The Blue–Gold Game is this Saturday, and to be frank, I don’t think we learn much from it. We already know how good the team is. The Blue–Gold Game is more of an orientation day. Whose name are we going to get used to? Will Marcus Freeman say anything about the quarterback “competition?”
Word so far from South Bend is about what we’d expect after last year: This team has bright spots, and it has weaker spots. The fact there is alleged competition under center speaks poorly of Sam Hartman, whom we’d like to fancy a Heisman candidate and probably could fancy a Heisman candidate were the ACC what it was seven or eight years ago. Doing what Hartman did at Wake Forest is, unfortunately, not as unlike doing it at James Madison as we’d like to admit. Does Tyler Buchner have potential? Of course. He always has. But he’s thrown more interceptions than touchdowns in his career, and he’s yet to play a single game anyone could walk away from saying, “I feel really good about Tyler Buchner as Notre Dame’s quarterback.” The job is Hartman’s, of course—it would be a legitimate shock to see Buchner take even 20% of snaps if Hartman’s healthy to start the fall, and the number shouldn’t be that high—but the fact there’s any sort of question does say something about Hartman, and it doesn’t say something great.
Overall, the Irish are poised to be a top-20 team with an outside playoff chance, no matter what we see on Saturday. Us learning about the Irish isn’t the point of the scrimmage.
What *is* the point?
I’d imagine there’s coaching benefit, both practically and motivationally. It’s another practice, it gets mid-year enrollees a stadium experience, it’s a bookend to the spring practice season. There’s also a marketing benefit, though marketing seems too sterile a word. The Blue–Gold Game reminds us, just at the time when we’re furthest away from the marquee sports, that Notre Dame is at its core a football school. It brings the sport back to the forefront. It gives a taste of what’s to come. It reminds us that spring practice happened, which reminds us that summer practice is on its way, with all the updates and real excitement that accompany it.
Also, there’s Pigtostal.
Robots Have Overrun the Campus
Apologies for the lateness this week—we do still plan to do these on Mondays, we’re just behind. Part of why we’re behind is that I was in South Bend this weekend for a friend’s ordination, and while it was a moving tradition to behold and one of the most joyous weekends I can remember, what we really need to talk about is the robots.
There are robots all over the freaking campus.
It’s Grubhub robots, specifically, these little bots with six wheels and securely locked trunks bearing food from one spot on campus to another. Word is, they’re close to indestructible but they don’t do well in the snow. Thank goodness Notre Dame has one of the snowiest campuses in the Power Five.
There are multiple common reactions to nice new things being bestowed on those younger than us, and most of them are valid. It’s fair to be jealous of the new student center. It’s fair to be a little grumpy about Ubers now driving straight to dorm front doors. It’s also fair to say, sometimes, that a thing has gone too far.
The robots are a step too far.
After a few days of robot nightmares (I don’t know if this is true, but a friend convinced me that if you pick one up, it will say aloud, “Help! Put me down!”), I’m realizing my core complaint isn’t that kids can get food without interacting with another human being. Human interaction might be on the downslide globally, but plenty of it still happens for undergrads at Notre Dame. My core complaint is really just that this shit is ugly, and since it’s unnecessary, it shouldn’t exist.
Construction is ugly as well, and we deal with construction. We grumble about it, but that’s part of the grand construction tradition. Construction serves a purpose and in university settings is a reflection of the school’s health. Delivery robots with weird little voices evidently too heavy to be placed in trees? That’s too much. Notre Dame’s campus is such a beautiful place, and not just on autumn gamedays or sunny springtime afternoons. It’s beautiful in the dead of night amidst miserable wind in the awe-inspiring middle of South Quad. It’s beautiful on slushy winter days when the lakes chop and swirl, unable to fully freeze. Drop a bunch of clean white robots with orange logos on the side and it becomes less beautiful. It’s like they put a Grubhub watermark on the dome.
So, that’s the old man rant. I hope students are throwing those little fuckers in the lakes, but I’d also imagine the current administrative police state wouldn’t look too kindly on that, and I don’t get the idea Notre Dame is admitting as many kids who appreciate petty vandalism as it used to. It’s admitting kids who demand food on wheels instead.
Quick(ish) Hitters
The women’s basketball team will open its season this fall in Paris, squaring off with South Carolina on November 6th. It’s a watershed moment for women’s basketball, yet another “made it” hallmark amidst a string of those in recent years. You would imagine this will be broadcast on the ESPN family of networks during a daytime slot leading into Monday Night Football. That is special.
Admittedly, I was cold on women’s hoops as a student. I’m embarrassed about it, in hindsight, and it makes me very conscious of the fact I have less of a claim to enjoy the program’s successes than the average Domer. I will say, though: While Caitlin Clark deserves the most individual credit for the rise of the women’s game’s popularity, that 2018 Notre Dame team—the one which won the national championship via Arike Ogunbowale’s Final Four buzzer beaters—felt like the one that broke the sport through into the national consciousness in a way that lasted. Since 2018, women’s basketball has been consistently in focus among college sports. I don’t know that Notre Dame deserves credit for that, or if it just was the right team at the right time, but there is no other athletic program at Notre Dame that deserves as much respect from Notre Dame people as the women’s basketball program does. This Paris thing is neat. Good for them.
