Tag: Miami (Ohio)

Pro Day roundup: Jaguars well-represented at South Carolina workout

The Jaguars are making the pro day rounds, which has included stops at South Carolina, Texas, and Clemson.

Teams across the NFL are dishing out big money to acquire free agents, but the Jacksonville Jaguars have been watching from the sideline.

After weeks of reports that the Jaguars are focusing on building through the 2023 NFL Draft following their 2022 spending spree, those prognostications have come to fruition. Through the first 24 hours of the legal tampering period, Jacksonville reached no agreements with any pending free agents and watched as right tackle Jawaan Taylor and tight end Chris Manhertz found deals elsewhere.

Much of the Jaguars’ attention was instead in Columbia, S.C. where the South Carolina Gamecocks held their pro day. Reportedly in attendance for the workout were the team’s defensive backs coach Deshea Townsend and defensive line coach Brentson Buckner.

South Carolina has one of the top cornerback prospects in Cam Smith as well as cornerback Darius Rush, who may be a Day 2 selection. The Gamecocks also have defensive tackle Zacch Pickens, who was put through his Monday workout by Buckner.

Pickens measured in at 6’4, 291 pounds at the 2023 NFL Scouting Combine. He was one of six defensive tackles at the event to finish his 40-yard dash in under 4.9 seconds and one of four to eclipse 30 inches in the vertical jump.

Other pro days:

  • The Jaguars were one of two teams (along with the Buccaneers) present at the Southeastern University Pro Day, according to running back Bryan Bell. The back was a four-time All-Conference selection in the NAIA’s Sun Conference.
  • The Jaguars were one of six teams spotted at the Miami (Ohio) RedHawks Pro Day. The top prospect to watch was Mac Hippenhammer, a former Penn State receiver who twice earned All-MAC honors after transferring in 2020.
  • All 32 teams were reportedly in attendance at the Texas Pro Day. The headliner, running back Bijan Robinson, didn’t participate but Texas also has defensive lineman Moro Ojomo and running back Roschon Johnson among the other notables.
  • The Jaguars were among 13 teams at the UNLV Pro Day last week where all eyes were on linebackers Adam Plant Jr. and Austin Ajake.
  • All 32 teams were in attendance at the Clemson Pro Day on Tuesday where pass rusher Myles Murphy, defensive lineman Bryan Bresee, and linebacker Trenton Simpson are all hoping to be first-round selections.

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Running back recruit will visit Notre Dame

Hope the Irish can land him.

Notre Dame never can have enough players at skill positions. That’s because you never know when you might find the next player to electrify crowds at Notre Dame Stadium. That surely is the reason the Irish staff is thrilled to see the below tweet from Tony Phillips Jr., a running back recruit from Bishop McNamara in Kankakee, Illinois:

Unless there’s something we don’t know about, Saturday stands to be a busy a day for Phillips because he already has tweeted about going to Illinois on the same day. He hasn’t tweeted about visiting the Illini since:

In March, Phillips also visited Purdue and Iowa, so it’s obvious that a lot of Big Ten programs are looking heavily at him. In January, he received offers from Massachusetts and Miami (Ohio). Those were on top of the offers he already had received from Syracuse, Tennessee and Florida Atlantic.

This kid will play somewhere with a fine reputation in college, and let’s hope it’s Notre Dame.

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Notre Dame vs. Georgia Tech: Second-Quarter Analysis

We have another half of this, folks.

We’re only at halftime, and we’re already running out of ways to describe Notre Dame’s dominance over Georgia Tech. That we have 30 more minutes of this contest to go won’t convince college football fans who don’t root for the Irish to keep it on. As much as NBC would love to have a high viewership throughout its final Irish broadcast of the season, that appears unlikely now. Still, it’s nice to see the Irish have a 45-0 lead at the midway point of the game.

The Yellow Jackets punted very early in the second quarter, and it only continued to get bad for them from there. The Irish breezed down the field on their first possession of the frame and ultimately got a 5-yard touchdown run from Logan Diggs. After another Yellow Jackets punt, Diggs scored again. This one came on a 20-yard pass from Jack Coan on the fourth play of the drive. He was set up nicely thanks to a 26-yard run by Kyren Williams.

The Yellow Jackets then put together something resembling a respectable offensive drive, picking up two first downs and getting into Irish territory. All this resulted in was another punt. Yes, it was that kind of first half for the visitors.

