Sadly, the no touchdown November streak died, Jack Coan had a bad interception, and the turf monster probably robbed us of a long TD or two. Despite all that, Notre Dame did what they needed to do to make their case to the playoff committee.

Shane and I spend the second segment of the episode talking about the playoff picture, what we think needs to happen in order for the Irish to find themselves at the #4 slot (as well as what absolutely doesn’t need to happen), and how we feel about this 11-1 effort by ND.

It’s hard to believe we’ve come to the end of regular season recaps, but we have at least one more to do!

Podcast

The post Case Made: The Notre Dame at Stanford Recap appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Eddie and I are all tied up after I had a massive week. As usual, our $200 bet for Extra Life will go down to the wire.

This brings us both to 86-60-3 on the season. Talk about going out with a bang in the last year. In fact, I’m so proud of the record, that I did a bit a math at the beginning of the episode to let you know how much money we could’ve been making you this season.

Granted, we have now tempted fate with the brag, plus picking games on a Tuesday morning, but GAMBLOR stops for nothing, including Thanksgiving. Neither Eddie nor I have no plans of stopping our hot streak now and, by the end of the week, we should have a new leader in the clubhouse.

#HAILGAMBLOR

Picks Podcast

As for the sim, it’s hard to believe this day has arrived, but this our final regular season sim in HLS history. Thankfully we have (at least) one more sim to go, but Shane and I put a bow on the 2021 Sim Notre Dame Season with a visit to Stanford.

All I will say is that the sim (hopefully) managed to be the most accurate thing ever–all the way down to David Shaw doing some bullshit.

Oh, and I hope you weren’t expecting serious play-by-play the whole way through in this one because you won’t get it. The second half contains many an exquisite detour and Irish Elvis provides multiple sim updates from around the nation from the HLS studios (via Twitch chat).

Sim Podcast

Sim VoD

The post Rivalry Week Picks + NCAA ’14 Sim: Notre Dame at Stanford appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Don’t get me wrong, as you’ll see below, there is a lot worth talking about, including some really hilarious peak college football. Without Shane though, if I’m going to riff by myself, the written word seems like the better medium.

The Other Shoe Drops

While I don’t think that we will ever top last year’s dog-pissing Egg Bowl celebration, that fired two coaches and perhaps set off the butterfly effect of the shit-show that is 2020, college football blessed us all with a supremely stupid moment. Plus, in true beautiful and stupid fashion, this landmark moment in Florida Man history overshowed a whole host of other supremely stupid efforts by the Gators to jettison themselves from the playoff conversation.

Before we get to the other moments of Gator derp, we have to talk about THE MOMENT that was the 20-yard shoe toss that extended an LSU drive that would’ve been an LSU three-and-out, clearly too-big-moment for true freshman QB, Max Johnson. As soon as the play ended I saw Marco Wilson chuck something, and, when two flags came flying in shortly after, the old ECW “YOU FUCKED UP! YOU FUCKED UP!” chant was blaring in my head.

What I didn’t expect, was that the object was TE Kole Taylor’s shoe and that the officiating squad would determine that it was extremely important to let us know it travelled 20 yards downfield. This prompted a true moment of Twitter joy, in which my timeline was full of laughter and glee about the stupidity, inquires into what the yardage threshold of shoe flight triggers a penalty, and GIFs of George W. Bush dodging shoes while dueling GIFs of Austin Powers pondered the age-old question of “who throws a shoe, honestly?!”

LSU then drove down the field for what ended up being the game-winning FG, which you may forget was a 57-yard absolute BOMB, prompted LSU to posterize Florida on Twitter after the game. The Gators then responded with a short drive to attempt a 51-yard kick that sailed wide left. Game over, playoff hopes dead, and a whole host of people in College Station likely pissed their best win lost to a Bo Pelini defense that gave up over 600 yards while the third and Grantham meme died, actually holding LSU to only 8 conversions on 19 attempts.

