I lose my fear of war and dying
And all the clouds just disappear
Only my mirror sees me crying
Each time I lose another year..
Dateline: Flint Lake
 |
| "It's okay, mom, we don't understand Tim either..." |
When last we heard from The Jerrence, he was in a dark place, attitudinally -- with grim thoughts of his impending mortality accompanied by increasing evidence of a body beginning to fail him... notwithstanding the slippery slope of an already fragile cognitive state.
Since then, a trip to "Is this heaven? No, Iowa..." to visit The Matriarch changed all that.
Kay, now 101 years young... still surprisingly alert... still with a trademark wry sense of humor... still unrepentant about her legendary 'tough love' waterboarding of a young Timmy...
Geez, you adopt one Nazi disciplinary practice and they label you for life.
Still, the take-away to Jerrence's visit was clear:
-- Stop being such a nancy-boy.
-- Old age isn't for sissies!
-- Nut up or shut up.
Alrighty then, it's carpe diem time and not just for Jerrence. The Class of '79ers are now beginning their final lap through their 60's at a time when ND football is saddling up for what's, arguably, their best shot at winning a national championship in the last 30 years.
Let the games begin.
Quote of the Week
"Never ask what you did -- it's better not to know..."
Peter O'Toole
A young Michael Caine goes out to dinner with Peter O'Toole, wakes up two days later to find that he (they) have been banned -- for life -- from said restaurant.
Who amongst us hasn't had evenings that could later be described as regrettable...
He says before heading to Ireland with Lini and Ungie.
Word of the Week
Sloane too, for that matter. Which also meant story time for both of them.
But what to read? Jerrence hadn't yet bought Gruley's new novel, "River Deep" a procrastination which he greatly rued -- Sloane LOVES hockey and to a lesser extent, Michigan. She'd probably love Bryan's latest page turner.
And of course, the Pam Ungashick follow up novel was also still MIA.
 |
| "Zombie peas, Gaga!" |
"Never be afraid to take that bite," she shouted!
Ah, of course. Jerrence knew immediately. Sloane was referencing the latest Jerry Perez opus, "Laurie And The Great Vegetable Rebellion" -- a thriller involving militant produce that were mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore.
David Lynch meets Green Acres.
Sloane loved the story -- evidenced by having already read the story twice this week and her, now, calling for a third telling.
But why? Was it the heartwarming tale of a young, recalcitrant lad learning to step outside his food-related comfort zone?
Jerrence thought perhaps it was something darker -- her identification with the activist vegetables was unmistakable. And he wondered, just where had she learned the expression, "Viva la Revolution!"
That can't be good, he thought.
July Thoughts
What are we gonna do now?!
Who's ready for some football?! The Jerrence is. And yet, we're still 44 days away. And with a remarkably low drama offseason to boot. What to think? What to do?
A few random thoughts...
1. The Schedule. With the benefit of hindsight (or not), if one looks back at last year and asks the question -- not unreasonably -- what genius thought it was a good idea to start the season against two Top 10 ranked teams...
...this year's schedule would suggest the subsequent implication to that question, rhetorical or not, was "message received!"
Fun fact: ND doesn't play a team with a 2025 winning record until October 17th (BYU). Basically, on paper, it's a 2-3 team schedule: Miami at home in early November, BYU at Provo three weeks earlier and possibly, SMU (at home, the latter half of November)
Get used to the national hue 'n cry of ND's weak schedule. But guess what: look at any of the last few national champs' schedules and you'll find two, AT BEST, challenging games on any of their schedules, pre-playoffs. (Michigan's was particularly embarrassing.)
The moral of the story: Get to The Dance, then we can talk about whether we're deserved or not.
2. Chicken or Egg. So, the schedule looks eminently doable. You've got continuity virtually everywhere, from coaching staff to starters. The portal appears perfectly played for filling in whatever gaps there might be -- WR, DL, CB/S and yes, K. Outside of the perpetually snakebit Jagusah, the team health looks to be pretty solid come September -- certianly by mid-October -- and deep when the inevitable injury occurs.
