Tag: catholic

Reddit map: USC, Boston College fans consider Notre Dame biggest rival

How do you feel about this?

College football fans are an interesting breed. While some adhere to traditional rivalries involving their teams, there are other teams they just hate more when their team plays them. If only there was a way to track how fans feel about certain rivalries. It turns out there is.

A website called Know Rivalry tracks how fans feel about playing certain teams and what they feel their biggest rivalries are. A college football fan on Reddit decided to place all Football Bowl Subdivision teams on a blank screen geographically and then draw arrows from the teams pointing to what fans believe to be their biggest rival.

Notre Dame fans and USC fans both consider the other team their team’s biggest rival, which isn’t a surprise. But perhaps of the heavy Irish and Catholic connection to their location or university, Boston College fans also consider the Irish to be their top rival:

While the Irish and Trojans play each other every year, the Eagles pop up on the Irish’s schedule only five times between now and 2037. Also, the Irish have won nine straight in the series with the Eagles last emerging victorious in 2008. The teams last met in 2022.

If that’s how Eagles fans feel, fine. Let’s just hope they don’t get as upset if they lose to Syracuse.

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Follow Geoffrey on X: @gfclark89

Watch college-bound student pick Notre Dame on ‘Today’

Do you wish you had this pageantry when you made your college choice?

It’s always a big deal when a young athlete announces their college decision. They typically have cameras in their faces at an organized event, and fans everywhere are eager to see if that athlete will pick their school. The anticipation builds as much excitement as the decision itself.

But those who aren’t athletes typically don’t get the same level of attention when they make their college choices. That changed during Wednesday’s episode of NBC’s “Today” when three students got to announce their choices live on the air. One of them, Nebraska native Benjamin Robinette, told host Hoda Kotb that he will fulfill his desire not only to attend a Catholic school, but the one those of you who visit this site likely love the most:

It was great to see the Notre Dame Leprechaun there to help Robinette celebrate his decision and to hear the Victory March. It’s even better that he’ll be going to college as a cancer survivor. Here’s hoping he enjoys his time in South Bend.

Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions.

Follow Geoffrey on Twitter: @gfclark89

Happy birthday to Notre Dame basketball chaplain Rev. Pete McCormick

Here’s one Notre Dame men’s basketball figure that’s impossible to dislike.

It’s been very difficult to like the Notre Dame men’s basketball team lately and understandably so. But one person associated with the program no one can dislike is the Rev. Pete McCormick, or Father Pete as he is affectionately known. In addition to being the university’s director of campus ministry, he is the chaplain for the aforementioned athletic program. And today is his birthday.

This past season gave me my first encounter with McCormick. As a practicing Catholic, I chose to fulfill my weekly Mass obligation at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart after the Irish easily defeated a lousy Louisville team. As luck would have it, Father Pete was the celebrant. Afterwards, I had a chance to shake his hand and comment that the struggling Irish finally had won a game that afternoon, which gave him a good laugh.

Happy Birthday, Father Pete. Maybe you give the students and student-athletes of Notre Dame many more years of prayer and service.

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Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions.

Follow Geoffrey on Twitter: @gfclark89

Tale of the Tape: Notre Dame defense vs. Central Michigan offense

The Irish have shown so far that their D is darn good.

A major message for Notre Dame opponents so far this season has been good luck trying to do anything against the defense. That unit has done a fantastic job locking everyone down so far, and all signs point to it happening again against Central Michigan. As you’ll see below, the Irish are ranked very highly in some major defensive categories nationally. We don’t know how long that will keep up, but it’s a good feeling in the meantime.

The Chippewas have an offense that could qualify as passable for a Mid-American Conference team. However, that doesn’t mean a thing when it comes to facing a program like Notre Dame. If it has to go up against an offense like that, it’s going to require a few prayers to pull off the upset in an unforgiving environment. Fortunately for the Chippewas, they’ll be visiting a Catholic university, so those prayers might actually work.

Here’s a look at how the Irish’s defense matches up with the Chippewas’ offense:

Pope Francis accidentally uses the Saints’ fleur-de-lis logo — again

Pope Francis accidentally used the New Orleans Saints’ fleur-de-lis logo on Twitter — again

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The New Orleans Saints may be locked in a copyright infringement lawsuit with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but odds are they won’t be taking Pope Francis to court. On Saturday, the supreme pontiff’s Twitter account shared a message reflecting on the lives of the saints — using a hashtag to further spread the call.

Coincidentally, the NFL has attached the Saints’ fleur-de-lis logo to that same hashtag, meaning the black and gold were just broadcast to the Pope’s 18.7 million followers on Twitter as well as those of the Catholic faith worldwide, who number more than 1.3 billion. Customized hashtags are used by the NFL for every team, but the league’s marketing department has been phoning it in for New Orleans by declining a popular slogan in favor of the team’s name.

And this isn’t the first time this has happened. The Pope accidentally supported the team back in 2019 just hours before the Saints kicked off with the Jacksonville Jaguars, and it turned out to be a good omen — New Orleans left town with a 13-6 win under backup quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, thrust into the starting role after a season-threatening injury to Drew Brees’ throwing hand.

We may be in the middle of the offseason, but when you’re coming off of a miserable 7-win campaign in 2022 like the Saints you’ll take all the help you can get. An inadvertent endorsement from the Holy See might be worth something.

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See it: Notre Dame Commencement Weekend Mass inside Joyce Center

This is a beautiful thing to see.

Most days out of the year in which the Joyce Center is open to the public, it’s to watch basketball at Purcell Pavilion. But when Commencement Weekend arrives at Notre Dame, the facility takes on a different purpose. As is tradition, graduating students and their families gather there to attend Mass. If you haven’t seen it before, take a look at the below video and photos showing off the capacity crowd:

Yes, it’s a little strange to see the area we mostly know for basketball not look its usual way. But it’s a reminder of Notre Dame’s Catholic identity, which Irish fans should reflect on more if they aren’t already. It isn’t only about wins and losses. It’s about doing everything possible to reflect what the university stands for.

You still can cheer for the Irish all you want, but never forget how Notre Dame came to be in the first place. It was Catholic in the beginning, and it will remain Catholic forever.

Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions.

Follow Geoffrey on Twitter: @gfclark89

A Notre Dame fan’s guide to Lent

Here are some tips for the holiest time of the year.

Ash Wednesday is upon us, which means the beginning of Lent. With Notre Dame being a Catholic university, Irish fans should know as much as anybody how important this time of year is. This is when we really make an effort to better ourselves and sometimes sacrifice for the 40 days that follow. It seems like a solemn occasion because that’s what it’s meant to be.

There are three pillars of Lent that are mentioned every year: Fasting, prayer and almsgiving. To that end, here are a few ways you can apply all of those things as a Notre Dame supporter: