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13 days ago: FILE - This is a 1987 file photo showing Notre Dame football player Tim Brown. Brown leads a class of 24 players and coaches being enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame(AP Photo/File)

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A lot of fun stuff to sift through, but let's start with the long arm of the law coming down on a slew of Notre Dame students, including a bunch of athletes.  I have faith following Mike Ragone's quietly handled return to the team that a bunch of underage violations shouldn't cause too much of a stir beyond some bonus wind sprints, and nor should they.   My consistent stance on this for all programs, not just Notre Dame, is that stuff like underage drinking and marijuana possession shouldn't result in any suspensions or significant punishment unless a whole bunch of stupid activities are repeatedly tied to them.  Once you get into stuff like DUI's, by all mean , start tossing people off the team and out of school, but if you're a college kid and you can't party in the summer?  Hardly seems American.

Hopefully Brian Kelly, Jeff Jackson and ResLife take the same approach Mike Brey is to this in the article I linked to above:

"The one thing I'll say is a lot of sweating will be involved," he said. "What you look at is teaching moments for young people. I've had a few. We'll have that with these two guys."

Brey used a similar tone discussing the incident this week with his players as he would take when addressing concerns with his 20-year-old daughter and his 23-year-old son.

"He's done a few knucklehead things in his life," Brey said. "As a parent, you live and you learn and you treat them fair. Sometimes it's a kick in the pants and sometimes it's a hug and sometimes it's both."

Anyway, this lets the Indiana Excise Police keep up their great work of stopping college kids from drinking while no other serious crime takes place in the state and gives Notre Dame a bump on the Fulmer Cup board.  We've got a lot of work to do to catch up to those rascals down in Athens, Georgia, but there is still some offseason left.

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Continuing the long arm of the law theme, it appears Reggie Bush is going to have to return his Heisman as USC goes to work cleaning house, replacing their athletic director and attempting to establish some sort of order over their football team.  This continues the fallout from the unfair persecution of the NCAA, now apparently being run by Elliott Ness as it attempts to correct a decade of apathetic policing.  This is just another black mark on Southern Cal's offseason, which now includes the loss of top recruit Seantrel Henderson along with a host of other players on an increasingly shrinking roster transferring.   While it is certainly fun to laugh at Troy and drink up every ounce of schadenfreude soda, it's not going to mean a whole lot if the Irish don't actually win this coming Thanksgiving weekend.

(And don't worry, folks, because Pete Carroll's book tour is going fantastically and his jump to Seattle has absolutely nothing to do with the hellfire that's been raining down on Los Angeles for the last month and a half.)

UPDATE: To include Dan Wetzel's column on Carroll and Garrett fiddling as Troy burned.

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Congratulations to Notre Dame great and Heisman Trophy winner Tim Brown, who was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend this weekend.  Brown had a great career for both the Irish and the Raiders, so hopefully it's just a matter of time before he adds a bust in Canton to his extensive resume.

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In a behind-the-paywall interview with Irish Illustrated, former Irish QB Evan Sharpley opens up about a number of things, including the least surprising revelation of all-time.

"That three-win season, we definitely should have won more than that. We came into that season with kind of a new offense, similar to West Virginia's. The only problem was that we didn't have Pat White or Steve Slaton running it. Once that didn't work, we didn't - at least in my opinion - have a lot of options to go to. In a lot of those games, I thought we had great game plans and personally, I wish I would have been able to play more."

Having attended the majority of games that season, I think we can all agree Sharpley can strike the "at least in my opinion" from future versions of that quote.

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Remember how I mentioned above that Southern Cal was getting a new athletic director?  In a blessing sent down from high, this means that Notre Dame games on NBC are getting a new color commentator as Pat Haden heads to his alma mater to take over ADing duties.  Who should fill his spot in the booth?  John Walters has a lot of ideas, some of them particularly appealing. 

I think Cris Collinsworth would be fantastic.  He's the best in the business, a total pro who is already part of NBC's expansive football team.  One issue impeding his placement in the booth is that his son is an incoming freshman on the Irish.  That could potentially be an issue, but I saw plenty of Laker games with Bill Walton on commentary while Luke was playing and believe that if you're enough at your job, there's no chance of nepotism slipping into the commentary.  (Please don't start even begin comparing Collinsworth to the idiot Craig James.) 

The other, more pressing issue is that Collinsworth is the lead analyst for the Sunday night NFL broadcast, meaning he'd be going back-to-back seven times a year (six home games and Army - NFL starts a week later than college so it wouldn't be an issue for Purdue).  Again, I think Collinsworth is good enough that it wouldn't be a problem, but if he didn't want to dilute the quality of his work, I wouldn't blame him.

