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LGHL Three Things To Watch from Notre Dame

Three Things To Watch from Notre Dame
Chip.Minnich via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here

NCAA Football: Central Michigan at Notre Dame

Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports

The Buckeyes travel to South Bend for the first big test of the 2023 season

For the first time since 1996, Ohio State will trek to South Bend, Indiana to play the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Ohio State and Notre Dame have faced each other in the 2006 Fiesta Bowl (Ohio State 34, Notre Dame 20) and the 2016 Fiesta Bowl (Ohio State 44, Notre Dame 28), but the Buckeyes and Fighting Irish have only met in regular season contest five times, with OSU having won the last three times. If Notre Dame wins this game, it will be the first time since a 12-7 win in South Bend back on Oct. 31, 1936.

The hype for this game is palpable, as it will be a national broadcast on NBC at 7:30pm ET. ESPN’s College Gameday will be on campus, a pretty notable acknowledgement that this is a significant game for the college football landscape.

ESPN's "College GameDay" will broadcast live from the Hesburgh Library lawn from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday.
ND#vsOSUhttps://t.co/RxZiyCghU7 pic.twitter.com/VCbyOJVhxb

— Margaret Fosmoe (@MFosmoe) September 19, 2023
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Notre Dame has invited their top recruiting targets for this game, as they believe this will be a tremendous showcase for their program. And in a nod to their program’s history, Notre Dame will be wearing green jerseys, something that is only done on very special occasions.

The history, mystique behind Notre Dame's green jerseys. https://t.co/VVo6KVETQ8

— Bill Bender (@BillBender92) September 21, 2023
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Last year, Ohio State and Notre Dame met in the 2022 season opener for both teams, as Ohio State won 21-10. At that time, Ohio State had an established quarterback in C.J. Stroud, and a seasoned offensive line, anchored by left tackle Paris Johnson, Jr., while Notre Dame struggled with its passing attack with former quarterback Tyler Buchner, now at Alabama.

One year later, the situation has switched, with Notre Dame featuring an experienced quarterback in Wake Forest graduate transfer Sam Hartman piloting the Fighting Irish offense, and a talented offensive line protecting him, led by left tackle Joe Alt. Ohio State features three new starters along their offensive line, and Kyle McCord will be making his fifth start at quarterback on the road at night against a stout Notre Dame defense.

Below are Three Things To Watch From Notre Dame, as this game has college football playoff implications for both teams...

  1. How Will Kyle McCord handle the defensive pressure?

I alluded to this up above, as McCord has not yet faced as talented a defensive opponent as he will against Notre Dame. Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman has a defensive background, and will probably unveil some new blitz packages that the Buckeyes have not seen in their film preparation. Ohio State fans will recognize former Buckeye DE Javonte Jean-Baptiste, who is now wearing jersey No. 1 for the Fighting Irish.

Kyle McCord has impressed with his quick progressions in the passing game, and that is why I will not be surprised if Ohio State TE Cade Stover is often a check down option for McCord in the event Notre Dame is blitzing on passing plays. McCord needs to continue to play smart football, taking what the defense gives him.

2. Will Ohio State be able to pressure Notre Dame’s Sam Hartman?

I wrote about the formidable Notre Dame offensive line, led by Joe Alt. Conversely, Ohio State’s defensive end tandem of Jack Sawyer and J.T. Tuimoloau will be needed to apply pressure on Notre Dame’s Sam Hartman. More than likely, Tuimoloau will be lined up opposite of Alt, so this is a battle to keep eyes and ears upon, as both Alt and Tuimoloau can use this game to boost their respective NFL Draft stock.

Ohio State's Jack Sawyer and J.T. Tuimoloau are off to a hot start heading into Saturday's showdown with Notre Dame pic.twitter.com/3Hjv9fKulI

— CFB Film Room (@CFBFilmRoom) September 20, 2023
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3. Is Ohio State ready for their first test of 2023?

In my article reflecting upon Ohio State’s 63-10 win over Western Kentucky, I wrote, “Looking at these first three games for Ohio State, I have reflected that it was almost like an NFL team’s preseason schedule.”. Preseason is now over, as Notre Dame has established themselves as a legitimate top ten team, with college football playoff aspirations.

In many ways, Ohio State has been able to identify areas of concern (offensive line play, short yardage running plays), while also determining that Kyle McCord should be their starting quarterback. This is not the Notre Dame team that Ohio State faced in last year’s season opener, as Sam Hartman has given the Fighting Irish a legitimate passing option, while Notre Dame RB Audric Estime is the type of player who will wear down an opposing defense with his physical style of play. Both sides of the ball will need to be at their best for Ohio State in this one.


This should be a good one, and I am expecting a tough, hard-nosed game that will stress both teams. Considering how it will be at night, and the Notre Dame fans will be trying to create a raucous atmosphere after a whole day of liquid preparation, it will be crucial for Ohio State to try and stem the home tide early. I see this going down to the wire, and it would not surprise me if Ohio State PK Jayden Fielding is needed to put the winning points on the board, late in the contest.

I have it Ohio State 31, Notre Dame 28.

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LGHL In Conversation Podcast: Cameron Teague Robinson says sacks don’t matter, o-line is key to beating Notre Dame

In Conversation Podcast: Cameron Teague Robinson says sacks don’t matter, o-line is key to beating Notre Dame
Matt Tamanini via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here

Syndication: The Columbus Dispatch

Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK

We talk to The Athletic’s OSU beat writer ahead of this Saturday’s game against Notre Dame.

On Land-Grant Holy Land In Conversation, we talk to people in and around Ohio State athletics, and the sporting world at large, to bring you a different insight and perspective to the teams, athletes, and university that you love.

Listen to the episode and subscribe:

Subscribe: RSS | Apple | Spotify | Google Podcasts | iHeart Radio​


On today’s episode, I am in conversation with the Ohio State beat writer for The Athletic, Cameron Teague Robinson. In our conversation, we get into what Cameron has seen from the Buckeyes in the first three weeks of the season, how he thinks the team is preparing to face off against Notre Dame, and what the one thing that OSU has to do in order to beat the Irish.

We also get into the unusual relationship between Jim Knowles and Larry Johnson, whether or not sacks matter as much in modern college football, and much more.


Connect with Cameron Teague Robinson
Twitter: @cj_teague
Read his work here: https://theathletic.com/author/cameron-teague-robinson

Connect with Matt Tamanini
Twitter: @BWWMatt

Theme music provided by www.bensound.com​


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An Interesting Look at the NCAA, NIL, and Expansion

cincibuck
Well, yeah, the guy's from UM and therefore a pompous ass, but it's an interesting take on big time college sports:

By Jordan Acker
Mr. Acker is an elected regent of the University of Michigan and served as chair from 2021 to 2022. He is a partner at the Goodman Acker law firm, and a consultant on college athletics and governance.

College sports are in a state of upheaval. As of 2025, the century-old Pacific 12 Conference will no longer exist for all intents and purposes, as U.C.L.A., U.S.C., the University of Washington and the University of Oregon have decamped for bigger paychecks from the Big Ten Conference, and Stanford and the University of California-Berkeley will henceforth compete in the now ironically named Atlantic Coast Conference.
Adjustments like these are not entirely new. Before the University of Nebraska joined the Big Ten in 2011, it was a member of the Western Interstate University Football Association, the Big Eight (once briefly known as the Big Six and the Big Seven), and the Big 12 Conference. But these changes used to be about regional or academic affinity. The recent creation of new national super conferences, however, is about one thing: getting the biggest television audience — and the biggest payout.
This past year, the Big Ten signed a seven-year, $7 billion contract with CBS, NBC and Fox. Football was already a huge business for many large state universities. But now that TV executives with no interest in academics are influencing these decisions, conferences that were once schools of similar academic value and region have been dragged into direct competition, regardless of the impact it has on student athletes.
This is a money grab, and a shameful time for all of us involved in college athletics and higher education. As regents, trustees, presidents and athletic directors, we promised to focus on our universities as academic institutions first and sponsors of intercollegiate athletics second. We failed.

The problem has been the lack of direction and vision from the so-called grown-ups in the room — the National Collegiate Athletic Association. For decades, N.C.A.A. member institutions have spent their valuable time arguing (and losing) before courts and pleading on Capitol Hill for special protections of their “amateur” model, in which student athletes play their sport purely for the enjoyment of the activity, all while their coaches and administrators make millions.
Most recently, the N.C.A.A. and its members spent years trying to prevent two changes to the collegiate athletics model. One was the allowance of Name Image and Likeness compensation, which is essentially the ability of student athletes to engage in and be paid for outside advertising deals. The other was the widespread use by football and basketball players of the transfer portal, a website that allows student athletes to announce their interest in switching to another college so that coaches from other institutions can reach out, as they sometimes do in mere minutes. The N.C.A.A. says both changes do grave harm to the beloved model.

