The Puppy and The General
Notre Dame is going with a 3-4 defense this year, meaning that in most situations, they are electing to have three traditional linemen in the trenches, and four linebackers behind the line. It’s not a bad option, especially in college football and especially for a team like Notre Dame, which plays a lot of different kinds of teams during the season. If you are strong at the linebacker position, and you need some wiggle room for variations of offenses that you’ll face, it might work wonders. But anyways, that brings us to our point: The Puppy and the General.
If you didn’t know already, the nickname for sophomore inside linebacker Brian Smith is “the Puppy” and the nickname for fifth-year senior inside linebacker Maurice Crum is “the General.” To find out why, you’re going to have to read the article. The two have been paired up this summer at training camp, and they will be working a lot together on the field. If the Puppy and the General can work well this season, the defense might be improved greatly from a year ago.
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Fighting Irish Men’s Soccer Preview
Are you as tired as we are of reading season preview after season preview for Notre Dame football? They all say the same thing, and yet none of them seem to say too much. Anyways, sorry about the rant. Well we have another Fighting Irish preview for you, although this time it might be a little off the beaten path. It’s a men’s soccer preview. And don’t worry- this one is as thorough as they come, and you don’t even have to have a paid subscription. It’s free when you visit UND.com.
The basic line on the Notre Dame men’s soccer team is that they’ll probably be good enough to get to another NCAA Tournament quarterfinals (their third straight [knock on wood]). The problem areas for the Irish seem to be at the front and the way back, as they lost some quality seniors to graduation at the forward and goalkeeper positions. However, the midfield and defense look as strong as ever. If you are interested in getting out to a Notre Dame soccer game this year, we suggest you take the opportunity to do so, because the Irish should be a great team in 2008-09.
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Sports Illustrated Predicts Irish Bowl Game, Ranking
Sports Illustrated.com has a couple of predictions for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, the first is their preseason ranking, and the second is their bowl game finish (assuming they get into a bowl game this year- knock on wood). The preseason ranking can be found here. Basically, the sports writers at Sports Illustrated are ranking the Irish a little low this year- but never fret, the Michigan Wolverines are still just a tad lower. They aren’t in the top 25. Heck, Notre Dame isn’t even in the top 50. It’s a bummer to look at, but hey- we’d all rather the Irish earn their Top 25 ranking by season’s end. So far they haven’t done anything to deserve a high ranking.
The bowl game finish, which should have a little to do with both Notre Dame’s clout in the college football world and the preseason power rankings, has the Irish playing Oregon State in the …. Well, let’s not spoil it. Click here to see the bowl game that the Irish are expected to play in.
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Notre Dame’s Olympic Review
If you’ve been following either the NBC coverage of the Summer Games in Beijing, or the Olympic Coverage at the Notre Dame Blog, you are probably well aware that the University of Notre Dame had several former athletes present at the games. If you watched the Soccer semifinals, four Notre Dame athletes competed against one another. Several athletes won gold medals. Below, we rank the Domer athletes by their performance at the Olympics.
- Mariel Zagunis – Won the U.S.’s first gold medal at the Games, then won bronze in the team fencing event as well.
- Shannon Boxx – Won gold with Team U.S.A. Soccer. Played all 600 minutes. Assist in game winner against Canada
- Kate (Sobrero) Markgraf – Won gold with Team USA soccer. Played 510 minutes.
- Candace Chapman – Team Canada Soccer. Scored the team’s first ever Olympic goal.
- Melissa Tancredi - Team Canada Soccer. Played 177 of 310 possible minutes.
- Selim Nurudeen – Nigeria Track Team. Advanced to the second round of 110 high hurdles.
- Thomas Chamney – Ireland Track team – Finished 1:47.66, just out of qualifying time in 800 meters.
- Gerek Meinhardt – U.S. Fencing Team. Won first match in foil.
- Kelley Hurley – U.S. Fencing. Fell in first round, but still a student at Notre Dame.
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Some Independents Predictions
Mark Schlabach of ESPN has a short read for you Domer fans. Five quick hit predictions from Mark Schlabach to start off your day. We tried to give you guys an easy read as it’s the Monday of a loooong week. The week before a three day weekend like this one, there the third day of the weekend is the next Monday, is always a bit longer than usual. Anyways, about the predictions.
Mark Schlabach seems to think that the Irish will be better this season. Nothing new, right? We’ve been hearing this from the football writers for months and months. However, unlike most of the other guys who play it safe, Mark makes some solid quotas for the Irish- one has to do with a bowl and the other has to do with a Michigan game.
The article is also good for fans who think of the four independents, Notre Dame, Navy, Army and Western Kentucky, as an ad-hoc conference. Because they are usually organized as a conference in the standings, it’s easy to think of them as a sort of organized group. Will the Irish be at the top of those standings? According to Mark Schlabach, Western Kentucky will give them a run for their money.
