Tag: 2012 notre dame

Legendary Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o joining NFL Network

Good luck, Manti!

Look at those who have played for Notre Dame over the past 15 years, and it’s hard to find anyone who made a bigger impact than [autotag]Manti Te’o[/autotag].

He was a Heisman Trophy finalist when the Irish came within a game of winning the 2012 national championship. Even after his embarrassing catfishing scandal, he played in 62 NFL games over seven seasons.

Now, Te’o is ready for the next chapter in his football life. In an appearance on “Good Morning Football”, he announced he’s joining the NFL Network. Here’s a portion of what he said while making his announcement:

It’s great to see Te’o put his past behind him enough that he’s able to move forward and take a gig like this. He’s made it clear that he won’t let catfishing become his legacy. While that’s a tall order in a world defined by social media, at least he’s making an effort to change the narrative. We wish him well with this venture.

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A Look Back at Manti Te’o’s Legendary Career at Notre Dame

One of the all-time greats in Notre Dame history!

Monday brought news of the latest nominations to join the College Football Hall of Fame class of 2024 with all-time great Notre Dame linebacker [autotag]Manti Te’o[/autotag] appearing on the ballot for the first time.

Te’o was a mega-recruit out of Hawai’i that stunned the college football world when he committed to Notre Dame over USC back in the winter of 2009.

Te’o didn’t take long to make an impact as he recorded 63 tackles as a true freshman in what wound up being Charlie Weis’ final year as head coach.

2010 saw Te’o make a career high in tackles when he recorded 133 while recording one sack and making 9.5 tackles for loss while in 2011 he recorded a career high 13.5 tackles for loss.

Te’o went from being very good to downright great in 2012 however.  That year Te’o was the unquestioned leader of Notre Dame’s elite defense as he recorded 113 tackles, 1.5 sacks, and 5.5 tackles for loss.  His seven interceptions were a huge reason he was a Heisman Trophy finalist as he helped lead Notre Dame to a 12-0 regular season before falling in the national championship game.

Take a look back at the best photos of Manti Te’o at Notre Dame below:

Notre Dame great to return to campus this weekend

Is he the best linebacker to ever play at Notre Dame?

In the long history of Notre Dame football few players have drawn as much attention as former star Fighting Irish linebacker [autotag]Manti Te’o.[/autotag]  Te’o helped guide the Irish to a 12-0 regular season in 2012 when he finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting after putting up a year that saw him record seven interceptions, 113 tackles, and 1.5 sacks.

On a star-filled defense he shined the brightest as he exceeded the lofty expectations that were put in place the second he announced his commitment to Notre Dame.

As we all know, things to a crazy turn for Te’o after it turned out that who he thought was his girlfriend didn’t actually exist and one of the strangest stories any of us will ever see wound up playing out.

Te’o will be back on campus this weekend when Notre Dame hosts Cal as the Irish look for their first win of 2022.  According to Pete Sampson of The Athletic, Te’o will walk with the team from pregame mass to the stadium.

Te’o has been on campus and in the stadium a couple of times since he last suited up for Notre Dame in that memorable 2012 season but after the recent documentary was released about the catfishing drama he was a product of, this visit will likely feel a tad different.

Check out some photos of Te’o from his outstanding Notre Dame football career below.

BREAKING: Louis Nix found dead in Jacksonville

The worst fears about former Notre Dame defensive tackle Louis Nix have been confirmed. Nix, 29, was found dead in Jacksonville, Florida, on Saturday evening. BREAKING: Tragic news. The mother of Louis Nix has confirmed to me that the former Raines …

The worst fears about former Notre Dame defensive tackle Louis Nix have been confirmed. Nix, 29, was found dead in Jacksonville, Florida, on Saturday evening.

During the evening, a vehicle matching the description of Nix’s was pulled from a pond located near the gas station where his December shooting took place. It is not known if this is connected to that shooting. This comes less than a day after he was reported missing. The last time he was in contact with anyone was Tuesday.

This is a tremendous loss for everybody, including and especially the Notre Dame community. Besides being a great player, a great teammate and a great person, Nix was a terrific ambassador for Notre Dame football. While he never got a chance to prove himself in NFL game action, he always was going to be beloved in South Bend. Being a key cog on one of the best defenses in program history will do that.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Nix family and everyone who loved him. No one deserves to have their life cut short so tragically, especially when they’re a true person of character. The one good piece of news we can take from this is that he impacted many lives during his short time with us. That’s a legacy anyone should strive to achieve.

Brian Kelly pleas for Notre Dame community to reach out to Louis Nix

We all are very concerned about the whereabouts and well-being of former Notre Dame defensive lineman Louis Nix.

We all are very concerned about the whereabouts and well-being of former Notre Dame defensive lineman Louis Nix. Since he was reported missing, there have been many efforts to hear anything from him at all. Now, Nix’s former coach is taking up the cause. Brian Kelly has called for everyone in the Notre Dame community to make every possible effort to track Nix down and make sure he’s OK:

Nix was one of Kelly’s players from 2010 to 2013. After not seeing any game action as a freshman, Nix became a starter as a sophomore and a key cog for the vaunted defense that made the 2013 BCS National Championship Game. A knee injury cut his senior season short, but he had done enough to make his mark in Notre Dame history.

With Kelly taking up the cause to find Nix as his own, there absolutely should be no shortage of people following every lead they can. That includes anyone who happens to be reading this post. If you or someone you know has information that will lead to the whereabouts of Louis Nix, please call the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office at (904) 630-0500.

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Watch: Notre Dame Pays Tribute to Sgt. Tim McCarthy

Saturday’s 42-26 win over Florida State was Notre Dame’s first game since the passing of former Indiana State Police Sgt. Tim McCarthy.

Saturday’s 42-26 win over Florida State was Notre Dame’s first game since the passing of former Indiana State Police Sgt. Tim McCarthy. It only was appropriate for the university to use the game to do homage to the pun-telling safety message deliverer. Here’s the tribute that aired at Notre Dame Stadium during the contest:

My first and only Notre Dame game was the 2012 win over Michigan. Like many newcomers to Notre Dame Stadium, I had no prior knowledge of McCarthy, but I distinctly remember hearing his message because the raucous capacity crowd suddenly fell quiet like they were in a church or a library. Though I don’t remember the exact pun McCarthy told on this particular night, I remember getting the same feeling I get whenever I hear a bad joke. The whole crowd groaned, as it did after every pun McCarthy told for over half a century.

Rest easy, Sgt. McCarthy. You may be gone, but we’ll be groaning at your jokes whenever we recall them. And yes, we hope you got to Heaven safely. In fact, we know you did.

 

Notre Dame in NFL: Former Irish defensive back signs with Giants

Former Notre Dame defensive back KeiVarae Russell has a new NFL home. See how he could be helping out the New York Giants.

The New York Giants secondary is now home for a pair of former Notre Dame defensive backs 2019 draft pick Julian Love will now be joined by another Fighting Irish product in KeiVarae Russell as the two agreed to a deal on Saturday.

Pat Leonard of the New York Daily News was first with the news, adding that the Giants also let go of corner Christian Angulo and running back Javon Leake.  Leonard suggests that Russell’s biggest contribution to the Giants will likely come on special teams.

Russell has played in 20 games in his NFL career, all of which came for the Cincinnati Bengals between 2016 and 2018.  In that time he intercepted one pass and made 22 total tackles.

Russell, who started every game of his freshman season in 2012, played 36 games for Notre Dame between 2012-15, making 165 tackles and five interceptions in his Fighting Irish career.  He missed the 2014 season due to an academic suspension.

Russell was originally a third round pick of the Kansas City Chiefs in 2016 but never played a regular season down for them.

Notre Dame Named 11th-Most Dominant Program of Past 50 Years

A story from The Athletic has sought to determine college football’s 25 most dominant programs over the past 50 years.

A story from The Athletic has sought to determine college football’s 25 most dominant programs over the past 50 years. Rankings in 23 categories were averaged together to construct the list. All 65 Power Five teams, plus BYU, were eligible for consideration. When the list was completed, Notre Dame made the cut at 11th with a dominance score of 7.26 (Alabama, which topped the list, had a dominance score of minus 6.22).

In the past half-century, Notre Dame has three national championships, a .689 winning percentage and an average national rank of 10.26. Over the previous 50 years, the Irish earned eight national titles and the country’s best winning percentage at .760. If this list had been constructed for the 1920-1969 era using the same criteria, it’s likely Notre Dame would be at the top.

Alas, the past quarter-century hasn’t seen many dominant Irish teams. The 2012 and 2018 teams came close to national titles, but they were anomalies among seasons that either disappointed or featured losses in big games that could have pushed the program over the top had they turned out differently. The Notre Dame entry on this list concludes by saying that the Irish remain prestigious and capable of being great, but the true glory days continue to become more distant over time.

