Tag: Notre Dame on NBC

Watch: Applebee’s commercial college football fans can’t stand

Will you be able to stand this ad?

Are you planning to watch a lot of college football this season? If you’re reading this site, you most likely are. If you have flipped on any game in the early days of the season, chances are you’ve seen this Applebee’s commercial, which features a parody of the recent hit “Fancy Like” by Walker Hayes:

It really doesn’t matter whether you like it or not. All we know is that according to Awful Announcing, it has incurred the wrath of college football fans the world over. To make matters worse, there are four such Applebee’s ads out there.

Do college football fans in general not enjoy country pop or TikTok? Is it simply the frequency with which this commercial has been airing? All we know is the ad doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. We don’t know if Applebee’s has sold any ad space for Notre Dame home broadcasts on NBC as it has elsewhere, but you better brace yourself for the possibility now.

No mask, vaccination, negative COVID test needed at Notre Dame games

Things you need to know about attending games this season.

Douglas Farmer, NBC’s Notre Dame beat reporter, recently called for all football game attendees this year to be fully vaccinated. However, it doesn’t appear that will be the case. In an email to Notre Dame staff and students, athletic director Jack Swarbrick laid out guidelines for the Irish’s first two games: Sept. 11 against Toledo and Sept. 18 against Purdue. Nowhere does it indicate that attendees at Notre Dame Stadium will be required to wear a mask or show proof of vaccination or recent negative test for COVID-19:

Additional information for game days also was released. Among those announcements and reminders are the return of the Friday night pep rally, Notre Dame Stadium going cashless and full-time mobile ticketing. If you plan on attending a game in South Bend this season, it would be helpful for you to look this information over.

The season is almost here, folks. Let’s celebrate it enthusiastically but safely as the pandemic continues.

Douglas Farmer: Fans at Notre Dame Stadium should be fully vaccinated

What do you make of this?

Like many other states, all of Indiana is experiencing high transmission of COVID-19 as the U.S. weathers the spread of the Delta variant. In St. Joseph County, both cases and hospitalizations have continued to rise. With Notre Dame’s home opener two-and-a-half weeks away and full houses expected to return to Notre Dame Stadium, this isn’t exactly what many people hoping to take in the game-day experience in South Bend want to hear. For Douglas Farmer, Notre Dame’s NBC beat reporter, only one solution will do:

Farmer’s position hardly is a radical one. LSU, Oregon and Oregon State already have announced similar measures for fans planning to come to their games. With the Pfizer vaccine receiving full approval from the FDA earlier this week, it’s possible other schools will follow suit.

Do you believe a requirement for proof of vaccination or recent negative COVID test would be justified? Are the schools that already have implemented it overstepping their boundaries? Ultimately, Notre Dame has the final say on what it wants its fans to do. If it does anything, we should hear soon.

Pete Sampson looking forward to return of Notre Dame pep rallies

Nothing like a pep rally to pump up Irish fans.

As part of its countdown to the 2021 season, the staff at The Athletic is looking at the 50 things it’s most looking forward to. For Notre Dame beat reporter Pete Sampson, the choice is easy. In his contribution to the list, which only can be read by subscribers, Sampson can’t wait for the return of the Friday night pep rallies. While it remains unclear how they will look with COVID-19 still around, the plan is to have one ahead of the Irish’s home opener Sept. 11 against Toledo.

With everyone and their mother able to attend these pep rallies without the need for tickets, it really provides a sense of community for those who pledge their loyalty to Notre Dame. Sampson probably sums it up best in these two paragraphs:

“Yes, Notre Dame’s pep rallies can seem stuck in time, callbacks to when this place was more a blue-collar Catholic school than a powerhouse international institution. That’s part of what makes them great when the moment is right. The pep rally is an hour of singular focus and memory-making where the football team is more supporting actor and the crowd takes the lead. The signs, the chanting, the skits, the body paint. It’s all a devotional to Notre Dame the community. It makes Notre Dame feel like the biggest high school in America.

No college program has more support from a smaller student body than Notre Dame. That’s seen Saturdays on NBC. But it’s felt on Friday nights early in the season when the Notre Dame community gathers to show what separates this place and this football program’s ability to bring people together.”

You can’t beat something like that. Why would anyone who works or studies at Notre Dame or anyone who lives in or near South Bend want to be anywhere else the Friday before a home game? Name one thing that brings the people area closer together than that. Go ahead. I’ll wait for your answer.

Notre Dame football could be in cards if Maria Taylor heads to NBC

Could NBC’s Irish coverage look a little different in 2021?

Maria Taylor recently found herself in the middle of a controversy involving ESPN colleague Rachel Nichols. Consequently, she took over for Nichols as host of “NBA Countdown” for this year’s NBA Finals coverage. However, Taylor’s days with the four-letter network appear to be numbered. A report from Front Office Sports indicates that Taylor is extremely close to a deal with NBC.

