Notre Dame Football: Shamrock Series Merch Is Now Available, Except the Hoodie Everyone Wanted...The Fans Weigh In

It’s oftentimes hard to find really great college sports merchandise these days. Homefield, of course, has a fantastic collection of t-shirts and some sweatshirts, and despite the fact that Under Armour doesn’t exactly have a great batting average in churning out fire ND apparel since they took over from Adidas nearly 10 years ago, there have been a few solid options available at the Notre Dame bookstore (albeit for exorbitant prices). And then, of course, you could roll the dice with a purchase of “The Shirt.”

But with the rise of Fanatics as seemingly one of the only major nationwide retailers with an extensive available assortment of this kind of gear, Notre Dame Fighting Irish football fans, like various other fan bases across the country, have been clamoring for updated, trendy attire to don each fall but coming up short in having those kinds of options available to them. One Foot Down’s own Hayden Adams even penned an article about this a few months ago, urging Under Armour to sell all of the cool gear that Irish fans have seen new head coach Marcus Freeman sporting as he coaches, recruits, speaks at press conferences, etc.

Then, with Notre Dame’s surprisingly great reveal of the surprisingly clean and good-looking Shamrock Series uniforms, fans once again got to see more fantastic-looking apparel worn by Freeman as he displayed his acting chops alongside excellent performances from Isaiah Foskey, Michael Mayer, and two generations of Golics.

And come Monday morning of this week, it seemed like Notre Dame and Under Armour had finally listened to the Twitter and Instagram and OFD pleas of Irish fans, dropping posts like this on social media and via email hyping up the release for sale of a line of Shamrock Series apparel everyone could go purchase on Fanatics.

The video even shows a number of comments from the Hangover-inspired uniform reveal video BEGGING ND and Under Armour to sell the white and gold hoodie Freeman is wearing in the final shots of the video. Clearly, not only do fans want this Shamrock Series gear, but that sweatshirt was far and away the most popular item that everyone would be willing to toss down $70-$100 for, without a doubt.

When fans clicked the link to the Fanatics page, though, there were quite disappointed to find no white and gold hoodie available. Because of course, as Irish fans need to constantly remind ourselves, we simply cannot have nice things.

And folks, the people let the ND social accounts HEAR IT.

I think you get the picture.

Of course, not everyone was as upset as the masses about the lack of the white and gold hoodie available for purchase. Some folks actually used the occasion to be quite generous with their money, I guess choosing to give the money away they otherwise would have spent on the white hoodie:

Others decided to show their maturity and level-headedness, not letting something like a merchandise release, or even a game two months away, take his focus away from everything he needed to do to defeat Ohio State in the opener. There’s a key lesson in here for Freeman and his team, folks.

Even more inspiring, in my humble opinion, were the folks choosing to simply offer up their entire hearts in a desperate search for love prior to the fall. We all know cuffing season is coming up, so I suppose it makes sense to shoot your shot amongst like-minded sports fans.

The hotdog emoji followed by heart emoji was definitely a choice, though.

I think at least one of Kamila and Amber may have found a match, as it was clear from Monroe’s comment that the vibes were RESONATING.

Anyway, I’ll end this little review of ND’s and Under Armour’s gaffe in not releasing the white hoodie for sale with a couple final thoughts:

1. Shout out to the folks running the ND socials, who took the time to reply to, I believe, every single commenter on Instagram and Twitter to let them know that they were working on getting the white hoodie up and purchasable — I’m sure whoever is running the accounts had nothing to do with that major miss, but I salute them in providing a personal and reassuring response to each and every one of the folks who feel the need to reply to Notre Dame’s official account posting a link to Fanatics.
2. I did see someone, in the Twitter replies, tweet this link to the Product Detail Page for the hoodie. It’s showing as out of stock, but it at least exists and serves as proof that we all will, at some point, have the chance to purchase one for way too much money sometime soon (some folks might have even had a brief chance earlier? Hard to say, but as of now it’s not an option).

So, I wish everyone luck in our hopeless search for awesome ND gear that apparently still only exists to be worn by team personnel and never produced for the masses for a massive profit. Hopefully that changes shortly, and we’re all looking as dapper as Marcus by the time Labor Day Weekend rolls around.*

*Note: this was a joke, none of us, no matter how great our ND attire looks, will ever be able to outshine that handsome fellow.

Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports