A Notre Dame Football Blog
If you attended last weekend’s Blue-Gold Game, you experienced what we on campus experience on a daily basis: The Project. Most work stopped so fans could enter the Stadium. Otherwise, the sounds, the juddering, the shouts – it’s like living next to a tramp steamer that just hit the rocks…and then backed up and hit the rocks again, and again, and again. Anyone walking around the Stadium, or sitting therein, will have realized that The Project is well on its way to completion. Anyone who ...
There is a class of third-graders in California that has adopted the University as something of learning partner, teacher’s aide, and mentor. These young lads and lasses call themselves the Notre Dame Class of 2029. I enthusiastically applaud this kind of bold, audacious vision and aspiration; after all, in 1842, I declared a mildewed log cabin on the Midwestern American tundra to be a University. Didn’t go from mission to school to college – never used the word ‘impossible’ – didn’t bother to ...
Saturday was the 85th Notre Dame spring game and as we all freaked out from the big news of field turf installation, a minor football scrimmage broke out behind the angelic view of Jack Swarbrick. Here are many of my thoughts and reactions to what I saw and heard during the annual retail football event: Tradition Is Dead Alex Flannigan was able to make the biggest announcement regarding Notre Dame football since Jimmy Clausen visited the College Football Hall of Fame: Notre Dame Stadium ...
As game ticket prices for all sporting events inch ever skyward, there's a growing concern about gameday atmosphere. Stadia are promoting luxury suites and "improved sight lines" -- but this has some consequences for the ordinary fan (and we'll get to Notre Dame Stadium and our solution in a minute). The Problem In the past year, various reports have been popping up that stadium ushers at both NFL and NBA games have issued "fan card" warnings to spectators who may be disturbing those around ...
Used to packing up a bag full of ponchos, blankets and other gameday necessities to bring into Notre Dame Stadium? Well, you will have to come up with a new plan as Notre Dame announced that the Notre Dame Stadium Bag policy will see some changes at the start of the 2013 season: ...
This weekend, Notre Dame Seniors will enter the Stadium where they never saw their team lose this season. But they won’t be cheering for just another football victory. They’ll be cheering for a far more important victory – their own graduation. Keep in mind: football is a nice touch, but our whole purpose here is the education that culminates in graduation. And that’s why more of our football players graduate here than anywhere else (and by “more” I mean very nearly every single one of ...
Image Credit: University of Notre Dame
Ah, the jumbotron -- that offseason topic that fires up the Notre Dame fanbase like no other. The outrage and hot takes ranks somewhere right above Shamrock Series uniforms and right below re-gilding the Dome with platinum*. Bayou gave his thoughts earlier this week and I've made my thoughts on tradition and change well known in the past. This Roundup will not re-hash those thoughts. Instead, I wanted to pass along some sage advice my pastor gave to myself and my future bride last weekend: ...
"Eventually, we want a big Jumbotron in there. We think that's something that's going to add to the atmosphere, too." Those words, spoken two seasons ago by Notre Dame Head Football Coach Brian Kelly, sent a frisson of panic up the stenotic spine of a Notre Dame Nation already overwhelmed by Crazy Train and night games. A year and a half later, on the surfaces unseen in an architect's rendering, revealed May 2, 2013, by Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick and Notre Dame Executive Vice-President ...
Irv Smith and Oscar McBride
It just so happened that Notre Dame's spring football game took place the same weekend that I needed to make a trip up to campus to do some final work on my upcoming book on Notre Dame football (Echoes After the Whistle: The Men We Became). Funny how that worked out, now isn't it? Here is my photo journal of my weekend back on campus! My weekend started out on Thursday with a day of research in Notre Dame Archives sifting through decades of Notre Dame football photographs. It was a lovely ...
At this very moment, Notre Dame students are packing their bags and preparing to depart Our Lady’s campus – not because they didn’t get enough playing time, but because it’s time to play. Spring Break has once again woken up, staggered onto the calendar, and with a bleary wink and a louche wave, beckoned our students to join in the revelries of its vernal rites. ...