But like I said, diagnosing their Achilles’ heel is no easy task as Florida happily shot themselves in the foot repeatedly even outside the shoe toss. Kyle Trask likely shooed himself out of Heisman contention as his two interceptions overshadowed his 474 yard, 2 TD effort. Prior to the shoe toss, a DPI delivered another swift kick to the third-down junk which led to a Tiger TD late in the fourth. Dan Mullen also tripped over himself to call a timeout before LSU’s game winning field goal attempt while the Tigers were scrambling to get their field goal unit out with no timeouts (and it looked like no holder to me). There was also a highly questionable series of play call choices in the fourth when Florida found themselves feet from their own endzone: three straight passes in as fog rolled continued to descend to field-level.

All credit to LSU for the win, but Florida absolutely snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

One more hilarious note, all day ESPN had been running a bottom line about the playoffs, with a note that Texas A&M and Florida were looking for their first playoff berth. Just a few minutes after the loss, Florida had already been edited out of that line.

Sarah Fuller Makes History, Again

Just a couple weeks after becoming the first woman to play in a Power Five football game, Sarah Fuller booted two extra points, making her the first woman ever to score in a Power Five football game. For anyone thinking this was some stunt that the team wasn’t on board with should check out footage of the team celebration (also, shout-out to the center judge for making sure the historic ball was handed to Fuller directly and not Vandy staff). Fuller also found herself taking photos with her opponents after the game as well.

Seems like the whole narrative over this being a stunt and a slap in the face of other players might just be a load of misogynistic garbage!

Of course, that won’t stop people from trying to shit on this really cool moment. Assholes will happily show you who they are by pointing out that Vandy was able to get another kicker on the roster this week to handle kickoffs and also attempted a 39 yard field goal, which was outside Fuller’s publicized 38-yard range.

The bottom line is that Vandy’s interim staff believed Sarah earned a chance to have her moment. It wasn’t her fault that Vandy got shut out, forcing her to attempt to write history via a squib kick. After taking loads of unwarranted armchair kicking from internet experts, she deserved a chance to get on the score sheet.

The only real disappointment here is Vandy didn’t get into her FG range to prove she could do even more. Trotting her out there for a 39-yard attempt would’ve put her in a position to fail and would’ve been horribly irresponsible by the coaching staff when they need to try to win a game. THAT would’ve been a PR stunt.

So good on everyone involved. This was a very cool moment in a year full of garbage. I genuinely feel sad for anyone spending the energy to drum up outrage over this.

In 2021, the senior will take a grad transfer a few minutes north of me to the University of North Texas to play goalie for the Mean Green. Here’s hoping she might get a chance at a couple more field goals as well.

Fire Gus Season

The annual “Duck Season! Rabbit Season!” is finally over out on the plains. Gus Malzahn’s hot seat reached the boiling point and Auburn has fired the maligned coach. Showing that, even during a pandemic, all Americans have things properly prioritized, Auburn announced they would pay Gus’ $21 million-plus buyout in full. Inspiring.

As I’ve described in pervious weeks on the pod, I felt this was coming. Bo Nix became yet another disappointing QB, failing to show any signs of developing under Gus. Auburn’s offense consistently became more inconsistent despite having some ridiculous weapons at their disposal and, this year, even the usually solid defense took a step back.

Auburn’s 6-4 record could easily be flipped. Two of those wins came thanks to some questionable officiating against Arkansas and Ole Miss, two teams Auburn should have outclassed rather easily.

Simply put, it was time. For whatever reason, things weren’t working out. Auburn will also probably rightly get what they deserve for their malcontent as I not-so-eagerly await for the galaxy brain hire of Hugh Freeze.

Start Up the Carousel

Gus wasn’t the only one to receive his walking papers this weekend. Arizona bid farewell to Kevin Sumlin after giving up a 70-burger to their in-state rival. Lovie Smith, who should’ve never shaved his beard, is gone from Illinois as well.

Huge shoutout to all these universities who will shell out millions for their next hire while complaining about athletic budget shortfalls due to COVID-19.

The Fog of War

The Amry/Navy game delivered a glorious rock fight that not only hit the under of 38 that was discussed on the picks podcast, but did do easily, staying under 20.

Much like LSU/Florida, fog was a player in this game, forcing a heavy use of skycam giving us the classic Madden view, which I’m on board with. When NBC announced their skycam experiment with ND, that is what I was hoping for. Find a way to put the yellow line on the screen and it’s perfect, in my opinion.

As for the game, Army dominated in a 17-0 win. Navy had a lone chance to really make a game of this, but stumbled over themselves after a pitch was swatted by Navy’s defense. Instead of getting a gift scoop and score, Navy failed to recover at all, allowing Army to keep the ball after it rolled out of bounds.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. Especially since this was the first Army/Navy game that I’ve consumed in years due to typically doing my Extra Life marathons during this weekend.

Luck of the…Trojans?

Southern Cal did it once again, somehow winning in the last minute despite being dominated for the majority of the game. A 20-point fourth quarter, ending with a final drive that featured a 56-yard kickoff return, 35-yard pass (with a ridiculous Tyler Vaughns) catch, and a quick 8-yard TD strike to Amon-Ra St. Brown.

Every week it looks like SC will finally be pantsed, only for their talent to finally take over just long enough to secure a win. While it’d be nice to believe the luck will finally run out, there’s no guarantee Friday’s Pac-12 Championship tilt against Washington will take place due to COVID issues on the Husky side.

That would then leave the Rose Bowl, which may not be played in the Rose Bowl, and could likely feature Northwestern as their opponent. What a charmed season.

If anything, I think this means Clay Helton has secured a lifetime extension. Lock him up.

Mack Brown Still Hates Manny Diaz

Mack Brown fired Manny Diaz after he gave up 550 yards to BYU while at Texas. Mack apparently didn’t forget as he Tar Heels put up 554 rushing yards against the creator of the turnover chain. Just hate to see something like that to Da U.

A big shout out to Mack’s pettiness as the 62-26 victory made Notre Dame look like a million bucks. While it’ll be interesting to see what the playoff committee has to say tomorrow about specific scenarios, it’s hard to imagine anything put a complete blowout by Clemson to keep the Irish out of the playoffs at this rate.

Can You FedEx a Gift Suite?

In what I’m sure is going to be a potential trend this week, four power five teams have announced their intention to opt out of bowl season:

• Boston College
• Pitt
• Stanford
• Virginia

The reason is largely the same to this point: everyone is done with the heavily restrictive season. A trip to a bowl that will feature little, if any, of the fun events that make the trip worth it, on top of needing to stay away from family and friends, just isn’t worth it.

I can’t blame anyone for this. Honestly, outside of the New Year’s Six, I don’t see much of a point to any of the bowl games. I say this as someone that loves every single dumb bowl game with all his heart. These are typically great rewards for the players after a long season, but it just isn’t there this year. It’s more work. I’d want to go home too.

Dabo Still Sucks

Greg Stankey of the SEC was doing some playoff politicking and took some shots at the ACC for “protecting” Clemson and Notre Dame. Of course, Dabo was asked, and of course he showed his ass AND BROUGHT UP FLORIDA STATE AGAIN:

“I would’ve loved to play this past weekend,” Swinney said. “I had no problem with that. I didn’t make the decision. We wanted to play when we were down in Tallahassee and were about to get on a bus and go play. Things happen.”

Via ESPN

I’ve gone over this before, but Dabo’s game is so old. Politick for your teams. Fine. Stop bringing up the same old crap over and over again, you man-child.

And Right Before I Was Ready to Publish…

Vanderbilt and Clark Lea might just be happening.

Glad I took the week off. Gonna be drinking a lot, it seems.

The post HLS Recap (Text Edition): Soled Out appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

We have loads to discuss this week, including multiple coaches showing their asses in post-game pressers, finding the true definition of accepting mediocrity, and discussing the start of the silly season that is the coaching carousel.

It’s the last regular season recap, so be sure to tune in!

Podcast

Twitch Broadcast

The post HLS Podcast: Final Week Insanity, Notre Dame at Stanford Recap appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Will the streak of nightmares continue? Or will ND exorcise multiple demons?

Come take some time out of your turkey hangover to come find out as we close out the sim season.

Podcast

Twitch Broadcast

The post HLS Podcast: Notre Dame at Stanford NCAA ’14 Sim appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Oh, and I highly suggest having a stiff drink by the time the fourth quarter hits. Trust me on this.

Podcast

Twitch Broadcast

Note: I ran a little late and ran a playlist that got part of the video on demand muted while I got set up. So that’s why you have a weird jump-in to start.

NCAA ’14 Sim

The post HLS Podcast: Week 5 Preview – Buzzsaw appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Come check out the picks and be sure to join the fun by filling out the form at the bottom.

Podcast

Twitch Broadcast

Pick ‘Em Standings

Week 5 Entry

The post Week 5 Picks: Break Out the 12 Pack appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Who To Watch

Stanford (3-0) at Oregon (3-0), Sat 8:00 PM ET on ABC

via GIPHY

Irish fans will be up early this weekend for the dreaded Noon Kickoff, and with it, fears of lethargy. We’ll let the blood pressure return to normal, then join us for the primetime matchup between Stanford and Oregon. Both teams are as-yet undefeated for this Pac-12 matchup and Gameday will be in attendance, which hopefully means viewers will get a healthy dose of Puddles both early and late.

Stanford has looked a bit sluggish thus far in 2018 (where have I heard that before?), but already possess a Week 2 victory over USC. Oregon has looked stronger, but their schedule has been much more forgiving. Both defenses have put up strong numbers on the year, and Notre Dame fans will want to look at both aspects of Stanford’s offense as they travel to South Bend next week to test the Irish defensive unit in primetime next week.

Also this Week

Other Upcoming Opponents

• Southern Cal (1-2) vs Washington State (Fri 10:30 PM ET, ESPN)
• Pittsburgh (2-1) at North Carolina (Sat 12:00 PM ET, ACC Network)
• Navy (2-1) at SMU (Sat 12:00 PM ET, ESPN News)
• Virginia Tech (2-0) at Old Dominion (Sat 3:30 PM ET, CBS Sports Network)
• Florida State (1-2) vs Northern Illinois (Sat 3:30 PM ET, ESPNU)
• Syracuse (3-0) vs Connecticut (Sat 4:00 PM ET, ESPN News)

Past Opponents

• Michigan (2-1) vs Nebraska (Sat 12:00 PM ET, Fox Sports 1)
• Ball State (1-2) vs Western Kentucky (Sat 3:00 PM ET, Watch ESPN)
• Vanderbilt (2-1) vs South Carolina (Sat 4:00 PM ET, SEC Network)

Strength-of-Schedule Rankings

Last week, ND opponents went 5-6. On the year, opponents have a combined record of 22-13 (62.9%) with an average schedule strength of 67.

Rank	Team		Record	Weekly Change
6		Southern Cal	1-2	+18
26		Florida State	1-2	+8
39		Ball State	1-2	+70
41		Northwestern	1-2	-22
42		Notre Dame	3-0	+5
48		Pittsburgh	2-1	+41
67		Michigan	2-1	-21
73		Stanford	3-0	-34
77		Wake Forest	2-1	+69
81		Vanderbilt	2-1	+57
95		Navy	2-1	-42
117		Syracuse	3-0	+81
131		Virginia Tech	2-0	-26

The post Opponent Watch: Quack-12 Edition appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Notre Dame’s James Onwualu tackles NC State’s Matthew Dayes. (Grant Halverson / Getty Images)

I was happy to turn the page on the new year if nothing else than to turn the calendar on one of the worst years of Notre Dame football that I can remember.

Starting on New Year’s Day of 2016 and throughout the season it was seemingly one bad moment after another. Now with the national title playing out tonight, our long Notre Dame nightmare can end.

Or can it?

Since the end of this season, there have numerous coaching changes. When the Irish tee it up on opening day next year, the offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator and special teams coordinator will all be new. Additionally, Paul Longo will not be returning as the strength coach. That is four major components of a football program all in a tremendous state of flux as we head towards the 2017 spring practice season. How those changes are viewed will vary but given the direction of the program over the last twelve months’ change was certainly in order.

Backup QB Brandon Wimbush looking at 2017 like “Hell yeah.” (Photo credit: SupermanTDJesus)

The Irish will also be breaking in a new signal-caller in the spring and the months to follow. Brandon Wimbush will come in with lofty credentials and tons of “potential” but the fact remains he has attempted five career passes. He should get a boost in the return of Josh Adams and Mike McGlinchey both of whom figure to help boost an Irish run game that was far too inconsistent in 2016.

