While the Irish kept on trucking, others weren’t as lucky. We were close to a blood weak with multiple ranked teams finding themselves on the wrong side of the score sheet. We were also blessed with what had to be the most insane Red River Shootout and Mike Leach setting a record he probably never expected to.

Podcast

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Traditional technical issues aside, the rest of college football is keeping the straight up rollercoaster of 2020 alive and well. The Big XII continues to lobby their way out of the playoff, Mississippi State got the full Mike Leach experience in two weeks, leading Shane and I to try to figure out just what we actually know about the national picture at this point.

We also take a look ahead to Notre Dame and Florida State and discuss the roller coaster of emotions of these last couple of weeks, including Notre Dame getting far more of a pandemic spotlight than either of us ever wanted.

Podcast

Twitch VoD

Remember the audio issues I mentioned? That’s because I had some kind of crazy static in my audio that I had to edit out. If you really want to witness it, you can find it here, but I’m not going to embed that mess.

The post HLS Recap: The Sober One appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

For those unfamiliar with this little feature, it’s a time in which we move our focus from Notre Dame and look outward to the rest of college football. While Shane and I do this in the HLS Podcast, we can only cover so many stories before we lose everyone with a two-plus hour episode. The Roundup will house those stories, plus those that really don’t need more than a quick link and mention.

As is tradition, the Roundup will also have a cold open of sorts. It may or may not have anything to do with college football (teaser for next week: it’s a recent drink trend). Bucking tradition, I am going to retire The Beer/The Booze section.

Let’s face it, maybe about 80% of my suggests were half-assed, nor overly interesting. That got worse when I had kids.

Added in its place will be an opponent watch of sorts. While Irish Elvis will hold down the fort on the strength of schedule side, I’ll drop in some relevant news about our future opponent for your perusal.

Oh, and because so many awesome stories are in The Athletic these days, those links will be denoted with ($). If you don’t have a sub, and would like support HLS, we can get your 40% off your first year.

So that’s the 411 on this little feature. Let’s get to the news so I can close some tabs on my browser…

The Roundup

Oh hey, here’s a shocker, Jim Harbaugh might be a dick. Remember when Harubaugh went on the radio and said, because of current transfer rules, kids might make up a mental health disorder? Well, it turns out he may have just had a specific athlete in mind ($) when he said that and the picture isn’t a pretty one. None too pleased with his portrayal in this tale, Harbaugh decided to fire back at Cincinnati head coach Luke Fickell, who then fired back at Harbaugh once again.

Secretly in the bad guy category: Dabo Swinney. It seems that Kelly Bryant not getting a ring triggered this post, but there is no better collection and details of Dabo’s troublesome takes an actions. Dabo “aw shucks” it and isn’t robotic like Saban so too often he gets a free pass. So if you ever wonder why folks like me are sour on him, here ya go.

THE dumbest trademark application ever. If this goes through, I’m going to put up merch with “THE” on it in our store, just to see what Ohio State’s cease and desist looks like.

Mike Leach, forever weird. Stories about Wyoming, having a freshmen make him a specific kind of coffee, dipping, getting his players to dip, and demanding one of his players write “fuck” on a whiteboard because he left out the word in his notes while quoting Leach: all just a part of a perfectly normal QB meeting with the pirate ($).

I still want the sponsor to be Popeyes. But I’m happy the Bahamas Bowl has brought in some solid ROI for a *checks notes* Chicago suburb.

Stupid academic eligibility rulings, not just for the NCAA. The Michigan High School Athletic Association saw a Northwestern commit took too many classes before he entered high school so they took away his final year of eligibility. Seriously.

In case you haven’t noticed, college football is celebrating 150 years. This past week, that’s brought out loads of “all time” rankings and retrospectives. Both Sports Illustrated and ESPN named their top programs of all time. SI also ranked the best CFB games of all time. Finally, new ESPN employee, Bill Connelly, listed his rankings based on 150 years of #sportsmath. Spoiler alert, here’s your #1:

Excited about that new QB that transferred to your favorite team? Don’t be ($).

Opponent News

So was Bobby Petrino trying to light Louisville on fire? Because it sure seems that way based on what their new head coach had to say. Also, I would highly recommend hearing that post read aloud by Rakes on his recent podcast who joined up with Notre Dame Our Blogger to break down the entire schedule.

It seems like Virginia Tech has some issues as well. Attrition certainly is a word you could use to describe Justin Fuente’s struggles with the Hokies last season. One of the things that healed the wounds: turkey bacon. *blinks repeatedly*

A look a where Notre Dame stands in the world of college football. Pro Football focus ranked all 130 FBS QBs and The Athletic took a special focus on the top draft-eligible offensive tackles coming into the season ($).

The post (Re)Introducing the Friday Roundup appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Earlier this month, Notre Dame officially became an Under Armour school. The Bookstore channeled Black Friday with a midnight event as soon as the calendar flipped to July and demand hit a level that forced the cancellation of many online orders as inventory flew off the shelves.

Prior to that, and even prior to the news of the FieldTurf installation, Jack Swarbrick announced major changes to Notre Dame Stadium in the form of the Crossroads project. Prior to that, Notre Dame saw assistant coaches leave for head coaching gigs. And even prior to that, ND became a scheduling partner with the ACC.

Change is constant in college football. ND has been no stranger to this even outside the Brian Kelly era. Charlie Weis pushed for Notre Dame to allow early admits to level the recruiting playing field for the Irish. The now iconic “Play Like a Champion Today” sign was a Lou Holtz installation. Notre Dame decided to go back to playing in bowl games during the Ara Parseghian era.

But the lines in the endzone will still point to the Dome. The Dome will still be gilded in gold. The original guts of the House that Rock Built will still be in place.

And oh yeah, the only thing that will still really matter in 2014 will be the same thing that mattered in 1888: wins and losses.

The Roundup

Even ND’s band saw some major changes, but they aren’t the only ones. Ohio State’s band director got canned.

Important off-season announcement: don’t be a terrible person and get married in the fall. Ever.

I see Texas is channeling a bit of my dyslexia. Not trying to throw rocks in my glass house of grammar failure, but I don’t have a whole department of people responsible for making sure this doesn’t happen.

Any inappropriate response to “Roll Tide” will be met with violence. “Good luck with that” is on the inappropriate response list.

And now, your moment of Nix… We have a montage of hilarious moments with coaches. First, enjoy Kliff Kingsbury morphing into Charlie Weis.

Weis hung out with Nelly:

Charlie Weis & Nelly discuss college football and rapping pic.twitter.com/O2XhtLYaPN

— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) July 24, 2014

And Mike Leach was doing Mike Leach things:

#SwingYourSword pic.twitter.com/DbnMkK3OSP

— Pac-12 Network (@Pac12Network) July 23, 2014

The Booze

You know what I haven’t suggested in a long time on here? Margaritas.

It’s hot as hell right now and my usual beer and bourbon favorites aren’t so great in 100+ degree weather. So I’m going back to my Mexican roots this weekend. You can’t go wrong here as tequila always leads to fantastic decisions.

The post Friday Roundup: The “Changes” Edition appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

We definitely don’t consider BC a true rival by any means; in fact, I wrote about this last season. However, this doesn’t mean that we can’t find it in our hearts to hate them.

Quite frankly we owe BC a beatdown of epic proportions. Not just to impress voters, but for 1993 and 2002.

It doesn’t matter that the Eagles are one of the worst teams in college football right now. I guarantee some of their “super fans” (can you really have that nickname when your tickets find their way on Groupon annually?), despite many of them already writing this season off, would love for nothing more than to spoil Irish title hopes with yet another embarrassing loss.

Think about it. Notre Dame had to wait for almost a decade to exact undefeated revenge for 1993 and failed in 2002. Here we are again a decade later and BC has a chance to do it to us yet again.

