Numerous seams visible, including one that ran the entire length of the endzone. You'd think with ND money, their field would look better than Penn High School, but I guess not.

The jumbotron should be limited to replays. The music is obnoxious. And lest anyone get all "OK, boomer" with me, B15 was with me and felt the same way. The hype buildup to kickoff is entirely too long. I became bored after 2 minutes of it. Just get on with the fucking game. The montages during commercials are overdone, too. Shut the fuck up and just let the band play. Broadcasting the pregame prayer is obnoxious and creepy. Stop that immediately.

The public address announcer is cheesy. Announce the plays and add relevant information. Stop with the goofy "first down" call. Mike Collins was miles better than this guy. I felt like I was at a South Bend Cubs game.

and is in much better shape than last year

which will no doubt some day be sponsored by Gurley Leep. If Freeman is aware of this exploitation, he needs to nix it post haste.

It is truly awful. The crowd seems unsure as to whether to join in, cheer, or just leer at the almighty tron.

It is one of many things that bring me sadness about the current stadium experience.

I do laugh at the dichotomy of having the prayer and the "commercial" for post-game mass (seems to be the single most exciting thing for the students - they go nuts when Fr. Pete appears) and then the inevitable ride on the third down "Crazy Train" with the prince of darkness himself.

At least on Saturday there wasn't. It was an EDM/Techno song for 3rd, and an instrumental of Vengaboys "We Like To Party" if the opposing 3rd down conversion was unsuccessful.

I believe there was one appearance of the old standby in the second half. They have certainly moved away from Ozzy being a 3rd down staple.

Almost as a self-aware joke. (3rd and long, game out of reach, late)

discreetly done. Like a Crazy F'n Train by Ozzy Osbourne!!!

It would not pain me if the big, loud audio/video board were to someday, suddenly, spectacularly degrade to smithereens. Like something in a Charles Bronson Death Wish movie, only this time with más vengeance.

I’d better pay more attention. A certain B15 might have been talking my ear off.

It's a private moment in the locker room. The fact it's being broadcast to the stadium is very awkward.
Oh, and also, when the PA says "let's go live to the ND locker room blah blah blah for the team prayer", that isn't live. You can clearly see players in the tunnel during the "live" look in the locker room.

I don't know anyone that thinks it's a good idea

It seems like an intrusion on what should be a private moment for the team.

45 minutes ago I received the post-game “experience” survey from ND. In the comment section I asked them to stop televising the pre-game prayer. If you feel the same way and get the survey please let them know.

Should we cheer, stand silently, join in? It's odd to have that shown to us. I decided to remove my hat and mumble the words to myself. Everyone around me seemed to look around curiously because it's presented so oddly. We are a Catholic school and if they would have a priest lead the stadium in a brief prayer around the time of the national anthem, that would seem fine. But to have the PA announcer say, "And now we take you to the lockerroom for the Notre Dame team prayer!" and then have a private moment shown on the video board is very strange.

should be doing to be respectful or polite or whatever.

1 and 4. Pyne was awful in Q1, throwing short balls at feet and knees. Mayer was hardly targeted except on the TD. Didn't look to see if we was being kept in for blocking or because Cal was focusing on him. Pyne was like the Statue of Liberty at times. He stood in the pocket (good) but seemed focused on only one part of the field. I think we are now seeing why Buchner is ahead of him on the depth chart.

2 and 3. We had the Cal QB dead to rights on one play in the backfield but our defender completely whiffed.

5 we were silent because Cal became that close to catching the TD *and* because on two previous good plays we had made, the calls got (correctly) reversed. Being at that end of the stadium at the end, we couldn't believe it hadn't been caught, including the Cal fans I was with. We had dodged a bullet.

6. At least one time, the scoreboard was being used to drive a message by one of the players that could considered controversial, depending on how the message was interpreted. I didn't notice it but a member of our party did. They need to steer completely clear of anything remotely controversial during the game.

