2022 ND Football – Page 2 – Syndication Server

Notre Dame-Ohio State all-time series history

Would you like to see Notre Dame and Ohio State played more regularly?

According to Google Maps, it’s a 270.8-mile drive from Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend to Ohio Stadium in Columbus. A drive that takes four hours and 19 minutes, which isn’t just down the street but it is nothing when it comes to a road trip for a college football team or its fans.

Especially when you consider those two college football squads are among the most historic in the game and have two of the most passionate fan bases in all of sports, not just college football.

But Notre Dame and Ohio State have met on the football field just seven times. Of those seven, two have been played at Notre Dame Stadium, three have been played at Ohio Stadium and two have taken place in the Fiesta Bowl.

Unless you live under a rock, you’re aware Notre Dame opened the 2022 season at Ohio State and the Buckeyes make the return trip to South Bend late this September.

Before this underplayed series resumes late this fall, here is a look back at the brief history Notre Dame and Ohio State have shared on the football field.

Remembering Beano Cook and his Notre Dame moments 10 years after passing

Love him or hate him, few have ever been quite like Beano, who died 10 years ago today.

Ten years ago today a legend in the college football media world left us as Beano Cook passed away. The 1954 University of Pittsburgh graduate went on to become one the most recognizable faces associated with college football media but before his ESPN career that most of us knew him from, he served as a sports publicist at Pitt.

Eventually Cook worked his way into the media world and upon doing so, waste no time becoming one of the biggest names in the business.

John D. Lucaks, a Notre Dame graduate and passionate college football fan in his own right worked with Cook for years after developing a unique friendship on a whim. Lucaks released Cook’s biography, “Haven’t They Suffered Enough?” in 2021 and as you’d probably guess, has plenty of stories of Beano that involve Notre Dame.

I was seven years old when Beano declared that Ron Powlus would win multiple Heisman Trophies and just assumed Cook was a Notre Dame backer at heart. After reading this book I’ll let you know that he certainly wasn’t (doesn’t make him any less of a college football enthusiast) but sure did have some tales involving Notre Dame.

I’ll also say that in no point in my life have a I read a biography and in my head heard the featured person’s voice as clearly I did Beano’s with this book.

Find out below just a few of the stories that Lucaks shares in the book that involve Beano irritating a few Notre Dame priests during his publicist days at Pitt, the story behind his Powlus prediction, and what game Notre Dame won that earned Beano a huge pay day!

All are excerpts from the book that can be purchased for any longtime college football fan on Amazon.

Brent Musburger still jokes with Brian Kelly about Katherine Webb

‘Coach, you’d have been under the gun if it wasn’t for me.’

It has been 10 years since the echoes were awakened by [autotag]Brian Kelly[/autotag] at Notre Dame when his Fighting Irish squad earned a berth in the BCS National Championship and took on mighty Alabama.

As for that game, the fun ended seconds after the team ran onto the field in what wound up a 42-14 massacre in favor of the Crimson Tide.

One part of that game that still gets mentioned by not just Notre Dame fans but college football fans all over is when legendary broadcaster Brent Musburger pointed out Katherine Webb, Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron’s then-girlfriend, in the stands.

Musburger joined Matt Fortuna and Pete Sampson on “The Shamrock” podcast this week and shared how he still jokes with Kelly about that to this day.

“Coach Kelly, who I know very well, now down at LSU having left Notre Dame,” he said. “I still tease him when he got blown out by Alabama in the national championship game, I took all the heat off him because I called a beauty queen beautiful. I was the villain that night in the eyes of the media, especially the woke journalists in some of the papers around the country.

“And, I say, ‘Coach, you’d have been under the gun if it wasn’t for me.’ And he laughs. He’s a good old politician. We’ll see what he does.” – Brent Musburger

Who says romance doesn’t exist? A decade later McCarron and Webb are married with three kids.

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Notre Dame Football: All-time five-star recruits

How many of the 17 can you name before looking?

Notre Dame has had some big-time recruits over the years, something we went in depth on a while back in deciding who the four biggest were.

With June being a massive recruiting month we thought it’d be a good idea to look at the last 20-or so years of Notre Dame football recruiting. Who are the five-star talents Notre Dame has gotten to sign a letter of intent in that time?

We only went back to 2000, so Ron Powlus isn’t included in this one, but here are the 17 players who signed a letter of intent to Notre Dame and were ranked as five-stars in the final 247Sports composite rankings that year.

Please note – Cam Williams is rated as a five-star prospect in the 2024 recruiting class but since he hasn’t yet signed his NLI he is not included.

Notre Dame football countdown: Friday, May 19

Hope you weren’t late to your seat because you would have missed the most exciting play of the game!

The countdown until Notre Dame football returns to the field is officially on as today we go under 100 days. On Thursday, we started our countdown by looking back at [autotag]Lou Holtz[/autotag] in honor of his 100 wins as Notre Dame’s head coach.

Today it’s another Notre Dame great we look back on but it isn’t his jersey number we’re doing it because of. Instead, 99 days before Notre Dame takes on Navy at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, we look back at speedster [autotag]Allen Rossum[/autotag] in honor of his 99-yard kickoff return against Purdue in 1996.