Other than that we're talking about athletes that are mostly still teenagers -- a cohort known, historically, for making consistently sound decisions...
Cynicism aside, I find myself, therefore, looking squarely at our Coordinators Denbrock and Ash.
Talent level would not appear to be an issue at any position.
Ergo, don't f*ck tbis up.
3. Recruiting. By all accounts, we've been killing it on the recruiting front. Back-to-back Top 5 classes seem virtually assured.
And yet, call it hubris but here's why one doesn't recruit at Hogwarts.
Wizards are flakes.
Trey Tagliaferri? Call yourself whatever you want to the muggle world...
Sure. Whatever.
We know Ron Weasley when we see him. Good luck at Oklahoma but be advised -- they've never even heard of Quidditch out there.
4. 5-for-5. Precious few of us would suggest that getting the government involved in, well anything, is a winning strategy but I am intrigued by the pressure it's putting on the NCAA to take action. Any action.
 |
The new 5-for-5 rule seems like a nice baby step to reducing the madness.
As I understand it (!), every athlete is going to get 5 years of eligibility within a hard five year span that begins from the earliest date of a) when you enroll or b) your 19th birthday.
No more extending one's college eligibility through medical deferments until you reach social security eligibility.
Not sure about the 'work arounds' for things like Mormon missions but what appears immediately interesting is what it does to / for the Notre Dame roster calculus going forward.
Had one year of eligibility remaining, now have two:
- LB Drayk Bowen
- WR Jordan Faison
- CB Christian Gray
- DT Elijah Hughes
- S Luke Talich
Had two years of eligibility remaining, now have three:
- DT Francis Brewu
- OL Anthonie Knapp
- CB Leonard Moore
- K Spencer Porath
- DE Loghan Thomas
- LB Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa
- RB Aneyas Williams
- DE Bryce Young
That's some serious talent that could be extended...
Buddy's Buddy
For an off-season blog, granted with the benefit of a couple months to collect nominees, there were still a surprising number of valid candidates to be The Bud this time around...
To wit:
1) This being World Cup season -- like our presidential elections, a ritual that occurs every four years except with even greater corruption in leadership -- how do you not give props to Lionel Messi?
39 years old and still doing GOAT-like things. Even in a Finals loss, his performance was impressive.
2) And off the pitch, can we talk about Our Man Sully (or perhaps more accurately, Mary Sullivan) for hosting two weddings in the span of ~6 weeks?
Yikes. Tis madness!
And yet. each flawless. Congrats, Tim and Mary.
3) But finally, lets give it up for Mr. 'Ready Golf' -- Ryan Fox, the Kiwi who'll never be accused of over-thinking any golf shot.
Pop quiz: how long did it take him to consider (and execute) his British Open winning putt? :22.
That's 22 seconds, not minutes.
For all the other associated R&A controversies of the week that grabbed headlines for far longer than was warranted, here's a guy -- ranked #56 in the world before last weekend -- who had at least two horribly bad breaks on balls struck in that final round -- and just got up there, hit the next shot and played on.
Benissimo!
Speaking of world class / championship golf, shameless plug for Ryan Corrigan's company...
Should anyone have any interest in the event at Adare Manor, let her (or me) know...
RE-PETE (A shameless, illegal lift of Pete Sampson's weekly mail-bag)
As one should know by now, I'm a big fan of both Messrs. Sampson and Fortuna -- friends of both the Stayer tailgate and the periodic Chicago bacchanal dinner w a few of us.
Accordingly, I give both gentlemen their props for having the pariah known as Brian Kelly on a recent podcast. Surely, they have had to have known that much of ND Nation -- the truly unhinged -- would flip out at the very notion of trying to have a civil (and possibly insightful) discourse with ND football's most polarizing figure.
Actually, there's probably only one 'pole' -- the 'loathe entirely' end of the spectrum.
The Jerrence, however, lacks such courage and so you won't be seeing this section referencing any of the aforementioned reporting. While I remain steadfast in my view that coach Kelly did exactly what he was hired to do -- turn around a moribund program -- and should be recognized for it, that acknowledgement does not make me a fan of his character.
