God, COUNTRY, Notre Dame.
Go God! Go USA! And Go Irish!
In honor of our great nation, I give you: Hendrix. And a bunch of hippies at Woodstock.
As SD said, when it rains, it pours.
Chris Badger is Irish.
“I just want to come in work hard and compete. I want to be a physical presence, and come in and play violent, and see what happens.”
Bold is mine. Bc, ‘play violent’? I like this kid.
Badger was a Stanford commit, but picked up an offer in the Spring after he’d already committed to the (only one now!) Cardinal. Harbaugh’s reaction was caught on film. For some reason, he was dressed up and speaking with a Mexican accent.
Ha! Get it? Badger = Badges…no? no?
cricket
Anyway, Badger is a 3-star on Rivals, the #24 Safety in the class of 2010 and a 3-star #25 on Scout. ESPN has him in their Top 150 Watch List and likes his toughness (notice a trend lately in defensive recruiting?). Badger picked the Irish over the previous “leader” Stanford, as well as BYU, Oregon, Cal and Florida State.
Welcome Chris!
EDIT: Speaking of playing violent. This kid HITS. Check out the YouTube highlights (HT: Rock’s House at NDN)
13 year old “commits” to Tennessee.
Huh?
Weird.
Lane Kiffin’s new favorite color? Purple.
STFU Donny. You’re out of your element.
Lo Wood is Irish (yes, we know you already know, but we were gone all weekend and we’re fired up about it)!
Check out the video of his announcement hee-yah.
Lo picked ND over Michigan (because they SUCK) and this guy is Irish all the way. All it took was his first visit, and that magic got hold of him, and Lo was a go.
Lo weighs in at 5′10 or 5′11 and 160 or 176 depending on which source you believe, and has a reputation as a hard-hitting CB. He’s rated a 3-star on Scout and the 42nd best CB, and a 3-star on Rivals, the 32nd ranked CB on their list.
Love seeing Wood come into the family, and look forward to his being an ambassador for this class down in talent-rich Florida.
Go Irish! Welcome, Lo!
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I find it massively irritating that in a week when a young woman was randomly gunned down by militant thugs who protect a theocratic, repressive regime, Michael Jackson’s death will be bigger news, not just locally to the United States, but Globally as well. Japan may never recover. In normal conversation, I’ve a tendency to point out what I don’t like about people, not individual persons, but people in general. It’s a habit that’s managed to keep me out of a lot of friendly conversations. And right now, I find myself bristling at the way “The King of Pop’s” image is splashed across the front of the Tribune this morning, and how Charlie Gibson let us know, on Good Morning America, that “we are united in mourning.”
We are not united in mourning. I don’t mourn the man at all. If Dickens was right about the afterlife, then I’ve a feeling Michael is finding it tough to moonwalk this morning, weighed down as he is with the sins he waged on this earth, but I’ll grant that perhaps his chains are not as long or heavy as one might guess, because misery may beget genius, and genius can beget madness, and this sort of genius would probably tear anyone apart. One can only guess at its genesis.
The Roundup:
The only appropriate caption for this photo: “I must break you.”
Wow, what a weird week. Fauria is out of school, Martin starts looking, Hendrix committs, and right behind him comes big man Blake Lueders, making the call.
The 6-foot-5, 250-pound defensive end from Zionsville, Ind., made his commitment official Thursday with a phone call to Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weis that gives the Irish their seventh commitment for the Class of 2010.
“I thought it was the best combination of academics and football in the country,” Lueders said. “I just love the tradition. The coaches are great. The players are great. Everything.”
Lueders was really focused in on academics (kid rocks a 4.0 GPA) and chose ND over Stanford, Wake Forest, BC and Northwestern, among others.
He’s rated a 4-star DE on Rivals and the 14th at his position, and a 4-star and #18 on Scout. He comes in on the ESPN 150 watch list.
Welcome to the family Blake. You made the right call brother!
Also: Word on the street is that all-everything DB Lo Wood will declare tomorrow, and pick between ND and Michigan (sucks!). From everything we’ve heard, we expect this to be another great get for the Irish. Things are looking up on the recruiting front, big time. Go Irish!
Unimaginative play-calling, repeat plays, what happened to the Weis we knew in 2005? Those were all things said/thought last year when ND’s offense (despite awesome awesome awesome 50 yard passes deep to Tate/Floyd plays left and right) seemed a bit vanilla at times.