Other names that intrigue me include John Madden and Bob Davie, just because of how hilarious either of those choices would be, and Charles Davis, who seems competent enough to do well in the role but isn't so high profile that he'd be unattainable.  Please no Matt Millen or Joe Theismann, and if we're cleaning out the booth, why not go get the silver fox himself, Ron Franklin, to take over play-by-play duties?  I don't think NBC should go with an alum, but Steve Beuerlein would be solid if they decided to go that route.  We can build on this, folks.  Great day, all around.

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In some odd news, former Irish ubercommit Chris Martin has announced that he's leaving Cal, the school he committed to in the wake of the Weis-Kelly transition.  No word on where Martin is going to end up or what the outside distractions are that forcing him from his home in the bay area, but I'm sure Brian Kelly would gladly welcome him into his 3-4 scheme with open arms if he wanted to come back into the fold.

*

And finally, TTy Willingham is retiring from coaching football.  Since he has been practicing for retirement with eighteen holes a day since 2003, he should be awesome at it.

Her Loyal Sons has more mistakes, but really, this is the worst thing you could possibly write in a Notre Dame preview:

New recuit Matt James might not be an elite prospect, but he was on everyone’s list of the best tackles of this year’s recruiting class with the size and frame to sit at one tackle spot for 4 years. At 6-7 and 291 pounds, the Cincinnati native followed Brian Kelly to South Bend and will get a long look at playing time right away on the outside. Even though he’s tall, he’s physical for the ground game and does a good job of shoving people around.

Matt James tragically died in March while on spring break.  That was a national story featured on Good Morning, America, ESPN and many other mainstream outlets.  It's now July.  By any journalistic standard, this is absolutely inexcusable.

Apologies for the record-long radio silence here.   There's no excuse for not getting some content up, but in the extended Rakes family there were a series of moves, final exams, weddings, etc., etc.  Now that we've reached the tip of summer and football is but a scant three months away, we will be back and at it at full throttle.  Now going over a lot of issues - some very complicated - in a way too quick sort of manner.

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The conference expansion reporting has brought out the best and the worst in writers everywhere.  There have been a ton of SBNation e-mails and quality Notre Dame messageboard posting to go along with the cascade of (mostly incorrect) mainstream media reports.  I find the entire thing fascinating, as we're honestly seeing history being made over these next few weeks.  At best, we're seeing college football totally rearrange itself.  At worst?  Possibly just implode, or become something none of us recognize or can bring ourselves to care about any more.  Notre Dame has actually been relatively quiet considering how important they are in the grand scheme of things, but despite this silence, I'd say the Irish's position of football independence has actually strengthened in the last few months.  Remember the initial media reports back in March that had everyone scrambling in regards to a shifting landscape?  It gave way to Brian Kelly affirming the independence of the Irish and the Big Ten (Twelve?) going to a series of back-up plans that may or may not pan out, fighting with the PAC-10(11) over the crumbling Big XII (X) and potentially weak ACC or Big East teams.

Everyone worried about Notre Dame being left out in the cold of the hypothetical three or four mega-conference fallout is an idiot, simply because there is too much money tied into the Irish name for no one to want to take them.  If everyone is dividing up into four sixteen team conferences, is someone really going to say "Well, we'd love to have you and your millions of fans, but we've got to give Iowa State, Rutgers and South Florida safe harbor"?  There is zero chance of that happening.  Maybe Notre Dame could cut itself a slightly better deal by defecting early, but it wouldn't be that much better and it would be political suicide for all of those involved.  If this whole whirlwind was happening a few years down the road after a subpar start to Coach Kelly's Notre Dame career, then yes, we would need to be worried.  But as it turns out, the NBC contract was just renewed and the Irish's two biggest rivals are floundering.  I think we're in okay shape.

All of that being said, and I think I've made this point before, but if Notre Dame absolutely, 100% had to join a conference, I would be totally cool with hopping onboard with the ACC.  You maintain a national footprint by playing games from Miami to Boston, with stops in Atlanta, Charlotte (sort of)and DC.  You get great basketball - although not up to the quality of the Big East - and a bunch of really fun road trips for students.  Even if Notre Dame swapped the non-football sports to the ACC from a crumbling Big East and agreed to a three or four game a year part-ACC schedule, I think that's fantastic.  While they've been mediocre as a conference for a while, individual ACC matchups are almost all somewhat enticing, if only for the road trip opportunities.

I'm setting myself up to be slack-jawed and confused if the Irish do join a conference, but I honestly feel like the big key in this is that Kelly was allowed to make the comments about the greatness of independence.  He's a smart guy who I'm sure is in close contact with Swarbrick, so he's not going to go out of his way to say something that blatantly untrue just to fire up an alumni group or two.  As usual, all predictions come with the giant disclaimer that I'm wrong so very often.