And so, we look elsewhere to steal from Mr. Sampson's insights...
-----------------------------
Are Notre Dame and the ACC good? Here’s why the football relationship is still working?
At best, the dynamic remains a little awkward. Football coaches have been grumbling that the Irish should “join a conference” since the scheduling deal was announced in 2012. Administrators will gush about everything Notre Dame adds while, in the same breath, acknowledging the sweetheart deal the ACC had to accept to make it happen.
At worst, the unique relationship seems like a forced marriage of convenience with an expiration date.
It’s hard to come back from a phrase like “permanent damage,” which is how Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua described the union after the ACC stumped for Miami to make the College Football Playoff over Notre Dame last December. Then the Irish skipped bowl season entirely, passing on one of the ACC’s bids. While the Big 12 fined Iowa State and Kansas State $250,000 for turning down bowl bids, Notre Dame faced no such financial penalty.
Whatever tension surrounds the Notre Dame-ACC dynamic, the partnership still feels more like a solution than a problem. The Athletic spoke with a dozen people in and around the ACC and Notre Dame; they were unanimous that the arrangement, while imperfect, continues to help both entities more than it hurts them.
Notre Dame helped the ACC launch its own network and serves as a ticket office and TV ratings cheat code. In exchange, the Irish have received a football scheduling inventory boost and a stable home for other championship-caliber programs like men’s lacrosse and women’s basketball. The deal has formed the backdrop for memorable football moments on both sides; Clemson’s “Bring Your Own Guts” win in a monsoon kickstarted Dabo Swinney’s dynasty in 2015, just as Marcus Freeman got his footing with the Irish by stomping Swinney’s Tigers seven years later.
“To me, this is a mutually beneficial relationship,” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said. “I would say it has not felt any different from the day I walked into this job five and a half years ago. It just hasn’t.”
So was Notre Dame’s broadside of the ACC actually just another step in a functional partnership rather than the foundational crack it appeared to be?
When new athletic directors are hired, the ACC brings them to its conference offices in Charlotte for an onboarding presentation delivered by Phillips. Incoming athletic directors Steve Newmark (North Carolina) and Bryan Blair (Syracuse) visited this spring.
The PowerPoint includes a section on the Irish. Phillips, a Notre Dame external affairs administrator from 2000-04, explains why his former employer partners with his current one. When the deal was struck more than a decade earlier, conferences were still bound by geography, the Bowl Championship Series existed, bowl affiliations mattered and players weren’t getting paid above the table. Those have all changed, but other key factors haven’t.
“To me, it’s just part of, within any organization or profession, it is always important to educate where it’s been, where it is going, why decisions were made,” Phillips said. “I don’t assume anyone knows what that relationship is to the degree that maybe you do know once you’re here in the conference.”
Phillips doesn’t limit the reminders to PowerPoint. When the Notre Dame agreement became a gossipy talking point at ACC meetings in May, the commissioner rallied membership to fall in line with a direct address during a closed-door meeting.
Notre Dame and the ACC still mesh academically. The ACC boasts seven private schools (Notre Dame would be the eighth). The other power conferences have six total. Of the ACC’s 18 members (including the Irish outside of football), 16 are ranked among the nation’s 75 schools by U.S. News & World Report. Seven join Notre Dame in the top 40. Every school but Wake Forest is classified as a top-tier research institution.
The Irish benefit from access to Power 4 opponents in October and November while everyone else is in conference play. That point seems more critical now for two reasons: All major conferences have added a ninth league game, providing fewer openings for an independent opponent, and big-name programs are rethinking aggressive approaches to nonconference scheduling. Notre Dame lost its rivalry with USC when the Trojans backed out amid Big Ten scheduling concerns.