7 and 8 I had less problem with the stadium announcer than I had with previous stadium announcers. You're right that there were no announcements about other scores but (a) it's all there on smartphones now (b) there weren't any major upsets (c) they probably want to keep people from hitting their smartphones except for QC code look-ups for the song of the day.

It was interesting that you could only choose between two songs for song of the day.

Other random comments:

- Manti T'eo got a great reception 25-30 minutes before game time when introduced, so loud that toward the end of the preamble by the announcer, you couldn't hear what he was saying. T'eo was moved to tears by the reaction he got.

- I sat in a Cal section (Section 115) for 3/4 of the game with my Cal grad cousin and two of his Cal grad friends (both of whom had fathers that went to USC). They are a long-suffering fan base and have seen Cal piss games away in every way possible over the decades. It's a good fan group and there was no swearing, no fighting, etc. Lots of good spirit among them. Thumbs up on this group while I was wearing green in their midst. I got to realizing that maybe ND chose this as a "green" game because of Cal's colors being blue and gold as well.

It was a great day weather-wise and the Cal folks I was with had a great time walking the campus and taking in the tailgaters (we tailgated in the Joyce lot). They have nothing like that back in Berkley.

By the way, in sitting in the visitors sections, it's amazing to realize how clear the videoboard is even at the angle.

- No snafus with the ticketing, though I wondered if I could screenshot tickets to others in case they didn't get to the stadium at the same time. My tickets were in Google Wallet when we whipped through them.

- Very glad they raised the bottle limit. Really, I'd like to suggest they make it permanent but the bean counters will probably vote it down. Meanwhile I saw long lines at one of the lemonade stands during the game.

- Post-game Mass at the Basilica was great. Even with a church packed with people in green, it was said very well and perhaps because we'd been in the sun for hours, being in a cool church out of the sun really helped me focus on the Mass. Only lasted 60-65 minutes even with a packed house. The doors were closed at one point because it was jammed, so some on our party attended Mass in the crypt (which ended sooner, if time is of the essence).

- There was one replay when Cal was at the north end-zone and thought they had scored (they scored on the next play) For reasons unknown, the stadium did *not* show a replay.

- At the end of the first half, my Cal cousin immediately wondered why ND hadn't gone for a Hail Mary. Pete Sampson wondered the same on Twitter and I know it was brought up here during the game. Does Pyne have not the arm to heave it?

- Before the final play of the game, the ref was explaining what happened, but because the crowd was so loud, I think most didn't hear him explain the 10-second runoff that was needed.

- By the way, the Cal folks I was with were NOT happy Wilcox went for it earlier on 4th and 10 deep in our territory. They though he should have kicked the FG.

- I don't know what to think of the pom-poms that were handed out within the stadium. I don't care if I ever seem them again but I wonder if other fans like them (they were definitely used by the students).

It was a great day - let's see if we can starting building momentum.

I guess he also said the following on the way into the stadium:

"This team needs all of us," Te'o said. "It's easy to jump on the bandwagon when everything is going great. It's easy to get on when everything is right. But what I want to know is, who is with me? ... Who is going to get off that wagon and start pushing with me? That's why I am here."

ND man through and through.

He’s always been an amazing natural leader. Whether he wants to coach idk. Sometimes great players don’t make good coaches.

I think he could add a great deal in terms of leadership and maybe also help himself to heal from the emotional trauma the last decade has brought him. At ND, he’d surround himself with a community that respects, loves and supports him.

Win, win

Took my kids to first game. I get that the crowd without children have already disregarded my comments. But my B4 uses profanity in grammatically proper fashion.

The atmosphere was great. Hospitable but loud. The Jumbotron was well used unless you like Dad rock. It was disappointing that the bloated attendees selected Take On Me over Wagon Wheel though.

The fans in my section were screaming. It was great with the caveat that alcohol helps and would improve the milieu.

Cheer going. The Jumbotron was playing a commercial for mass after the game. Cheerleaders tried to lead the cheer over the Tron,

The d-backs twice hit receivers who had no chance to catch the ball, including the targeting call. Lack of discipline is troubling even though the defense is playing well. Offense and defense have to reduce the number of stupid penalties.

I would have put my fastest linebacker or a good tackling safety in to spy the QB on passing downs. The linebackers in the game looked slow and took bad angles trying to tackle him.

I didn’t like the soft defense in the first half on long down and distance. We gave them 10 yards 2 or 3 times. It was ok on third down, but why give them 10 yards on first and 20?

Tryree and Mayer need to get the ball more. O-line was better but lots of 2 yard or worse runs. Estime needs to run with his head up more and hit the holes with more speed.

Pyne has to complete some passes downfield. He makes Book look like Daryle Lamonica.

I thought the crowd was ok especially given how poorly ND played in the first half.

“Sign of Piece” I almost thought we were to begin shaking hands with those fans around us.

Another awkward moment on the video board was after a huge play towards the end of the game they starting showing some Lion King cartoon that strangely transitioned into thumping music. But when that first was shown, it got quiet like everyone was trying to figure out why two cartoon lions were cuddling on the screen.

It was my first game back since the video screen was installed and it didn’t bother me too much. But the pregame prayer is cringy and the Chuck E Cheese-type music they play when we hold them on third down did not seem very intimidating.

Up like Simba. But no, it just segued into another hip hop beat.

I did laugh out loud for that one

...It was not the roar that would have happened had we sacked Plummer instead of letting him get the pass off, and for that matter there was no really big roar as the refs waved it as incomplete, but there was widespread and audible cheering.



As to #6, I have to admit that I've been thinking back to pre-video board days a lot. There's just too much unnecessary blare.

As to #7, he's actually toned it down a bit, but it still does come off as "Notre Dame First Down (TM)" rather than just the usual call we'd get from Mike Collins.

#8 stopped in 2015--the UMass game was the last live announcement from Tim McCarthy, ending a run since 1960. For a few year they did run replays but stopped in the last few years.

Officer McCarthy passed away a couple years ago (maybe 2019 or 2020) and at that point they stopped using the recordings completely. Prior to his death, they used recordings of his puns from his retirement in 2015 until his passing.

Would love that to be something old farts like me could enjoy as a nice "flashback".

As to the rest of #8, they need to be slightly entertaining.
And the occasional score report when one of our rivals is losing or one special small school is winning would be nice.

I hate it when he introduces the Victory March as if he is little more than a carnival barker. That special song deserves much better.

...who's been doing it for a number of years now, with the intro getting hammier, it seems, every year.

The field announcer is Chris Ackels, who's in his second year.

The Notre Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame Victory March bit is getting pretty cringe.

Granted we played small timey in the 1st Quarter, and for much of the last 26 years. This announcer is going to take some time to get used to - not the same vibe as the previous PA announcers in my lifetime. The green-out was better than I can remember for any game including 1977 USC - well done fans/students.

had worn green as well, especially since I recall he was involved with calling for the “green out.”

It did appear on TV that we accomplished it as well as it better than we ever have in the past.

fans wearing green. At least it stood out. Not like red or orange, but better than most games. Still want the players wearing gold and blue.

The bookstore is filled with yellow items with blue writing on them. There are no true gold colored items/ shirts in there. The traditional dark blue navy ND hat has a yellow ND logo on it, not gold.

Green is clownish and stupid. School colors are blue and gold (yellow). If navy blue doesn’t play on TV (it doesn’t), everyone wearing yellow would work great.

Blue doesn't stand out and no one owns gold. And upon refection, I don't believe ND is an intimidating place to play. Previously, the teams were so good that it didn't matter. Now, it's a different story. We're just a nice, complacent, sober crowd. The stadium experience has tried to change this, but has failed (I think). All that said, ND Mich and Miami in 88 were intimidating.