scrapped.

Well, guess what? A new version of Flash Gordon is in the works–probably releasing in 2027. There are 3 writers working on a screenplay and 2 of them were involved with the Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power TV series. I haven’t watched that so I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Queen famously provided the soundtrack for the 1980 movie. For a new film, which band or artist would be the best to come on board? Maybe the Weeknd? Or maybe Daft Punk?

Tunes

Alex Warren is a 25 year old singer who has been gaining popularity and got his start (like so many young artists these days) via Tik Tok. I’ve heard his song “Ordinary” endless times over the past several months and I like it. “They say, The holy water’s watered down. And this town’s lost its faith.” What a great opening line to a song, it catches me every time.

However, this song is another example of the louder/screamier chorus that has become a standard for modern music. I mean, that trick has been used in music for decades of course. But there’s, something newer about this male screaming chorus type of songwriting. See especially, Lewis Capaldi’s biggest songs, it’s a trick he uses often. Next time you’re sitting down listening to music try and count how many songs don’t actively increase the singing volume during the chorus. It almost never happens.

One More Thing

How did we become a culture obsessed with water bottles? My 3 kids have approximately 37 water bottles apiece and I don’t think that’s an exaggeration. I might be undercounting actually. I’m not immune to this either. I have 5 protein shake bottles and have been rotating the 3 newest ones for use at work for lunch. I have a giant Yeti bottle for really big shakes, or for super hot days outside when I want a lot of ice to last a long time. A new Disney World bottle is on hand as a backup. Several other plastic and metal bottles are littered throughout cabinets–many haven’t been touched in months, or perhaps years.

Old faithful on hand as I write this here article. 

I’ve been through a few Nalgene bottles in my life, they were the cool bottles in the early 2000’s and I’m not giving them up. My newest one I dropped on blacktop that was laid down the previous day and scuffed up the bottle so badly I stopped using it. Another one I put tons of stickers on it until they fell off and faded in the wash. I stopped using that one, too. Today, I still use my Notre Dame Nalgene that has to be 15+ years old. The monogram is fading, the lid is losing its rigid texture, and the handle loop has long since been broken off. I still consider it my favorite bottle.