Notably, ACC coaches don’t get the same presentation, which is perhaps why Swinney is more likely to riff on Notre Dame’s “money machine in the backyard” than Clemson athletic director Graham Neff. Same goes for Pitt’s Pat Narduzzi, whose boss, Allen Greene, is one of five Notre Dame alumni to lead ACC athletic departments last season, including Bevacqua. Virginia Tech just hired Notre Dame alumnus Brian White, who might be asked about Irish independence by new coach James Franklin (who said that “everybody should be in a conference” while sitting next to Freeman before the January 2025 Orange Bowl).
When the angst over Notre Dame’s new CFP selection criteria — the Irish will get an automatic bid with a top-12 ranking — spilled into the open in December, the rule change was a revelation for some coaches but old news for ADs. Notre Dame skipping bowl season irked coaches but didn’t move many athletic directors.
Bevacqua accusing the ACC of plotting against Notre Dame during the run-up to the Playoff only increased that temperature. The ACC had stumped for Miami on social media, touting the Hurricanes’ head-to-head win over the Irish. The ACC contends it didn’t advocate for Notre Dame to be out, just that Miami should get in first — and ahead of Alabama, too, according to internal league talking points, obtained through a public records request. Notre Dame barely campaigned for itself until the final week, perhaps learning the same lesson in the value of self-promotion the ACC got two years earlier when undefeated Florida State was dumped from the four-team field following Jordan Travis’ injury.
The ACC wasn’t going to let a similar situation happen with Miami, although Notre Dame was in no position to hear the conference out on selection Sunday. Up to the trustee level, the university was irate with the ACC. Bevacqua simply made that sentiment public.
“We were mystified by the actions of the conference to attack their biggest business partner in football and a member of their conference in 24 of our other sports,” Bevacqua said in December, followed by the head-turning line: “They have certainly done permanent damage to the relationship between the conference and Notre Dame.”
Weeks later, Phillips and Bevacqua met in New York to talk in private. To say all fences were mended to their original condition would be a stretch. But the idea that the conference and the school wouldn’t be able to work together again has also proven false.
In June, Phillips put forward Bevacqua as the ACC’s rep on the NCAA’s men’s basketball selection committee — a significant appointment in the world of college sports administration. In May, Bevacqua advocated for a 24-team CFP field during ACC meetings in Amelia Island, Fla., talking about offering “hope” to the entire sport as investments in football continue to swell. A day later, Phillips appeared to use Bevacqua’s same language in explaining the league’s overall position. Bevacqua told ESPN at the time the relationship is “very good and healthy.”
Ultimately, for all the personal connections, the Notre Dame-ACC relationship is still a business partnership. Any attorney would tell you the sign of a good negotiation is that neither party gets everything it wants in the final agreement. That’s where the league and the school have been from the start.
When Clemson, Florida State and Miami get sent to South Bend, it’s usually in early November (not ideal weather for Southern teams). Notre Dame might want its Clemson and Stanford series to count as part of its five-game rotation of league opponents, but the ACC insists that’s not happening. When Miami and Virginia wanted to move dates with Notre Dame to accommodate other opponents, all parties worked through it. When the ACC wanted Notre Dame to open on the road on Labor Day weekend — at Florida State and at Louisville — the Irish didn’t complain.
“That’s about not having to get it your way all the time and in every element of it,” Phillips said.
Maybe none of this works perfectly — what does in college football these days? — but it works when it comes to the revenue needed to make college football go.
ESPN’s “College GameDay” is a regular at Cameron Indoor Stadium during basketball season but was a stranger to Duke football until the show rolled into town on Sept. 30, 2023. With Notre Dame visiting and Duke undefeated, Blue Devils athletic director Nina King played party host at sold-out Wallace Wade Stadium, working the sideline and shaking hands with trustees, donors and other notaries.
In front of Duke’s largest home crowd in 29 years, Notre Dame escaped via a walk-off Audric Estime touchdown run. It was the ACC’s highest-rated game of the weekend and the Blue Devils’ most-viewed regular-season game since at least 2011.
Scan across the league, and you’ll find similar stories about the power of a visit from the Irish. Louisville’s 2023 triumph remains one of the high-water marks of Jeff Brohm’s coaching tenure. Two of Florida State’s best home environments in the last 15 years were heart-stopping games against Notre Dame (2014 and 2021). Miami’s 2017 beatdown at Hard Rock Stadium was the Hurricanes’ buzziest crowd and biggest win in years … until last season’s thriller powered them into the Playoff.
“Every game against Notre Dame is a marquee game that attracts lots of attention for the ACC school that’s playing them and the ACC in general,” said Lindsay Conner, a consultant who has advised schools on finances and conference realignment.
Two important metrics — viewership and attendance — back that up.
Of the ACC’s 50 most-viewed regular-season games since their football scheduling agreement took the field in 2014, only Florida State played in more than Notre Dame (12), according to viewership data compiled by Sports Media Watch.
Scroll past the marquee matchups, and the Irish keep inflating ratings. Last year, Notre Dame was the most-watched regular-season matchup for Boston College, Stanford and Pitt. The Panthers’ three-score loss to the Irish drew twice as many viewers (3.96 million) as their overtime contest with Backyard Brawl rival West Virginia (1.89 million).
ACC schools see similar boosts in the stands.
Since 2014, ACC teams average 8,500 more fans (+22%) in visits from Notre Dame compared to the rest of the season. The trend plays out almost everywhere:
- Notre Dame represented two of the five largest crowds in stadium history at Pitt (2015 and ’25) and Louisville (2019 and ’23).
- Duke’s attendance has topped 40,000 in four games since 1989; two were against rival North Carolina, and the other two were against the Irish (2019 and ’23).
- Last year’s blockbuster drew Miami’s largest home crowd (66,793) since Hard Rock Stadium was renovated a decade ago.
- Notre Dame’s visits to Virginia outdrew games against the Cavaliers’ rival Virginia Tech by more than 4,000 in 2015 and 2,000 in ’21.
Football coaches can complain about the Irish skipping their bowl or enjoying the perks of a scheduling arrangement without full membership but those same coaches aren’t griping about the money Notre Dame brings to their budgets.
It’s possible that the Irish follow FSU, Clemson and other big brands out the door to the Big Ten, SEC or a super league as the ACC’s exit fees drop steadily to $75 million by 2030-31. It’s also possible that federal legislation or market forces freeze future rounds of realignment. It’s hard enough to know what’s coming next week, let alone next decade.
Still, Phillips believes the future for Notre Dame and the ACC will look a lot like the past.
“The relationship continues to be important for both of us, and that’s not going to change anytime soon,” Phillips said. “So I really believe it’s in a good place. I really appreciate working with them. And I believe they feel the same way with myself and the ACC.”
Phillips said he’d welcome Notre Dame signing an over-the-top scheduling agreement with Miami, similar to the 12-year Clemson deal that essentially creates “non-conference” games for Notre Dame beyond the five-game rotation.
“There’s an opportunity to lean into embracing those types of creative areas, competition between Notre Dame and the ACC in ways that can be monetized,” Phillips said. “Fundamentally, we’re gonna continue to be fair about the rotation of our teams playing the five annual games, but I’ve encouraged all of our teams to create scheduling opportunities outside of those.”
The league boasted record revenues last year, outpacing the Big 12, even as the SEC and Big Ten continue to dominate the sport. Notre Dame will enter this season as a potential preseason #1 with its best chance to win a national championship in a generation.
Source: The Athletic
July 6, 2026
Cocktail of the Week
While spending time recently in Colorado, on my annual long weekend with several Dillonites -- my personal equivalent of Dian Fossey's communing with primates in Africa, or, Timothy Treadwell's hanging with the grizzlies in Alaska (and we all know how THAT ended) -- a potential new blog section was kicked around, entitled...
"Things You Didn't Know About Jerrence (And Were Reluctant to Pursue Inquiry)."
Here's a start: maybe my favorite course, ever, was actually my junior year of high school's Honor's English class -- where Mr. Miller wrote on my very first paper, "Has all the organization of a garbage can, with gaps in logic one could drive a Mack truck through..."
No?
At any rate, beyond reading a ton of great English literature we spent the entire year preparing a final research paper and my topic was on the Irish poet, W.B. Yeats -- whose most famous effort entitled The Second Coming may or may not be hugely relevant to ND Football 2026 -- I recently stumbled* on the following:
William Butler Yeat's
THE CLOVER CLUB
The Clover Club cocktail, named for a group of lawyers, bankers and powerful men who gathered at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in the late 1880's, originated in Philadelphia but found its way onto ritzy menus all over the East Coast in the early 20th Century.
Irish poet Yeats was said to be so enamored with this slightly sweet, slightly sour pink cocktail that he drank three in a row during a visit to New York.
"Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth
I look at you and I sigh."
-- A Drinking Song, 1915
*Coincidence? I think not.
Serves 1
-- 1/2 oz. dry vermouth
-- ½ oz. lemon juice, freshly squeezed
-- 1/2 oz. raspberry syrup
-- 1/4 oz. egg white
-- 2-to-3 raspberries, for garnish
-----------------------------
1. Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice, shake until chilled nad strain.
2. Return mix to the cocktail shaker, this time without ice and shake until frothy.
3. Pour into a chilled coupe glass.
4. Skewer raspberries and lay across the top of the drink to garnish.
Source: How To Drink Like A Writer
By Margaret Kaplan
BTW, if esteemed academic Dr. TÃm TÃm had opted for film review instead of academia, one would imagine his criticism to look something like this...
Schedule 2026
September
6 Wisconsin @Lambeau Field
12 Rice
19 Michigan State
26 @Purdue
October
3 @North Carolina
10 Stanford Alumni Hall reunion weekend
17 @BYU Martini's a-flowin' in Lakeville, CT
24 BYE
31 @Navy
November
7 Miami There Will Be Blood
14 Boston College
21 SMU
28 @Syracuse
December
TBD (after 2025, making no great assumptions)
Wager 2025
With the lights out, it's less dangerous
Here we are now, entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious...
Sign of the Apocalypse: Albert is contemplating going 12-0 on this year's wager. Which begs several different questions:
- Was he the victim of an alien abduction?
- When they treated his heart in February, did they also 'fix' his brain?
- How do we change his mind and prevent the world from imploding?
Finally, 2026 -- The Year of Cillian and the year of THE IRISH.
Wins | ND Equivalence | Domer |
12  Peaky Blinders | Tommy fookin' Shelby. The biggest badass in all of England -- a "take no fookin' prisoners" kind of guy. And what I aspire for my 15-0 Notre Dame team this year. | JERRENCE Kevin C. |
11  Oppenheimer | "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Not exactly 'Play Like A Champion' but I'd embrace it as a 2026 mantra. Perhaps not a perfect movie but damn good - and Cillian was the ultimate winner. Just how I'd see an 11-1 team (that still wins the natty) turning out. | |
10  The Wind That Shakes The Barley | An underrated, great film about The Troubles in Ireland -- unique in it's family-oriented frame of reference. Hardly anyone (I know) has seen it, which is a small tragedy. Has some of the most realistic British torture-of-the-Irish-rebels scenes... which would probably approximate how ND Nation would view a 10 win season. | |
9  28 Days Later | Danny Boyle redefines the zombie movie genre. Clever and stomach turning -- and probably something you only want to see once. Just like a 9 win ND team. | |
Sports Imitating Art
 |
| Old Man on a Swing, by Goya (Bordeaux Album II), 1824-28 |
Schadenfreude of the Week
Not that there aren't viable candidates even in mid-summer.
The World Cup, after all, provides a global catchment of possibilities -- surely he can dredge up some stereotypic animosity, Iran being an obvious choice. But he's lived 'in country' during WC years and has witnessed there being nothing like it, from a mass collective country-wide engagement in their team's participation. It's just too cool to watch an entire country live and die by their team's chances.
Plus, Spain winning for only the second time in 96 years -- much like the Knicks winning the NBA for the first time in 53 years -- augurs well for this being Notre Dame's year to break their national championship drought.