While Charlie Baker, the N.C.A.A.’s president, lobbies for one unpassable bill after another, his supporters repeat talking points about how the enterprise that has mismanaged college sports for generations should be saved for the good of American society and the academic mission of universities. At the same time, the Big Ten Conference, flush with millions of dollars of new TV revenue, helped destroy the Pacific 12 Conference, a more than 100-year-old institution and for years its “sister conference.”
There is nothing amateur about a model that negotiates billion-dollar deals and pays its coaches and administrators millions while denying athletes the ability to share in the revenue or even to have a voice in determining whether these deals are a good idea. The Southeastern Conference just agreed to a 10-year, $300-million-per-year deal with Disney, which owns ESPN, for its TV rights. This hypocrisy is too much to bear.
The steps that universities like mine — large institutions with prominent athletic departments and football programs — should take are clear: First, they should meet to consider how a revenue-sharing model would work within the current structure of the N.C.A.A., and release their plan for how to grant players employee or quasi-employee status. Second, if the N.C.A.A. is unwilling or unable to help schools through this dramatic transition, they should leave and found their own organization, similar to how the English Premier League broke away from the rest of English soccer in 1992. They can create a more efficient model with a sustainable infrastructure to protect the interests of student athletes.

College football teams get chartered planes and nice hotels. But for Olympic sports like field hockey, track and field, and crew, which most athletes play, flying commercial is the norm. For a University of Michigan team to travel to a game at the University of Oregon, for example, requires over seven and a half hours of travel on Delta Airlines, with a layover in Salt Lake City or Seattle. That’s longer than a flight from Detroit to London. As part of the Big Ten Conference, a Rutgers volleyball player might fly more than 2,800 miles to compete in a game at the University of Washington on a Tuesday, before returning for a Wednesday morning exam. Calling this amateur or college athletics is simply laughable. Many student athletes rarely have the chance to step foot in a classroom, attending their classes online and taking proctored exams in hotel ballrooms near the next game site.

The only way any of it can begin to make sense is if players get a percentage of the money that conferences make off that labor.
There are a number of ways it could happen. For example, all student athletes at the University of Michigan would become employees or independent contractors of the Big Ten Conference, and would receive a percentage of the $59 million or so each member school makes per year from TV rights. Another model would involve the networks directly engaging in name, image and likeness deals with student athletes from major conferences, allowing these student athletes to make a guaranteed income without increasing their time commitment significantly. Say the Big Ten required its TV partners to share 30 percent of its revenues with its student athletes, each athlete would receive a percentage of that. At Michigan, where roughly 900 athletes compete in Ann Arbor, that would mean a wide receiver or field hockey player would get approximately $20,000 per year.

In early August, during the latest round of Big Ten expansion, I heard from leaders from across other power conferences — from university presidents to athletic directors and coaches — several of whom agreed with a plan for revenue sharing. Two current Big Ten Football coaches, Iowa’s head coach, Kirk Ferentz, and Michigan’s coach, Jim Harbaugh, have already expressed support for revenue sharing. It’s time for leaders who agree privately to help create a critical mass of support. The N.C.A.A.’s rules on revenue sharing are driven by their members; this change will not come from the N.C.A.A.’s home base of Indianapolis, but from leaders at member institutions speaking frankly about the challenges to come. It must also take into account the input of student athletes, who are too often shut out of decisions that directly affect them.

Make no mistake, the courts are judging the Big Ten Conference, and the other major N.C.A.A.’ conferences, on their behavior. As Justice Brett Kavanaugh of the Supreme Court wrote in a concurring opinion to the landmark 2021 N.C.A.A. v. Alston decision, “[n]owhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate . . . The N.C.A.A. is not above the law.”

With several other cases pending, the status quo is crumbling quickly. If the governing bodies and universities do not choose to reform soon, the courts, tired of the hypocrisy, will force their hand.
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Google NO. 9 NOTRE DAME FIGHTING IRISH HOST NO. 6 OHIO STATE BUCKEYES IN TOP TEN SHOWDOWN THIS SATURDAY AT 7:30 P.M. ET ON NBC AND PEACOCK - NBC Sports Press

NO. 9 NOTRE DAME FIGHTING IRISH HOST NO. 6 OHIO STATE BUCKEYES IN TOP TEN SHOWDOWN THIS SATURDAY AT 7:30 P.M. ET ON NBC AND PEACOCK - NBC Sports Pressbox
via Google News using key phrase "Buckeyes".

NO. 9 NOTRE DAME FIGHTING IRISH HOST NO. 6 OHIO STATE BUCKEYES IN TOP TEN SHOWDOWN THIS SATURDAY AT 7:30 P.M. ET ON NBC AND PEACOCK NBC Sports Pressbox

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