How are we doing?

In July, the fourth anniversary of my takeover as the Site Manger here at One Foot Down will — well, go down. In that spirit, I’m here fishing for feedback and a little bit of a report card. This isn’t “my site” because it’s your site — you the reader, commenter, conspiracy theorist, grammar cop, football junkie, and most of all — fan of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

So... how have we been doing?

FOOTBALL

As always, our biggest priority here is covering the Irish football program. In that respect, we are quite proud of what we have accomplished during the past year. Whether it’s game week coverage (of which you can find the entire season’s stream right here), recruiting, opinion, awesome Throwback post from Lisa, general tomfoolery — or whatever, we cover a lot of ground here with a staff that does a fantastic job.

Photo by Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

2019 saw the third full year of coverage inside the press box, and we were able to add a second man (Hi Philip) for a few games. It’s unclear as to how this is all going to work in 2020 with the coronavirus thing, but I think we’re safe in this regard. It’s a funny thing to cover a game this way because in a lot of ways, it doesn’t make much of a big difference on the surface. It does, however, make quite a bit of difference in a million small ways (if that makes any sense to you).

We added some new “full-time” staffers in 2019 with ND Grad Matt Boomer and Ann Arbor resident Brendan McAlinden (MACtion Blood Bro). Boomer is quite the writer, and offers up a fresh perspective on the site. Brendan is a photoshop wiz — but also offers up incredible commentary on the program.

We lost Mike Miller as our photographer — which was sad, but we lost him to Notre Dame as they hired him as a freelancer for the whole season. On our level you just can’t replace a guy like him, so... hope you enjoyed that while it lasted. Mike is a great guy and I wish him nothing but the best.

BASKETBALL

Another rough season in the books for the men and the first in a very long time for the women. We had some staff turnover which didn’t quite workout for our women’s coverage, but we soldiered on. Pat, once again, spearheaded the men’s basketball coverage and did a really good job. Even if I’m looking out of blue and gold colored glasses, I think the men’s team had a good chance (at least fair chance) to shock everyone in the ACC tournament. That would have been fun to cover, but COID-19 took care of all of that for us — and for the country.

HOCKEY

For the second full year in a row, we covered the hockey team as well as anyone — and probably better than anyone. Lino, Billy, and Lauren put in the work, and despite an underachieving regular season, there was plenty of hope for a Big 10 tournament win and another berth in the NCAA Hockey Tournament. I am hoping to expand on our hockey coverage even more for the 2020-2021 season, but that’s for another time.

BASEBALL

Billy was on top of our hardball coverage, but again... COVID-19 took care of that. It’s a damn shame too. New coach Link Jarrett really had this team playing well and were kicking ass in their early ACC schedule.

OTHER SPORTS

Women’s lacrosse was like #2 in the country before — ONE MORE TIME — the coronavirus pandemic hit. Jude was on cloud nine and had covered them well up till the end. We didn’t have anyone on the staff to cover men’s lacrosse, but — you know the drill.

PODCASTS

We are seasoned vets now in the podcast game. Brad had to bow out because of an extremely busy real life, but Brendan came on board in October and we quickly found an awesome chemistry for the shows. We have kept up our weekly schedule of episodes as well as the occasional OFF THE RAILS, BOOKCAST, and extra OFD pods, so there’s plenty to listen to when you get a chance. And by “plenty” I also mean that these things are jammed pack with goodness (some are almost 3 hours long).

Follow us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

SOCIAL

And while I have you here... don’t forget to follow us on our social platforms.

• Twitter: @onefootdown

• Facebook: One Foot Down

• Instagram: @onefootdownsbn

• Tik Tok: @onefootdownsbn (Yep... Tik Tok)

HELP US

So, now that I tooted our horn a little bit, I nervously ask you again — how are we doing? Are we doing a good job? Is there something more you would like to see? Is there something you wish would just crawl into a hole and stay away forever? I’m going to put up a generic poll, but if there is something specific- please let us know in the comments below. We will certainly try to do our best.