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

Tops News

Former Irish defensive back Julian Love signed a 3-year $36 million extension with the Seattle Seahawks.

The NCAA is expected to approve scholarship increases in multiple sports, including raising the limit for college football from 85 to 105.

The Rose Bowl has asked out of the semifinal playoff rotation and instead wants to remain a quarterfinal playoff matchup only so it can keep its January 1st kickoff date.

Former Notre Dame quarterback Sam Hartman was drafted by the UFL’s Birmingham Stallions in the 9th round.

The New Orleans Saints have agreed to a contract with former Irish receiver Kevin Austin.

ESPN.com listed the top football stadiums in college football with Tiger Stadium, the Rose Bowl, Michigan Stadium, Notre Dame Stadium, and Beaver Stadium rounding out the top 5 places.

By unanimous vote, Alabama’s football facility will now be called Saban Field at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

Cade McNamara has been named the starter at quarterback for Iowa.

Wisconsin AD Chris McIntosh received a contract extension and raise through June 2029.

Uniform of the Week

Can you imagine working for Oregon’s uniform design department at Nike and not only having to work on so many new designs but also come up with new names all the time? For 2024, the Ducks released these new “Generation O” uniforms which at this time of writing has seen the release of two sets. The first to be released “Fly Era” were a mostly black affair with white and silver trim mixed with a touch of green. It’s Oregon being Oregon in their own branded way.

The second set “Gang Green” above came in their traditional school colors. The yellow trim on the arms and collar are new. Puddles on the shoulder is a huge upgrade. Oregon had yellow numbers with these jerseys last year but not with white trim. The player numbers are also more traditional. All in all, this is a very good mixture of modern with Oregon old school. I’m told the Ducks will have an additional 4 more uniforms coming from this “Generation O” set.

Recruiting

The blue-chip commits of the week:

RB Michael Turner (0.9314) – Baylor
RB Zymear Smith (0.9060) – Maryland
DL Bryce Davis (0.9698) – Clemson
LB Christian Gass (0.9246) – Tennessee
WR Derek Meadows (0.9657) – LSU 🙁
OT Cortez Smith (0.9434) – Georgia
CB Jaboree Antoine (0.9614) – Miami
WR Kamren Flowers (0.8900) – Toledo(!!!)
DL Kade Pietrzak (0.9006) – Nebraska
WR Vernell Brown III (0.9857) – Florida
WR Malik Clark (0.9203) – Florida State

YouTube Channel

I’m the guy who spends about 43 minutes every year actually watching baseball  but ten times that number reading or watching things about baseball history that are fun or interesting. I love reading the tweets from the account that sends out the weirdest and most unusual baseball fields in each U.S. state. Some people are lunatics for the ways they cram in a baseball field. Where I live the weirdest they get is baseball outfields encroaching on soccer fields a little too much.

Tall walls, super deep outfields, dead zones, and free seating areas from old MLB stadiums is discussed in the video above. One stadium from the past that I always used to love for it being kind of weird was the Minnesota Metrodome that was used from 1982 until 2009 (and a few years longer for the Vikings and football). Something about the roof (before it caved in lololol) and the large high walls made baseball and football look really cool on TV.

Tunes

There are some 5+ months left in this calendar year and I think Sabrina Carpenter wrote the best song of 2024 already. She’s been opening for this person called Taylor Swift on the Eras Tour and has blown up over the last year or so. The 25-year old had experienced modest success throughout her career and is ready to release her 6th studio album Short n’ Sweet on August 23rd.

The first single “Espresso” is really good and extremely catchy. I view that as more of a slower dance hit, something that might work well in a club. The second single “Please Please Please” came out in June and is such a fun and quite different song. Carpenter and the band do such a good job in today’s video performing it live. The studio version has a perfectly executed deep voiced cuss after the “I beg you don’t embarrass me” lyric that she changes in this live version. The last line of the song is great, too. “If you don’t wanna cry to my music, don’t make me hate you prolifically.”