It’s hard to disagree with the ranking. While we should be grateful that the Irish are as relevant as ever, they aren’t the intimidating force they were when our parents and grandparents were growing up. If we’re lucky, the next 50 years of college football will be kinder to Notre Dame.

Manti Te’o Girlfriend Hoax To Be Featured on ESPN’s ‘Backstory’

I’ve mentioned this before, but the one Notre Dame game I’ve been to was the 2012 win over Michigan.

I’ve mentioned this before, but the one Notre Dame game I’ve been to was the 2012 win over Michigan. It was the Irish’s first home contest after the apparent death of Manti Te’o’s girlfriend, Lennay Kekua. The student cheering section waved leis in support of Te’o. But no one, including Te’o, suspected they were being had, and now, the ESPN series “Backstory” is ready to examine it.

John Buhler of FanSided gave a nice reaction to this news and mentioned what many of us still think about the whole thing years later. The revelation that Te’o had been catfished was one of the most bizarre bombshells in the history of sports. Fortunately for Te’o, the story had faded from the public consciousness by the start of his NFL career.

Enough time has passed that this hoax can be examined with all available information. Some lessons are bound to be learned, or at least relearned, in this documentary. The obvious one is you probably should actually meet someone before claiming to be in a relationship with them. The rest will be realized as we watch this story unfold all over again.

A Candidate for Brian Kelly’s Biggest Notre Dame Win

Had it not been for Notre Dame besting the Spartans 17-13 on September 21 that year, Michigan State would have been set to take on Florida State in what wound up being the final BCS National Championship Game.

What was Notre Dame’s biggest win of the decade?

Myself and Jeff Feyerer discussed this and have a list we will be unveiling one at a time shortly. Plenty of our votes (we each picked 12) went to 2012 where Kelly and Notre Dame shocked the world en-route to a 12-0 regular season.

Spoiler alert – a year that didn’t give top-ten worthy love on our list was 2013.

It started with the drama following getting destroyed by Alabama: Brian Kelly dipping his toes in the NFL waters, Manti Te’o’s too good to be true story ultimately not being true. Don’t forget the hectic signing period that saw five-star defensive tackle Eddie Vanderdoes sign his national letter of intent before backing out and eventually ending up at UCLA.

The off-season was hectic enough and the year previous was fortunate enough that you knew a regression was likely coming. That only became more obvious quarterback Everett Golson was kicked off the team for the season.

Ultimately that 12-1 from 2012 dipped to 9-4 in 2013 and instead of a title game appearance, the season and Tommy Rees’s Notre Dame playing career ended in a Pinstripe Bowl victory over Rutgers.

But for one September afternoon, everything was right for Kelly and the Fighting Irish as their performance kept a former annual rival from their own national championship appearance.

Mark D’Antonio stepping down last week got me thinking about this and perhaps we’ll take a deeper look at him compared to Kelly and their impacts on their respective programs later this week.

Under D’Antonio, Michigan State had been a program on the rise up to that point. They had twice won 11 games under his direction before falling back to a 7-6 campaign in 2012. 2013 however was a different year in East Lansing.

Led by the likes of Connor Cook, Jeremy Langford and a defense that allowed 20 points just twice all regular season, the Spartans went 12-1 and won their first outright Big Ten Championship since 1987.

Michigan State closed the season with a Big Ten Championship victory over No. 2 Ohio State and a Rose Bowl victory over No. 5 Stanford.

Had it not been for Notre Dame besting the Spartans 17-13 on September 21 that year, Michigan State would have been set to take on Florida State in what wound up being the final BCS National Championship Game.

The game is most remembered for Notre Dame drawing four pass interference calls on Michigan State and another defensive holding. That and a very odd decision to have running back RJ Shelton throw a pass that was intercepted by Notre Dame’s Matthias Farley.

It may not have appeared as that significant as Notre Dame was a four point favorite that afternoon.

It certainly didn’t feel like it at the time and because of how that season ultimately went, the win didn’t carry a whole lot of weight. But looking back, was it Brian Kelly’s biggest win at Notre Dame?

It was after all against a team that finished ranked third overall but Michigan State remained unranked at all until the first week of November that season.

Because of what eventually happened with Notre Dame going 9-4 it didn’t feel that big but is it Kelly’s best win at Notre Dame?

The impact of winning at Oklahoma in 2012 launched Notre Dame from being a nice story and turning them into a legit championship contender which is why I still give it the nod, but the win over Michigan State does certainly only get better over time.