We can’t let it happen again. Notre Dame is the team wins “what though the odds”. Fredo doesn’t get to take over the Corleon Empire.

And you know, Fredo has never been a more perfect comparison that Boston College than right now. At 2-7, Boston College is much like Fredo after his plot to kill Michael fails. They are completely despondent, practically banished, their existence barely recognized, and are practically forgotten.

But like Michael, we may try to ignore them, but we don’t really ever forget. 1993 and 2002 still happened and the memory still stings no matter how much we try to push it aside.

We will not forgive, we will seek retribution. When the national spotlight of ABC shines on this sibling rivalry, we will send them out into the middle of the lake for their execution and unceremoniously dump the body overboard.

It won’t be for justice. It might not even be for vengeance.

But we are sure as hell are going to sleep better at night when its done.

The Roundup

Not having so many good nights of sleep these days, Lane Kiffin. The wheels on the USC bus aren’t just deflating, they are flying off and the driver is to blame.

Get Heisman candidate, put him on…defense? I’m assuming this is a smoke screen because putting Marqise Lee in the defensive backfield makes little sense. Related, if this does happen, I want Kelly to implement a wildcat package with Manti at QB, complete with jersey changes so we don’t have two #5’s on the field, just to screw with Kiffykins.

Memo to Gene Chizik: If someone at Auburn wants to take you on a “fishing trip”, don’t.

And now, your moment of Leach… It was a normal presser, until the pirate just said to hell with it. After a nice diatribe, we got to see the kinder, gentler Leach. Yes, it’s as hilarious as it sounds.

By the way, if anyone thinks we were “lucky” against Pitt, deal with it.

Put These Games on Your Radar

#15 Texas A&M @ #1 Alabama – 3:30pm EST, CBS

Twibby’s Marquee Matchup of the Week

#2 Kansas State @ TCU – 7:00pm EST, FOX

The big story here will be whether or not Heisman favorite Collin Klein can play. After suffering what definitely appeared to be a concussion (Synder has been playing quite coy with this), there could be a decent chance that he is out of this game. If he is, TCU has a good enough defense unit to keep them in this game and pull a potential upset just as they did against West Virginia last week

#3 Oregon @ Cal – 10:30pm EST, ESPN/WatchESPN

I’m mentioning this game only to say this: don’t count on a duck slip up here.

#11 Oregon State @ #14 Stanford – 3:00pm EST, FOX

Easily the best matchup outside the title favorites of the day. Not to mention, this game could seriously affect ND as well. Should the Cardinal win, that will only make ND’s already strong SOS even stronger

Predictions

Tex

Leave the gun, take the cannoli.

ND 38 – BC 3

Biscuit

Leprechauns. I have been pretty damn good considering when I made those.

BC and their HC Spaz-man are in a similar spot, in start from scratch rebuilding mode.  This one will be ugly by the 2nd half.

ND Wins 37-9

3 Leprechauns!

Bayou

There’s only one legit challenge in Chestnut Hill: The Cowabunga Burger at the Eagles Deli.

This year’s version of the football Eagles are a waste of space. The Irish are away (good), humbled (better) and probably know that they have to hang a ton of points on BC to stay “relevant” (ha!) to the BCS title conversation (best). Lingering missteps by the Irish O make this one closer than it should be. BC can’t move the ball against the Irish D and get their points via two late field goals.

ND 49 – BC 6

Twibby

Irish 38 – Eagles 6

Grantland-X

Notre Dame 44 – BC 3

Closest to the Pin – Week 9

Well, last week wasn’t pretty and some of us got really confident about a large Irish victory. Biscuit though has been riding his leprechauns for most of the season and they led him to victory once again. Honorable mention goes to Bayou for mentioning that all hell could break loose (but I award you no points).

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The Beer

Well, considering that we are invading Boston, Sam Adams seems a logical choice I mean, sure it might be a bit lazy, but uh…

/looks at clock

/sees its past 2am

/is really damn tired

Sam Adams it is!

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