The week in news- Okay two weeks in news

After spending a week driving across the country and another week cranking out home improvement projects at a rate that would make that chooch Ty Pennington cry like a little girl with a skinned knee I am finally getting back to talking some college football.

I figure the best way to do that would be to comment on a few of the things that happened in the last two weeks.

As luck would have it they were two of the craziest weeks in the history of college football off seasons. Figures. I have been burning up my iPhone and ESPN radio keeping up with it all. Thankfully our own Rocket89 was able to stay on top of everything and keep our loyal contingent of ND fans and assorted college football enthusiasts up to speed with some great posts. Before I dive in there are a couple of things I want to share.

As I blazed across the country I was reminded that stereotypes are all somewhat based on fact. The lady jockeying the register at a Love's truck stop just outside of Little Rock took the cake. She was short on teeth, in need of exercise and commented on a boisterous youngling by saying "if dat waaaas maa keeed he'd a bee missin' some teeeeth. I'm from da old school." Soooooooeeeeee Hogs!

So after a week behind the wheel I pull up to the new house and immediately go to work. The first morning the Coach and I load up my F-150 Beverly Hillbillies style with a bunch of junk the previous owner "thought I could use" and headed straight for the dump. I pull up and the guy in the booth tells me it is going to cost me $35 to dump the load. I gave him a less than friendly look to which he replied "Deeee Terminator say we neeeed money." Welcome back to Southern California! The weather is great and there is a jam up taco shop on every corner but if you want to dump your trash it will cost you $35.

So where were we? Oh yeah, that whole realignment thing happened. It went from a flare up to a full blown freak out then after the dominoes started to fall the ship quickly righted itself and no superconference was formed. In the end I was pleased that we avoided going the way of the superconference for the time being. There have been a multitude of great posts about the subject across the network so I will quickly hit the highlights.

For starters Rocket89 paid homage to Bevo and got some props from the evil genius better known as Sailor Ripley in the process. More on that Notre Dame relationship with Texas in a minute.

Over at Barking Carnival TaylorTRoom put together a great wrapup on how and why things shook out the way that they did. In all seriousness if you only click on one link in this post hit this one. It is very insightful.

Better Off Red also put together a solid piece about the winners and losers in the Big XII specifically. In short the way they see it nobody won.

Then just when we thought it was over Spence Park Soap Box proclaimed that ND will join the Big 10 as early as this summer. Our responses are in the comments.

My final point of interest on realignment mania is this. I keep hearing a lot about how ND and Texas have been in constant communication throughout this process. I find that highly interesting because in my view they are/ were two of the three biggest fish in all of this with Nebraska being the third. In the end Nebraska gets the two for flinching award while ND and Texas still hold the cards. I will continue to keep a close eye on the goings on between South Bend and Austin as we move forward. That is a powerful alliance.

A few other things I found noteworthy in the last couple of weeks.

Braylon Edwards of all people called out Dick Rod. That is comedy. I should try harder not to get so much enjoyment out of such things.

Speaking of enjoying the pain of your rivals the OC Register put together a very interesting bit breaking down how big of a blow USC’s freshly printed NCAA sanctions will be to their roster. It is pretty insightful.

LenDale White then got in on the action after being cut by Sneaky Pete and the Seahawks. He scoffed at the idea that Carroll didn't know what was going on at USC with his sidekick Reggie Bush.

Oh yeah and now the IRS wants to talk to Reggie Bush about the cash and other benefits he received while playing for the Trojans. Every time I see this I can’t stop myself from laughing out loud.

In the midst of my travels I did bang out one post paying homage to the greatest running quarterbacks but everyone was so busy talking realignment that I only managed to rile up the Dee Dowis fan club. Who knew?

On the ND front former Head Coach Charlie Weis was in South Bend this week for a charity event and gave a good interview to Eric Hanson. I will always have a soft spot for that guy.

ND Tight End Mike Ragone appears to have escaped the clutches of ResLife after a run in with the law over a little ganja. This is a good thing. Now that Floyd and Ragone have survived let's hope no one else puts themselves in a vulnerable position any time soon. OC Domer has a great piece on the personnel changes in ResLife that likely played into the Ragone verdict.

ND picked up commitment #10 from Florida OLB/DE Clay Burton and dual threat QB Bubba Starling opted for Nebraska. I’m not sweating Starling, the Irish have plenty of young QBs and I expect that once Crist gets rolling in Kelly’s system picking up a top flight Quarterback in the next class will take care of itself. Subway Domer has the details on Burton.

The WWL’s Pat Forde wrote a solid piece on ND strength coach Paul Longo. After reading it I am beginning to wonder if it isn’t Longo not Kelly that has some sort of connection to the military.

That is a wrap. Now that I am fully operational again you can expect the full contingent of OFD contributors to get you ready for the season. We will break down all of the Notre Dame position groups and take a broad look around the country between now and the start of fall camp. I expect that 2010 is going to be a wildly exciting season for Notre Dame and college football as a whole. I can’t wait.

Now I'm back to work. Seven more days to finish getting the house tip top before the rest of the team shows up. Now that the flooring guys are gone I almost miss the Los Tigres Del Norte jams blaring all day! Have a great weekend and as always thanks for stopping by.