To get Notre Dame Fighting Irish football tickets, go to StubHub.com.
New Monument Honors National Championship Teams
Fans that purchase tickets to see the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team in action this season will get to see a new display outside one of the five main gates leading into Notre Dame Stadium. The new sculptures, officially opened for viewing earlier in the week, are meant to honor the 11 consensus national championship teams of Notre Dame history. The sculptures are, apparently, replicas of the national championship rings, with the names the scores of the games during those seasons, and the team captains embroidered on the side of the monuments.
The addition of this monument is part of an on-going effort to immortalize the tradition and former glory of Notre Dame football. There are already of the monuments at other gates around the stadium, so if you are lucky enough to get tickets this year, or you find yourself on campus sometime soon, you ought to check them out. UND.com has a video of the new structures, so you can also check that out, if you’re a Domer fan who has left South Bend.
To get Notre Dame Fighting Irish football tickets, go to StubHub.com.
Former Notre Dame Soccer Stars Help U.S. Win Gold!
Kate Markgraf and Shannon Boxx, of Notre Dame classes ’98 and ’99, respectively, have just won gold medals at the Olympics! Both soccer players were starters for the U.S. national team that defeated Brazil earlier this morning at the Olympic Soccer Final in Beijing, China. The game went into overtime, and although the Brazilian team pretty much dominated the show, the Carli Lloyd was able to land her sole overtime shot, which wound up being the only goal of the match. The U.S. won 1-0.
This is the third time in four Olympic games that the U.S. team has won gold. Shannon Boxx and Kate Markgraf know what it’s like to win on such a big stage, but this time, it was perhaps a tad bit sweeter, as the win came against one of their fiercest national team rivals, Brazil. Congratulations to Shannon and Kate for their brilliant performances. If you didn’t get up early enough to watch the game, you ought to check out the replay today or tonight, because it was a fantastic finish.
To get Notre Dame Fighting Irish football tickets, go to StubHub.com.
Michigan State Spartans Preview
Yesterday we did the Michigan preview, and now the time has come to go over the second big test of the season for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team, their matchup with the Michigan State Spartans.
While the Spartans are not expected to be as good as the Wolverines, the Michigan two-step will still be plenty tough. In the preseason AP, USA Today and ESPN Polls the Spartans receive votes, but are just outside of the Top 25. Last season the Spartans played well in the beginning of the year but fell asleep in the conference schedule, going 3-5 in the Big Ten, while finishing 7-6 overall. Still they were invited to the Champs Sports Bowl, so the season wasn’t a complete failure.
The Spartans absolutely clobbered the Irish in their matchup last season, so the Domers will probably be looking for some sweet revenge. Unfortunately, Michigan State will play Notre Dame at their home, so they’ll have the home town edge. The good thing for the Irish is that the Spartans are expected to be about as good or worse than last season, or so says most of the season previews for the team. The Spartans are without Devin Thomas, Kellen Davis, Jonal Saint-Dic, Ervin Baldwin and Travis Key this year.
To get Notre Dame Fighting Irish football tickets, go to StubHub.com.
Looking at Michigan, Notre Dame’s First Big Test
Notre Dame will open up their upcoming football season at home against the San Diego State Aztecs, and although the first game of the year will inevitably be a little rough around the edges, the Irish are expected to win handily. The line on the game isn’t set yet, but it should wind up being double digits. The Domers’ first big test will come in their second game, a home battle with the Michigan Wolverines, one of their biggest rivals.
Last year Michigan lost that shocker to Appalachian State, but after that they looked pretty good. They finished 9-4, went to a Bowl game, and had a 6-2 conference record in the Big Ten. The Wolverines lost a few players to the draft, including the No. 1 overall, but they still have a solid base of talent on both offense and defense, and they always bring in great recruits. The Wolverines beat up the Irish last season in what was, then, a game between two teams without a win. Michigan had previously lost to Oregon as well as App St. But they wound up absolutely destroying the Irish 38-0. This year ought to be different, but clearly Notre Dame will have to come up with something good to get back at Michigan for the embarrassment last season.
To get Notre Dame Fighting Irish football tickets, go to StubHub.com.
ESPN’s Graham Watson on Notre Dame Football
As the season gets closer to starting time there are all sports or new articles out there about Notre Dame. Given the immense popularity of the team, there’s going to be a lot of stories about the team. Everybody’s got an opinion, and they all seem to be very similar. This particular story by Graham Watson at ESPN is interesting because it mentions the offensive and defensive line more than most of the others. According to EPSN’s article about the program, Weis had this to say about the trenches next season:
“You know, I think that we wanted to make sure that the one thing we did was put ourselves in a position where we could compete physically on the interior parts of the offensive and defensive line. The one thing you have to do is let them play physical at the point of attack. … I’m interested to see how much the size and strength correlates to performance on the field.”
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