And BGS did an analysis on what drove a lot of that vanilla-ness, and frankly I can never top that (and why would I try - it answers the question beautifully). The answer? Well, no TE’s. Okay, not none. One awesomely talented Frosh, and a fill-in Olineman, and for a few minutes Joe Fauria. That’s what we had at Tight End last year. Despite becoming TE U in terms of recruiting, we had 1.5 (Fauria was the half) last year, and both were true Freshmen. Ragone was out hurt, Yeatman was out drinking, and so that left Rudolph and Fauria. Rudolph, despite being a TRUE frosh, was somewhat ready. Fauria really wasn’t. So what does that leave as options? 1 TE and 2 TE sets, with the 2nd either being an unready Fauria or a fill-in like Trevor Robinson. And that GREATLY limited Weis’ offense. His pro style offense depends on, and thrives from, inclusion of 2 and even 3 TE sets, giving the coach calling the plays and the QB lots of options to pick apart a defense. Take away the TEs and those options get more and more limited. Easier to predict and to defend against.
Going into this year, we looked good to go with Rudolph, Ragone and Fauria all returning and 2 incoming Frosh to provide a little depth. 3 TE sets weren’t going to be the norm, but they were possible. 2 TE sets? No problem. Now with Fauria gone for the season, we lose some of that flexibility, and depth becomes a concern. Golic and Eifert are fine recruits, but they’re not close to being as ready as Rudolph was last year, so depending on them to jump right into the mix just isn’t all that realistic. And that means we’re one injury away from having an offense that’s hamstringed with a single reliable TE, much like last year.
Silver lining? Bobby “I ain’t at home eating a cheese” Burger. If this walk-on can really push for minutes, and can contribute in a quality way, we will see a lot less of a dropoff with Fauria’s (hopefully temporary) departure.
But yeah, Fauria being out sucks. At the least, he’s planning to come back ala Gray and Walls.
“I’m just taking it in stride,” Fauria told the Tribune on Wednesday night. “The plan is to come back.”
Joe, we look forward to welcoming you back brother. Hopefully Burger and Ragone can pick up the slack in the mean time, and help bring ND’s offensive flexibility/creativity back for ‘09.
Maybe it’s just any news that comes in three’s, as Andrew Hendrix declared his Irishness…Irishosity…uhhhh - whatever, he’s Irish - after a string of bad news yesterday.
Hendrix chose ND over in-state power Ohio State, and he seems really excited about joining Weis’ squad.
Hendrix measures in at a solid 6′3″ and 220, and plays pro-style QB in a somewhat funky HS offense. Rivals rates Hendrix a 4-star QB, #11 in the class, and Scout rates him a 3-star, and #27 in the class. ESPN calls him a big-time sleeper recruit.
What I looooove about Hendrix is that he’s an athlete. Watching his highlights on YouTube, you get a feel that he’s a bit more of a natural athlete than Quinn was, which means opportunities to make teams pay through solid scrambling. Quinn had a bit of that, Clausen doesn’t have much, Crist has a bit of that, and Hendrix looks like he could have a lot.
Hendrix comes in in a good spot - the ability to have time to learn, but also to seriously compete for a starting role early when Jimmy heads off to the NFL, or to wait, bide his time and learn behind Crist.
Hendrix is an important part of this class, and I’m personally really happy to see him on board. Weis will have to bring in a super star QB next year to complement Hendrix and Crist in later years, but Andrew is a great fit for this class. Welcome aboard Andrew!
You’ve already heard that Chris Martin has gone soft on his verbal to Notre Dame. You’ve also already heard that Fauria is out for the summer and fall due to “personal reasons.” Life has taught us little, but one thing it likes to teach us again and again is that bad news comes in threes. The last 2 seasons total loses: 9 and 6 - each divisible by three. See what we mean? Oh, and 9 + 6 = 15… also divisible by three! What are the odds of that!?
So with that in mind, we ask all you Chicken Littles out there…
What will the 3rd bit of Bad News be for the Irish?
Loading …Yep, ND has a lot of money in the bank.
The Dome is GOLDEN people. It’s a GOLDEN DOME. And you’re surprised ND has money? Really????
The school reached its Spirit Campaign fundraising goal well ahead of schedule, hitting the $1.5B+ mark ~2 years early. That is madness. And a testament to the solid fundraising skills of the University, and to the generosity of its supporters.
Best part of the article? The folks that point to this as a negative in the comments. It’s awesomely moronic. These same folks drop a $20 in the basket of their local Church on Sundays, and then rail against ND for getting a BAJILLION $20’s. Makes sense, yep.
My only beef is the following: The A-#1 priority for this campaign was student financial aid. That’s great, and I like that idea. I was helped out a ton (though not enough) while at ND through need-based FIN AID, and I appreciated that as well. But hey, here’s an idea - rather than increasing tuition X% per year and then raising money and giving it away as Aid to offset that increase, how about, um, NOT RAISING TUITION?
Yeah, I know, that could NEVER work.