After an unimpressive win at Vanderbilt on a Thursday night to open the ’96 campaign, the Irish opened the home season nine days later against in-state rival Purdue. It took Rossum seconds to return the opening kickoff 99 yards in what wound up being a 35-0 Notre Dame victory.

Watch the kickoff return here and enjoy a look back at some of Rossum’s best photos from his Notre Dame and NFL career below.

Check out the Allen Rossum photo gallery below:

100 days until Notre Dame-Navy in Ireland

100 to go!

Today is the last day that you’ll have woken up and there will be triple digits days left until college football fully returns. Week Zero is highlighted by Notre Dame and Navy in Dublin, Ireland this year and it’s now just 100 days away.

We’ll be counting down the days until kickoff all summer long sometimes various and entirely random number connections throughout.

In honor of it being 100 days we thought a good way to mark the occasion would be to look back at [autotag]Lou Holtz[/autotag]’s time at Notre Dame.

Why? Well he did have 100 career wins as Notre Dame’s head football coach which trailed only Knute Rockne when he left the program following the 1996 season.

Holtz of course guided Notre Dame to the 1988 national championship and hopefully before too much longer he’ll not be the last coach to lead the Irish to a title. We all know about the title but here are a handful of other notes from Holtz’s time at Notre Dame to look back on as we countdown the days to the season opener.

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Major changes to college football coaching coming?

Major Changes To College Coaching

For now, much of this discussion is admittedly just a thought — a concept that came to me and my already wandering early offseason Irish mind. But this goes much deeper than Notre Dame. I’m beginning to think we are on the cusp of some major changes in the way high-quality coaches look at college football.

It’s harder to win than ever. The job is more demanding than ever. It requires more time than ever. More patience than ever. More considerations than ever. More concessions than ever. The reality is we live in a day and age where players are gaining more autonomy by the year and coaches have less power. Coaches are not used to this. Some react better than others to this new reality. Do more coaches start opting for the NFL or retiring for media jobs in the new age?

Let’s examine where I see this dynamic headed in the near future piece by piece.

Notre Dame Football: Transfer portal tracker for 2022-23

Who do you most want to see Notre Dame bring in via the portal?

Whether you like it or not, the transfer portal has taken college athletics by storm and changed the landscape of college sports forever. Notre Dame has experienced this in recent years. It has had players exit and players arrive via the portal.

So who is leaving Notre Dame via the portal in 2022-23? We’re keeping you up to date on who enters the portal, where they end up and who Notre Dame lands via the portal this offseason.

Here are all the Notre Dame players to enter the portal since the start of the 2022 season. Those who transfer into Notre Dame will be tracked as well.

Roster Management: A New Age Nightmare

Roster management has never been as big of a head ache in college football

Being a head football coach at a big brand FBS school has always been a very stressful job. There are egos to manage, donors to keep happy, nosy media members questioning every move made, ticket packages to sell, speaking engagements to make and I didn’t even get to anything actually on field football related yet. Yet as time-consuming and as challenging as it’s always been, it’s getting harder by the day.

The modern era of college football and all the changes that come with it require even more coaches and their staffs than ever before. What fans see on Saturdays is the reflection of all of the behind-the-scenes work taking place in the wild world of modern roster construction in college football. Let’s take a look at the many considerations that now must be made all at once in order to field a competitive squad.

Marcus Freeman details weekly meeting with Hall of Famer

What can Notre Dame football do to better welcome back former players?

It can’t be the easiest thing for Marcus Freeman transitioning to his role of head football coach at Notre Dame after being on the campus for just over a year and never having head coaching experience before. He does however have a lot of resources at his side and because of some unique circumstances this spring, that means a weekly meeting with a Notre Dame legend and Pro Football Hall of Famer.

Jerome Bettis is on campus this semester finishing the necessary credit hours to graduate from the university. Freeman, who already had Bettis speak to the team last month, has been meeting with “The Bus” weekly to go over a variety of different things both past and present.

“More than anything, it’s to benefit me. Since he’s gotten to campus, we meet once a week to talk. It could be a 20-30 minute chat or a 2-hour chat. I run things by him in terms of former players, I run things by him regarding helping our current players. He has this credibility because of who he is and so the ability to have that guy talk to your team and not telling him what to say, but he said the same things that you’re preaching as a head coach. The players have upheld standards. The players held each other accountable because the players want each teammate to be the best and he emphasized team. This is a team and my job is to make you better. When you hear him say those things, it’s just affirmation that we’re saying the right things. He’s been great. Everybody knows who he is in terms of recruits, in terms of obviously players, current players, former players, so he’s been awesome for us.” – Marcus Freeman

Notre Dame has as rich of football tradition as any team in all of college football, even Alabama. Instead of just selling Knute Rockne and Frank Leahy’s accomplishments generations ago, it’s nice to see superstars I actually remember watching in blue and gold having their thoughts valued.

It isn’t something that I think ultimately puts Notre Dame over the top but it’s a card that few other programs nationally can play like Freeman and the Irish can, so why not play it?

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50 photos of Jerome Bettis on his 50th birthday