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You have to give Notre Dame athleticss credit for continually drawing me into a sport I didn't particularly care about (in this instance, college lacrosse), only to find a new and creative way to break my heart.  A big-time congratulations to the men's lacrosse team for their deep run into the NCAA tournament, but to fight off the Dukies and tie it up, only to lose a few seconds into overtime?  I wouldn't have it any other way.

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The USC sanctions coming down yesterday made for a delightful little Thursday.  I don't understand Notre Dame fans who say that celebrating the Southern Cal sanctions is a stupid or pointless act.  The punishments to their rival don't absolve the Irish of being a very mediocre football team for the last decade, but it is extremely enjoyable after years of Trojan gloating and confidence that they were untouchable by the NCAA.  Every major-to-somewhat major college program is dirty to some degree, and anyone who thinks that sports with this much big money tied into them don't have shadowy figures pulling strings is a naïve idiot.  That being said, there's nefarious acts done in the dark and there's nefarious acts done with a middle finger pointed to any and all authority figures.  Southern Cal's constant flaunting and air of "You can't touch this" make everything - the bowl ban, the scholarship losses, the probations, Carroll's departure and Kiffykin's late night flight from Knoxville - that much sweeter.  Please enjoy Dan Wetzel's column just shredding apart some of the laughable excuses being thrown out by Southern Cal.

I remember reading this post after Carroll left and thinking it pretty funny, but you know, I think the events of the last few days prove that Pete's motives were honest and true.  Just a guy chasing his dream.

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The schadenfreude train continues, rolling into Ann Arbor, where top recruit Demar Dorsey proved academically deficient in regards to gaining entry to the esteemed university there.  It is important to remember that none of this is Rich Rodriguez's fault - not the losing, not the NCAA violations, not the sketchy recruits, not the transfers - and you should all just keep smiling up north.

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Exciting news on the scheduling front in both hoops (playing Kentucky in Louisville) and football (the hopefully close to finished Miami series).  I can't even imagine how tough that Soldier Field ticket is going to be to get, but I'm sure all of my wonderful friends in the Windy City will gladly hook a brother up.  2012 is turning into an epic travel year, with Navy in Dublin, Oklahoma in Norman and Miami in Chicago, not to mention the Thanksgiving trip to Los Angeles.   For supposedly being irredeemably horrible at their jobs, the athletic department is putting together a pretty decent schedule when you consider the limitations of the 7-4-1 that were in place plus the general malaise across college football towards playing big-time non-conference games.

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When I heard Tom Izzo was considering going to the Cavaliers, my initial thought was "Oh Tom, you've got a great thing going.  Don't do it."  But the more I read and the more I think about it, why not go?  If college basketball loses Izzo, it's got nobody to blame but itself.  Izzo doesn't want to get in the mud with the AAU coaches and the shoe agents, which makes his job considerably harder.  Then you factor in the ridiculous contract, and he's not just taking care of his immediate family, but his grandkids are covered for life.  Go for it, Tom.  Best case you're a successful coach and go down as one of basketball's great.  Worst case is LeBron bolts and you get fired in a couple years, taking thirty million dollars with you.

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Again, sorry for the unforgivable lack of posting, but it's time to focus and get ready for Purdue.  To do so, I will leave you with some words of inspiration from Coach Eric Taylor:

"You listen to me, you listen to me closer than you've ever listened to me before.  You remember that Rutledge game, fourth quarter?  You came into that game, you took over that game.  Play by play, you owned that game.  I watched you that day and I said to myself ‘That kid is going to go all the way.'  Right now, right here, God has placed you to do what you do best.  Go all the way."

Good morning everyone.  This post is set to go up just as I board a plane at National Airport, en route to the fair city of Chicago before continuing onto South Bend Saturday morning.  A great deal of the Rakes staff is going to be in attendance, but there should be posts updating the drafting of Jimmy and Golden popping up as they're taken over the course of Friday night.  For Blue-Gold Game coverage, UND.com will be streaming it live from a variety of different camera angles, which is delightful.

Feel free to use this as an open thread for anything Notre Dame that happens this weekend, from the draft to the spring game to Mike Brey flirtation's with Oregon.  Taking advantage of the joys of UberTwitter, we'll be updating the official Rakes account, which can be found here.  On the off chance things get hazy and I forget to switch over the ol' account setting, my personal feed is here, but most of the stuff will be on the Rakes account.

Although Jimmy Clausen's slippage out of the first round was unfortunate, it certainly makes this weekend even more exciting for Irish fans.  Coverage of the second round begins at 6pm tonight on ESPN and the NFL Network, followed by the Blue-Gold Game tomorrow afternoon.  Everyone have a fantastic Friday, and if you're in South Bend for the game, try to stay dry.