Within the football program, Kaleb Smith—a Virginia Tech transfer at wide receiver—announced his medical retirement, and Lorenzo Styles is taking a lot of reps at cornerback. Styles’s potential switch is getting a lot of attention, but it’s hard to view the transition as anything but a good thing, since it’s unlikely the coaching staff would allow it if they didn’t think it would improve the team as a whole.
In men’s basketball, Julian Roper is coming to the Bend, transferring from Northwestern where he played solid minutes as a freshman but missed a lot of time this year with an ankle injury. He’s a good shooter and was a three-star recruit coming out of high school near Detroit.
Ven-Allen Lubin is into the transfer portal after all, making a late entry to those transitional waters. Cormac Ryan is getting buzz around UNC, who evidently didn’t take the face-kick too hard after a lot of Tar Heel fans made such a big deal about it at the time. Indiana and Miami are reportedly also in the mix there, per Twitter user Trilly Donovan (who’s proven themselves trustworthy).
The Joe Girard buzz has shifted elsewhere, Marcus Domask committed to Illinois right after last week’s post, and Austin Nunez appears bound for Mississippi as of right now, but Kebba Njie did visit South Bend on Monday, which may have had something to do with Lubin’s decision to transfer.
Logan Imes reportedly visited Notre Dame last week, and Carey Booth is reportedly visiting next week. If those two do sign, the Irish would be at eight scholarship players between them, Markus Burton, Braeden Shrewsberry, Roper, and the Zona/Sanders/Konieczny trio. You’d expect at least three more players added to that mix. It’s not a good roster, but it’s a young one, and it’s a first step for the elder Shrewsberry. Importantly, all of the guys besides Zona, Sanders, and Konieczny profile as guys who fit Shrewsberry’s style.
On the coaching front, Notre Dame has hired Virginia assistant Kyle Getter as associate head coach, which is about as good a hire on paper as you’re going to get: He comes from the best basketball program in the ACC, brings with him a reputation for defensive acumen (Shrewsberry’s weak spot), and should have scouting on all fourteen schools the Irish play in league. That is all really good. It’s a less visible thing, but it could be a big deal, and in the best scenarios, where Shrewsberry does so well he ends up finding an NBA job, it’s always great to have other talented coaches in the locker room. The pipeline school of thought.
Finally, Mike Brey is taking a job with the Atlanta Hawks. So, no Broadcast Brey. Good for him, but I was looking forward to that. He’ll reunite with Quin Snyder, whom he once recruited to Duke.
This Week
The women’s lacrosse team swept their three-game road trip, taking care of business ahead of their regular season finale tomorrow at home against Louisville (very winnable). They’re 11th in RPI and 7th in the media poll I’m seeing, which I’d imagine will translate to an NCAA Tournament berth but may still require at least beating the Cards, if not more business wins in the ACC Tournament (I don’t have much familiarity with the women’s lacrosse bubble). The men’s team hosts UNC on Saturday at noon on ESPNU. UNC’s ranked, but not in the territory where that says a whole lot.
The softball team took two of three against Virginia Tech, staying at sixth place in the ACC. It appears they’re somewhere in the greater vicinity of the bubble, which makes this weekend’s series at last-place Boston College a big one.
The baseball team won their opener at Clemson but dropped the last two. They beat Valpo at home last night and host Western Michigan tonight before a three-game set against top-ten Virginia at home. The Irish are currently fifth in the Atlantic Division.
It’s hard to get context on track & field’s performance, but they won seven titles in what appears to have been 46 events down at Louisville’s invitational last weekend, facing athletes from Memphis, DePaul, Purdue, and Indiana. The schedule shows meets at Wake Forest and at Indiana this weekend—I’m assuming that’ll be a split squad situation.
The women’s tennis team beat both Syracuse and Boston College, closing out the regular season on a strong note. They’ll play Wake Forest tomorrow in the second round of the ACC Tournament after receiving a first-round bye as the 8-seed. Win, and they’ll advance to the quarterfinals Friday against top-seeded UNC, who’s also the top-ranked team in the country. It does appear that an NCAA Tournament berth is on the table, so this weekend might not be the end, but I’m not positive about that situation.
The men’s tennis team lost at Louisville on Thursday. They’ll rematch with the Cardinals tomorrow in the second round of their own ACC Tournament, also being held in Cary, North Carolina. From what I can tell, they have a lot of work to do to make this weekend not the end of the road.
On the golf course, the women’s team tied for ninth in the twelve-team ACC Championship. Montgomery Ferreira was the best finisher, tied for twelfth individually. Regional selections will be announced on Wednesday of next week, with 72 teams and 36 additional individuals invited. My impression is that Notre Dame won’t receive invitations in either category, but as is a theme today, I don’t really know. The men’s team finished tied for ninth in the Thunderbird Invitational out in Arizona in a twelve-team field. They’ve got the ACC Championship this weekend in Pinehurst.
The rowing team finished third in the Case Cup and then took four of five races against Northeastern the next day. The Case Cup appears to have had four teams—Northeastern, Yale, and Harvard-Radcliffe were the other three. The rowers are off this weekend.