We’ve been almost impossibly busy this offseason, so much so that the start of the season approaches us in a way that makes us question our personal experience of time and whether or not Einstein was a little confused about what is or isn’t possible. And so there are a number of things we’d been meaning to really hammer away at whilst standing upon this pulpit, and we’ve manage to do very little of that. But this Monday, Holly, the girl who blogs about football, brought up that Nick Saban is talking tough about putting ND on the Alabama football schedule while the 2 athletic departments involved are wondering how to fit that in between games against Louisiana-Lafayette and WSU and reminded us of something that really, really needs to be addressed:
I have been to games in Tuscaloosa (my favorite road trip), and in South Bend. And with that in mind, let us just offer a humble suggestion here for all our friends at NBC Sports when the home-and-home rotates to the Midwest: Bring extra camera crews for the action in the stands. You will get more out of this culture clash than out of an extra hour of Jay Leno every night. The atmosphere at your typical Notre Dame home game is staid enough to make the key-jangling, down-in-front Michigan fans look like the bloody-minded Cajuns of LSU, and the first time a liquored-up Bammer gets into a physical altercation with an elderly Domer usher for refusing to cheer at a lower volume, or sit down so others behind him can enjoy the game*, or remove his underwear from his date’s head, by Touchdown Jesus do we ever wanna see it in HD.
Holly further illustrates her point of view on the ND stadium “atmosphere.”
As a child of perhaps ten years old I was ordered to take my seat during a game by an usher at Notre Dame Stadium, so that the fans behind me would not have to stand. At a football game. I have never fully recovered from this.
We assume that the girl who blogs about college football is not 12, and is at least 19, or 25 if she’s like an average Tennessee grad just now making it in the real world. Which means that her first poor experience in the stands that Rock erected was at least a decade ago and the absurdity that is the “energy” level at ND stadium on an average day has been allowed to thrive (?) at ND since at least 1999. It’s a shame and a crime against the sport itself.
All of this, of course, will devolve (after passing through “home game scheduling sucks” and “what has the team done to get excited about”) into great debate about how so-and-so’s 85 year old grandfather, 1st among 3 generations of ND grads in the family of O’Shaugnewhatever, has every right to sit in the stands and expect, having purchased a ticket, to be able to sit in the seat. And we’ve no argument there. He has every right to sit in those seats. But I’m reminded by my 2nd taking of business law where the professor once said, “The right to remain silent is just as important as the right to run your yapper.” See? 2 seemingly mutually exclusive rights can live in harmony, and so I propose that those of us who have not spent a lifetime smoking, those of us who can show up to a game in 65 degree weather sans winter parka and hot chocolate, and those of us who wish to risk brain aneurysm due to over-vocalizing of support for the team have every right to expect to be normal, enthusiastic college football fans when they purchase a ticket. Further, they have every right to completely ignore the existence of the seat for which they purchased a short-term lease.
This is a tired fight. It’s a fight that may not end until certain people die and others (ahem, Cappy) retire. But it’s a fight that, every once in a while, must be fought, and we hope that the generation or two of graduates and students younger than ourselves will take up the torch in this cause and light a few fires.
Yeah, okay, so we’ve decided to be sell outs. We’ve added advertising to the site. For the 4 of you who read the blog with regularity before this year, you can now moan and groan to all your friends who only recently started reading us and have conversations like this:
Friend: “Hey, have you heard about that amazing Notre Dame football blog, HerLoyalSons.com? They’re incredible! So smart, so witty, so good looking! And funny! And they don’t just cover ND Football either. Yeah, they cover lots of national stuff too, just with a pair of blue and gold glasses on while they do so! They’re fantastic!”
You: “Oh. HLS? Yeah, well, I liked their old stuff, back before they started making money and became sellouts.”
And the reason you now get to look so cool to all of your friends is this: The economy, stupid. We at HLS have been thrilled that people actually visiti and read the site. However, with actual visitors comes actual costs - costs we’ve been paying ourselves for quite a while now, but costs that cost real money which could otherwise go into our children’s trust college fund. And the way the economy is going, “college fund” is quickly looking like we can call it by another name every week: Mega-Millions Lottery.
So here’s how we’re going to play this: We’re going to keep the ads to an absolute minimum. We’re not out to make money on this thing. We’re going to start with one strategically placed ad and watch it for a while to see how it’s performing, and then we’re going to adjust from there if need be, either in number of ads, ad placement, or ad mix. While some of us have experience trying to “monetize” much larger sites with much more aggressive advertising schemes, we have absolutely no experience in this bohemian-I’m-okay-you’re-okay-let-someone-else-pay-but-just-barely-world, so please just be patient and know that we’re doing our best.
Thanks,
HLS Management
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There is just nothing happening of any interest today. Maybe I’ve missed something, but there’s just nothing too interesting going on. Everything on the ‘net is looking back 30 years at something none of us care about anymore or laughing at things coaches said on Twitter. And given Iran is actually managing to get more interesting as the week has gone on, and North Korea is going to launch a missile towards Hawaii (or Brazil, if you keep drawing that line), my motivation for aggregation of retrospectives on Barry Switzer is low. So enjoy Friday, and if you see something interesting, feel free to link it in the comments.
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What will the 3rd bit of Bad News be for the Irish?
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