LOWERED EXPECTATIONS

My early view is the Irish will have tepid expectations from the national media. The talking heads will likely focus on the “major changes” the Irish are undergoing and the “hot seat” Brian Kelly is on when discussing Notre Dame football.

The schedule is no peach either. Though the Irish open against a Temple program that is replacing their coach, they match up in week 2 vs. SEC mainstay Georgia.  September closes with back to back road trips to BC and Sparty, followed by a home date with Miami of Ohio. I think a 3-2 September is very likely. October features the bye week and home dates with USC and NC State after an Oct. 7 date with UNC. USC is always hard to figure; they have been so inconsistent lately but looked formidable with a freshman quarterback in the Rose Bowl.

I think the Irish likely head into November at 5-3.  I’m largely basing this on the fact that they squeak out a win over either USC or UNC. At this point, I’m not sure which one. Notre Dame’s luck was so bad last year; I think they will likely get a few breaks from the football gods this fall. November closes the season with trips to Stanford and Miami and home dates with Wake Forest and the always dangerous Naval Academy.

As it looks in early January, I’m going to go 7-5 and a trip to the New Era Pinstripe Bowl. If that is the finish it will be very likely that this year’s off-season changes will give way to bigger ones next off-season.

The post My Early Prediction For Next Year appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Not only have Shane and I seen or normal recording schedule go haywire, but I was in rare form in terms of podcasting screwups. Thankfully, this medium allows for edits to make the product sound much less clusterfucky; however, I felt like every loyal listener to the show deserved some insight into just how off the rails I went during recording in the form of a cold open.

I can promise the first 30 seconds of the show is absolutely gold. The other two hours are for you to judge.

Yes, we weighed in at two hours because this episode. Due to my schedule going full bonkers, I made the executive decision to combine both of our weekly episodes into one. So, we have a Friday Roundup woven into an HLS Audio Recap, released on Thursday. Follow that? Good.

Look, in the end, we saved you an hour by cramming two 90-minute episodes into one, somewhat tightly produced two hour package. Included in said package is a full recap of week 8, complete with shocking upsets and a team (and coach) that should be on your radar. Spliced in are some of the usual headlines that we would include in the Roundup (and links that we discuss are below), plus a little bonus decision regarding votes of confidence and coaches salaries.

And, as always, we close out with Eddie with weekly picks. Don’t look now, but there was one combined loss between the two of us. Watch out 50%, here we come.

The Roundup

Happy Valley: This week’s home of upsets and tear gas. The celebration after Franklin’s first ever win against a ranked opponent got ever so slightly out of hand.

Tom Herman may have taken an ugly loss, but dude is still gonna get paid. Houston is doing what they can to prevent their coach from departing.

This link is NSFW. 2 Fullbacks 1 TD.

Even in a convincing win, Harbaugh will go full Harbaugh. A bad spot, that had no effect on the outcome of the game, became the “worst call that [he’s] ever seen”.

I’m sure Stanford’s offense is fixed now. On Tuesday, Shaw announced that Keller Chryst would be Stanford’s new starting QB.

I sure hope no one was dumb enough to pick UCLA as the Pac 12 champ. Jim Mora has finally disclosed that Josh Rosen, after not playing since October 8, has a bad nerve in his throwing shoulder that will keep him out indefinitely.

BYU wins the award for the dumbest play call of all time. 4th and 19, on your own 5 in the first half? Perfect time for a fake punt that’s a run. Somehow, Boise didn’t score after that which tells you all you need to know about this game.

For everyone hoping for a BK firing at the end of this season, here’s your dreaded voted of confidence from Jack Swarbrick.

USA Today has released their annual coaching salary rankings. They have Bob Diaco making more money than Brian Kelly which is almost guaranteed to be 100% wrong; however, it is still worth taking a look at some things like just how much of a slimy shell game Michigan played to get Harbaugh’s 2016 salary listed at $9 million.

The post Roundup in your (HLS Audio Week 8) Recap appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.