The reported deal, which the source says is “at the half-yard line”, would offer Taylor a variety of opportunities. One possibility is said to be NBC’s Notre Dame football coverage. It doesn’t specify what role she would have as that obviously can’t be determined as of yet, but it does open up the discussion of who on the current broadcast team she could replace.

Kathryn Tappen has been the sideline reporter since she joined NBC in 2014. Jac Collinsworth only has one season as the pregame/halftime host under his belt. It will be worth keeping an eye on what NBC does as the 2021 season gets closer to kickoff.

Tale of the Tape: Team Stats – Notre Dame vs. Syracuse

Don’t expect much different from Notre Dame when it plays Syracuse in its regular-season finale.

Don’t expect much different from Notre Dame when it plays Syracuse in its regular-season finale. A dominant defense, especially on the ground and in third-down situations, will compliment a strong rushing offense. Overall, that offense is more likely to find success on third down than not, and it has the ability to pick up score regularly. Even if it’s not facing third down, the offense will pick up first downs anyway, and it will hold onto the ball for long periods of time.

The Orange practically have nothing to counter any of that. They rank dead last nationally in time of possession, second-to-last both in total offense and giving up first downs, third-to-last in red zone offense and fourth-to-last in rushing offense and third-down conversions. All of this is why this game will be over quickly, which will be bad news for NBC’s ratings in its final Irish telecast of the year. But if you’re on the team or simply a fan, you’ll take a nice easy game before the real work begins.

Notre Dame Football on NBC Crew Will Call Bears-Packers on SNF

Since Notre Dame is on the road at North Carolina this week, Irish fans will watch the game on ABC.

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Since Notre Dame is on the road at North Carolina this week, Irish fans will watch the game on ABC. But that doesn’t mean the Notre Dame on NBC broadcast crew won’t be calling football over the weekend. In fact, they’ll be on the call for when the NFL’s oldest rivalry is renewed at Lambeau Field:

Irish fans who really like Mike Tirico in particular should appreciate him while they have the chance. Conventional wisdom is that he’s being groomed to eventually take over Sunday Night Football full-time whenever Al Michaels retires. He knocked the Irish’s upset win over Clemson out of the park, but nothing less should have been expected from him.

In the meantime, football fans who don’t watch Notre Dame will get to experience a crew they haven’t heard in 2020. Nothing less than the best is expected when covering Irish football on television, but we already knew that, didn’t we?

College GameDay Coming to South Bend for Notre Dame-Clemson

No Trevor Lawrence doesn’t mean no national interest when Notre Dame welcomes Clemson to South Bend.

No Trevor Lawrence doesn’t mean no national interest when Notre Dame welcomes Clemson to South Bend. In fact, ESPN has decided to give the game the highest honor it can bestow. That’s right. College GameDay will broadcast from South Bend ahead of kickoff.

During ESPN’s coverage, it showed a graphic that put this contest at the top of a list of games this season that have College Football Playoff implications. The Tigers might be able to afford to drop this game and still sneak into the bracket, but this is it for the Irish. If they can’t win this, it likely will take a miracle for them to get back into consideration for the playoff. So with or without Lawrence, ESPN decided it simply couldn’t ignore this game.

The hype building up to this game will be unreal, and it only makes sense that this be the culmination of it all. NBC might be covering the actual game, but ESPN just gave itself a nice piece of the ratings pie. And whether the Irish win or lose, the national spotlight will be a lot of fun.

Notre Dame TV Ratings Huge vs. Duke

When Notre Dame hosted Duke last weekend it was the highest viewership for an Irish afternoon opener in 14 years. Details here!

You might not look at Duke as being a massive matchup on the football field but the nation saw it as the most compelling college football game last Saturday as the Notre Dame opener attracted 4.371 million viewers to the NBC telecast.

It was the most-viewed Notre Dame afternoon home opener since the Irish last welcomed Penn State to South Bend way back in 2006.  It’s also the most-viewed Notre Dame home contest since the Fighting Irish battled Michigan in primetime to kickoff the 2018 season.

Let’s not get it confused as there weren’t a plethora of big-time matchups across college football last weekend and the Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC aren’t yet playing, but the 4.371 million viewers are the most to watch any college football game so far in the early parts of the unique 2020 season.

WATCH: NBC Sports Notre Dame season opening hype video

Check out NBC Sports Notre Dame hype video prior to the season starting on Saturday.

It’s game week and all of us are excited. Football is finally back after a much longer hiatus than expected. Normally, a spring game would have been an appetizer to the regular season, but with them canceled, our football tanks were left on empty. They’re starting to fill up and NBC Sports is just as excited as we are. Check out their hype video prior to the season starting.