The Irish started their next drive on the 11-yard line, but Coan solved that quickly with a 51-yard pass to Kevin Austin. He soon followed those with an 18-yard completion to Michael Mayer and a 19-yard completion to George Takacs to get to the 1-yard line. While it took three plays to reach the end zone from there, Williams did it. That put a stamp on the frame and gave the Irish their most first-half points since their game against Miami (Ohio) in 2017.

The Yellow Jackets moved quickly in their final drive of the half. They even got into field-goal range this time. With this stroke of good fortune, Jude Kelley came on for a 47-yard attempt in the final seconds. Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa preserved the first-half shutout by getting a hand on the kick and causing Kelley to miss. Some things just will stay the same for now.

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Notre Dame part of tough nonconference schedules for Power Five teams

The Irish will be part of tough schedules for some teams this year.

Any team that has Notre Dame on its nonconference schedule automatically receives a bump in the strength of that schedule. Even during seasons in which the Irish struggle, there at least is a bump interest for that game. Either way, any matchup with the Irish is serious business.

Jerry Palm of CBS Sports has released a piece comparing nonconference schedules for the entire Football Bowl Subdivision. For the Power Five conferences and the AAC, he lists the nonconference schedules for the teams he believes have the toughest and weakest in those conferences. Notre Dame pops up in the toughest nonconference schedule for Georgia Tech in the ACC, USC in the Pac-12, and Cincinnati in the AAC. In fact, Palm ranks the Yellow Jackets as having the fifth toughest nonconference schedule in all of the FBS.

Here are the other nonconference opponents for all the teams that have the Irish on their schedules:

  • Georgia Tech: Georgia, Northern Illinois, Kennesaw State
  • USC: BYU, San Jose State
  • Cincinnati: Indiana, Miami (Ohio), Murray State

Notre Dame’s Ivey records first career win

The Notre Dame women’s basketball team improved to 1-1 on the young season Sunday as they won new head coach Niele Ivey’s first home game.

The Notre Dame women’s basketball team got off to a tough start over Thanksgiving weekend as they fell on the road to Ohio, 86-85, despite entering the fourth quarter with a 65-62 lead.

Better news came in the form of new head coach Niele Ivey’s first career win as the Irish bounced back by trouncing Miami (Ohio) on Sunday, 88-68, and moving to 1-1 on the young season.

Sixth-year-senior-guard Destinee Walker paced Notre Dame with 24 points while freshman Maddy Westbeld added 19 points, eight rebounds, four assists, three steals, and a block.

Notre Dame got out of the gates quickly as they took a 45-30 lead to halftime and cruised to a fairly easy victory.

Ivey was cleared excited to get win number-one out of the way on what was an understandably emotional day.

“This was a dream, something I visualized, something I’ve prayed about, just to be able to say that I can get a win,” Ivey said, sounding both relieved and thrilled. “To be the head coach and walking into Purcell Pavilion was an absolute dream.”

Ivey and the 1-1 Fighting Irish return to the court on December 3 when they host No. 24 Michigan on Thursday night.

 

Jack Swarbrick Confident Notre Dame Will Play Full Season

Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said Tuesday that he has confidence the Irish will play a full 2020 season.

Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick told reporters in a Zoom news conference Tuesday that he has confidence the Irish will play a full 2020 season. College football is in a state of a limbo overall thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, but in the event of a shortened schedule, it’s possible that Power Five commissioners could decide their teams only will play within their conferences. Because the Irish remain independent for football, this would cost them 10 of their 12 scheduled opponents.

Notre Dame’s 2020 schedule includes games against six ACC teams, one apiece from the Big Ten and SEC and its annual meetings with Pac-12 teams USC and Stanford. An 11th game, the annual contest against Navy which currently is scheduled to open the season in Dublin, Ireland, also could be in jeopardy if non-Power Five conferences also choose to play conference games only. Obviously, this arrangement would decimate the Irish of their competition, and who knows what would happen after that?

In his regular conversations with the 10 Football Bowl Subdivision commissioners, which come with being part of the College Football Playoff management committee, Swarbrick said he has pushed for a conference-only model “plus one”. This would maintain such traditional rivalries as Clemson-South Carolina and Cincinnati-Miami (Ohio). Regardless, he believes the committee’s collaboration and communication gives college football “a chance” to develop a policy to bring the sport back.

There are many hurdles to clear to have the season everyone wants, but Swarbrick doesn’t sound willing to allow his football program to be left out in the cold. In a worst-case scenario, Irish fans will circle back to this and point out an empty promise. However, even the most conference-loyal leaders have to admit that college football simply can’t exist without Notre Dame. It’s only fair to give the Irish just as much a chance to compete as everyone else.