Classes are over and the Summer session will start mid June. We had a few athletes at the NCAA Track Championships, but I haven't seen how they did. Anna Rohrer is one of the top 10K runners and Men's pole vaulter Nate Richartz is the current ACC Champion. But I haven't seen anything on the UND.Com website which could mean none of them did anything or news is slow coming out. Irish Invasion, which is one of our biggest recruiting events of the year will be coming up this weekend. Hopefully the event impresses a lot of the recruits that will be there. Many of them will be in the 2019 class as well as the 2018 class. Rocket, Aaron Taylor and Mark Bavaro are in this years nominations for the College Football HOF. All are worthy. Rocket was a transcendent player of his time in college football, I hope he makes it. Women's basketball picked up a transfer from Neb, Jessica Sheppard, she was B10 freshman of the year and is a post type of player which we badly need. Women have lots of wings/guards. Men are hoping for a kid name Juwan Durham a transfer from UConn picks the Irish. He was highly rated in HS but has been slowed by knee injuries. Like the women, the Irish men need big players in the middle, we just don't have many.
Good article on Jeff Samardzija and the whole baseball over football thing. People have forgotten how great he was as WR for the Irish in 2005 and 2006. He was 2nd only to Calvin Johnson in those years. How would he have done in football, hard to say that's for sure but he clearly made a good decision for baseball. He's made a ton of money, has had a good not great career, but in baseball that can stretch out quite awhile. He's already been in 10 years and pitchers easily make it to 35 or so age wise, so he'll have a 15 year career and make over 100M dollars. Jeff doesn't seem like the type to have blown it all on bling and hanger's on like so many players do these days. So he'll likely never really have to work if he doesn't want to work after baseball. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2705042-jeff-samardzija-couldve-been-an-nfl-star-but-mlb-gave-him-120m-minus-the-pain
Lots of activity on the transfer front. LB Josh Barjas transferred to Illinois State...a good transfer, he'd been passed up by freshmen. OL Tristan Hoge transferred to BYU, a blow to OL depth. He was our only back up at center. He never developed after arriving with a lot of fanfare. Picked up a WR from Arizona State, Cam Smith. His coach was current ND WR coach Del Alexander. Navy DB who decided to transfer after his freshman year is visiting ND, and we need some CB.
ND <t>2 days, 2 OL gone. Well, I've gone from worrying about how the season would go to now not caring at all. What for? By the time Sept gets here at this rate we won't have any OLs. In the famous words of Vince Lombardi "WHAT THE HELL'S GONIN ON OUT HERE!"</t>
From what I've read today, it seems like Parker Boudreaux isn't a big loss but Tristen Hoge is a big loss. Mostly it's a depth chart issue. Parker wasn't likely to contribute this year but Hoge was going to be a valuable backup at center. Apparently in Parkers case he's got some medical issues that are at the bottom of his transfer but Hoge want's to be a starter and it seems like with the young guys coming in and being behind Mustipher it wasn't a clear path to being the starter so he's moving on.
New depth chart is 5th year Sr. Hunter Bivin at backup center and possibly Robert Hainsey the freshman OL will also work there, he's reportedly our best freshman OL in the this class and could play this year. Naturally everybody would like to see him red-shirt but he's ready to be in the 3 deep, maybe even beat out Bivin at backup center. Mustipher has a 5th year available, nobody of course knows if he'll take it when the time comes. I see that the Irish will be going to E.Lansing for the B10/ACC Challenge. That definitely will be a challenge for the Irish as MSU is pre-seaon #1 in some polls and we know they are well coached with Tom Izzo. The kid from Navy who visited this week and seeking a transfer reportedly really liked the situation. A lot of speculation that he will go ahead and transfer into ND and might try for an exception and be able to play in 2017. He reportedly decided to transfer when the Sec of the Navy (or Defense? ) reversed the rule that allowed football players to go to the NFL and not serve 2 years of active duty. That would be the basis of his appeal....don't see it happening though. Besides I thought these kids all had to serve longer than 2 years active duty as payback for the free education.
BC Fans consider the Irish their #1 rival. Irish fans don't think they are a rival at all! http://www.onefootdown.com/2017/6/7/15750578/boston-college-eagles-notre-dame-irish-football-rivalry-lopsided-uneven-fredo-little-brother
I wouldn't say that at all. I've considered BC a strong (certainly not biggest) rival for a long time. I'm sure there are many others who feel like I do.
BC <t>BC? nuisance, annoyance, irritant, general pain in the arse maybe but rival? No.<br/> <br/> The first teams I think about as ND's biggest rivals are: USC, Mich, Stanford. Hell Navy is a bigger rival to me than BC.</t>
Tim is correct that there are several bigger rivalries, but that doesn't change the fact that the other major Catholic football program in the country is a natural rival and not well-liked by ND alumni and fans that I know. The seeds were sown back in the early 90s by some snarky comments made by then-coach Tom Coughlin. It "blossomed" with the stunning upset by BC in 1993 via a FG toward the end of the game. It continued with a string of BC wins in the early 2000s - 6 in a row and 7 of 8 between 1999 and 2008. I was at a couple of those games, and the BC fans did not show the slightest bit of class, likely because of their inferiority complex relative to ND. They certainly are not our biggest rival, but they ARE a natural rival. Those who say it's not a rivalry don't understand or appreciate the history of the last 25 or so years.
That survey had B.C. as #6 on the rivalry list, with USC, Michigan, MSU, Stanford and Navy ahead of them. I sort of consider them a rival, but really we didn't play them that much most of my Irish fandom and when we did we beat them, '93 seemed to change that dynamic and they've been a tough out for us since then. I think that is why a lot of people don't put them up there in the Rival Category.
I agree with the survey results. My point was that to say they are not a rival is disingenuous. As I said, it's relatively new in the history of ND rivalries, but it does exist.
Kind of interesting that Purdue is never mentioned anymore. In my early years as a ND fan the Purdue game was huge.
Terry, I almost commented on Purdue in my last post, but I realize that, a) Since the late 60s, early 70s it was a one-sided series, and b) because we no longer play them, anyone under 50 would not be familiar with the storied history of the series and the fact that Purdue scheduled us when no other B10 team would. I miss playing them. I'm sure I'm in the minority.
Irish Invasion is over, no verbals came out of it. Good vibes, a bunch of maybe later...but nobody pulled the trigger.