Trivia

Which team did Tyrone Willingham face in his first game as Notre Dame head coach?

The Other Football

Javier Aguirre has been named the manager of Mexico for the 3rd time.

France beat the USMNT 3-0 to open up the Olympics for both teams. The USWNT opened up with a convincing 3-0 win over Zambia.

Leo Messi will sit out the MLS All-Star game as he continues to recover from his ankle injury suffered in the Copa America final.

Chelsea have signed 19-year old American Caleb Wiley from the Atlanta United youth program on a massive 6-year deal.

Manchester United have signed 18-year old centerback Leny Yoro from Lille for $65 million.

Arsenal are set to sign Bologna defender Riccardo Calafiori for $65 million.

Midfielder Amadou Onana has transferred from Everton to West Ham for a reported $64+ million.

TV & Movies

My channel surfing of old TV shows on Hulu has dwindled to almost nothing over the past year or two. The only syndicated show I’ve watched with any regularity are the re-runs of The Office which I think are constantly on TBS in the evenings. I’m not sure I’ve watched every episode but I’ve paid 62.7% attention to nearly all of them. Here’s a creepy AI video of the show if it were from the 1950’s:

The way The Office has been bought and sold has been interesting. NBC sold the rights to Comedy Central and then later bought the show back to pull it from Netflix. Outside of catching random episodes on cable, the show is now on Peacock for streaming consumption. It’s all part of the streaming wars these days.

A Look Back

For some reason, Texas being in the SEC doesn’t feel as weird or out of place as Oklahoma. Even the jersey patches for the conference look less abhorrent on the burnt orange. On the Sooners’ jerseys it looks so out of place. We know Texas and Texas A&M are going to be red hot enemies (they’ll finish the regular season against each other at Kyle Field by the way).

Who from the “old” SEC will step up and be a team that will utterly hate Oklahoma based on this 2024 season? The options during the regular season games will be Tennessee, Auburn, South Carolina, Ole Miss, Missouri, Alabama, and LSU. Based on past history, it could be Missouri and that might be one hell of a game this year, too.

18S Paddock Club

Things continue to heat up in F1 as Red Bull and McLaren inch closer and closer to a collision course for the constructor’s championship–and if things keep up maybe even a de-throning of Max Verstappen as the reigning driver’s champion. This past weekend in Hungary we saw Oscar Piastri pick up his first grand prix win (he’d won a sprint race before) but it didn’t come without controversy and drama.

*Lando Norris took pole during qualifying but for the millionth time lost P1 at the first corner. Teammate Piastri took the lead and built up a pretty decent lead over Norris. Unfortunately, McLaren decided to pit Norris early, under the guise of protecting an undercut from Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, and ended up having Norris undercut Piastri for the lead. The last third of the race resulted in McLaren trying to convince Norris to hand back P1 to Piastri. Eventually, he did. But it was awkward and poor team management that colored what should’ve been a super happy first win for Piastri.

*Then again, Norris is in 2nd place this season (although 76 points behind Verstappen) and there’s a case to be made he had every right to fight McLaren’s decision to swap cars and go for the win himself. These are not easy calls for anyone.

*We’re officially in “Red Bull are in crisis” mode. Car upgrades are not working very well. Verstappen hasn’t won any of the last 3 races and he finished P5 for the 2nd time in the last 3 grand prix. Verstappen was openly arguing hotly with his engineer all race long and barely survived a late lunge lock up to pass Hamilton that saw Verstappen’s car hit and flown into the air. No penalties were given out and somehow both cars continued on to race.

*Sergio Perez crashed in qualifying and could only finish in P7 in the race. All of a sudden, McLaren are only 51 points behind Red Bull and at the current trajectory over the past 2-3 months this could be a season where McLaren wins the constructors kind of easily.

F1 heads to Belgium this weekend for the fast and long Spa-Franchochamps circuit in the Ardennes forest. The drama may continue as Max Verstappen is rumored to be taking engine penalties at a track that has historically been friendly to overtaking.

Trivia Answer:

Maryland