Then there's also The British Open, with all those... foreigners. What's that all about? Surely one can find someone to cheer against -- and I'm not talking about The Royal & Ancient rule makers.
Ryan Fox. Is New Zealand even a real place?
No one was playing golf during that.
I've seen Peter Jackson's 9-hour documentary. In fact, Defarge has watched it several times, muttering "King of Gondor or not, Aragon can conscript me any time..."
But I digress.
So... we're going to keep our powder dry on the schadenfreude front and save it for future SEC / Michigan / USC failures... and the inevitable eventuality of the Dodgers in the World Series.
-----------------------------------------------
Terry's Tools
You got to know when to hold 'em,
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run...
Which leads us to...
So when one hears of a college football player copping to a gambling addiction involving 9,000+ bets (and $90k in money), that would seem to be a "Say goodbye to your college career" no brainer, yes?
Sure, Brendan.
Fortunately cooler heads seem to have, ultimately, somehow prevailed, if not in a wholly linear sequence.
And with the advent of gambling invading every sport, this was only a matter of time. And surely not the last example we'll see.
Just remember, it's a real disease.
With doctors and everything...
1b) Without further commentary...
But perhaps someone in the USC Social Media dept.* needs to be told that The Odyssey begins immediately after the Trojan War.
Strike 1.
Which, um, the Greeks won.
Strike 2.
3) Warde Manuel. Michigan's AD to leave at the end of the calendar year as a result of a damning -- shocker! -- independent investigation of the fraught Sherrone Moore legacy.
Note to future Michigan head football coaches: banging your assistant is, um, bad. So don't do that. Got it?
Manuel defended his record to the end, responding to several media outlets last week to throw cold water on reports that his exit was imminent. He repeatedly cited the “99.9%” of people at Michigan who do things the right way and argued that an athletic department with a bad culture couldn’t have accomplished the things Michigan accomplished in recent years.
Those comments, though not completely off-base, revealed a disconnect between the public perception of Michigan and the internal perception. Reports issued by the NCAA in two major infractions cases painted a damning picture of the football program’s attitude toward compliance. Instead of getting its house in order, Michigan allowed that culture to continue under Moore, who repeatedly ran afoul of NCAA rules and university policies before he was fired."
4) And finally...
Name of the Week
I don't want to toot my own horn -- actually I totally do -- but this section has become something of an "Oracle of Valpo" kind of place.Let us not forget the last two nominees of this section, Wonderful and Olu, are both now ND commitments, each being 4-and-5 star high schoolers.
Coincidence? I think not.
Accordingly, never let it be said that Notre Dame shies away from recruiting kids (and their families) with healthy self images and / or senses of destiny. (Witness the aforementioned Wonderful family.)
This month's nominee takes it up a notch:
Lord Malik Heru
Lord. A name way loftier than, say, Wonderful or Champ.
And for a QB... seems appropriate if not a bit of a potential overreach.
Perhaps I've watched too much House of The Dragon lately but... I wonder if he makes his teammates call him, "Your Grace..."
Still, apparently he's very good -- as a freshman, who knows -- and we'll see if ND goes after him.
But with that name, he better be good great.
Trivia
Q. His biggest hit, "Cat's In The Cradle," was actually adapted from a poem written by whom?
A) Cat Stevens
B) Allen Ginsberg
C) Sue Chapin
D) Adrienne Rich
E) Ungie
---------------------
(Last blog's answer: Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner was, according to Warren Zevon, Norway's bravest son.
So the CIA decided
They wanted Roland dead
That son-of-a-bitch Van Owen
Blew off Roland's head...
Final Thought
I have finally found the appropriate epitaph for when I shuffle of this mortal coil:
Before that, however, setting expectations for Year 19 of The Musings From 'A' Lot posts...
Blog timing
August
- 8/24
September
- 9/24
October
- 10/1
- 10/8
- 10/30
November
- 11/5
- 11/12
- 11/19
- 11/26
December
- 12/3