Every year, hundreds of mock drafts flood the internet in the months, weeks and days leading up to the NFL draft.  Many of those are from "experts," who receive monetary compensation in exchange for attempting to accurately predict who goes where.  However, of the thirty-two first round picks, you'll be lucky if someone hits on 25%.*  It's with that warning that we attempt to figure out where Jimmy Clausen is going to go on Thursday night.

* Seriously, on Thursday afternoon do a "Print Screen" on any expert's totally final mock draft and see what they hit.  If any of them somehow get double digits, my jaw would be in an impressed-but-dropped position.

Now for the purposes of this exercise, we're going to assume Sam Bradford goes number one overall to the Rams.  We'll ignore the ridiculous NFL rookie pay scale - no one with zero professional experience should be paid that much, no matter what their collegiate pedigree - and whether the Rams are making a mistake drafting a system QB with the first overall pick (albeit a very tall one with a great 2008 season), and just say that's where Bradford goes.  The Lions and Bucs both spent first rounders on a QB last year and the Redskins just traded for Donovan McNabb and desperately need a tackle, so they're out.  Kansas City is next with Matt Cassell, and after that, things get very interesting.

The next five teams selecting - Seattle, Cleveland, Oakland, Buffalo, Jacksonville - all have some sort of issue at quarterback and would love to have Clausen.  The problem for Jimmy is that those teams are wrecks across the depth charts and could use help everywhere.  This is a quality draft, with a lot of options along both lines , along with X-factor defensive backs like Eric Berry and Joe Haden.   A lot of teams are in the same position as those picking sixth through tenth: They could use a guy like Clausen, but have to weigh that against other holes. 

So is there anything we can look at in an attempt to predict what will happen?  Eh, not really.  Some news yesterday from always informative BS Report guest Mike Lombardi really shows how little idea anyone has of what's going to happen Thursday night:

5. Kansas City: The Chiefs are trying, and I mean really trying, to move down. My sources tell me they'll be willing to go down as far as 15 for the right deal because they feel they can find a player in that range. They want to move badly and might be able to if they can convince a team to move up and get ahead of Cleveland to acquire Clausen. The reality for the Chiefs and the rest of the NFL is that Cleveland won't pick Clausen.

8. Two players, Clausen and Oklahoma State wide receiver Dez Bryant, are potential trade-target players. Teams that want to move down are hoping that Clausen or Bryant make it to them, and they'll get calls to move. Miami would love to go down to recoup its second-round pick. If Bryant makes it to them, they might have to take that chance. Bryant has not worked his way back into the top 10 yet, but he's getting closer.

Got that?  Teams want to trade down and acquire picks, but who is going to trade up for a guy like Clausen when some projections - like the one from SI's Don Banks - has him going all the way down at the 30^th pick last week?  (Rumor has it the latest McShay mock draft has Clausen as a fourth round pick, going between Jonathan Crompton and Jevan Snead.)

So let's say Clausen gets past Buffalo, who might want to wait until they have someone in place to protect their quarterback before they spend a pick on one.  Then where?  Well, San Francisco picks at both 13 and 17, and while Alex Smith is firmly entrenched as the starter now, he's in the final year of his contract and hasn't exactly lit the bay afire with his play.  The Seahawks need a running back, so maybe they go with CJ Spiller with their first pick and steal Clausen with the 14^th?  Or perhaps someone else trades into the teens and catches a falling star, like the Browns did with Quinn.

The wait until Thursday night basically boils down to this: You can reasonably guess the first four picks off the board will go Bradford-Suh-McCoy-Okung.  After that?  Nothing but chaos.  If anyone tells you they know where Clausen is going for sure, they might have a great inside source on some team that's in love with him, but most likely they're probably just guessing the same as you and me.  So while it's possible for Clausen to go on a Quinn or Rodgers-like slide, it's also possible he's just taken somewhere between seven and nine and the drama is over with relatively quickly.  There's zero way of telling for sure, so all of us - casual fans, armchair analysts and paid draft experts - will just have to find out together.

I really needed about half a dozen more lines for things like "Bush Push," "Michigan Notre Dame 2006," "Urban Meyer" and "Bob Stoops," but I think this turned out okay for the first crack at Google's fun little Search Stories engine.

A few things as we slowly work our way towards spring ball...

* This was rumored a few weeks ago, but the 2011 Maryland vs. Notre Dame game in DC is official.  It will take place at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland, home of the Washington Redskins on November 12.  When you want to talk about the "barnstorming" tactics of neutral site games, this is the sort of thing that will get Irish fans excited.  The Terps have struggled the last couple years, but between their massive fan base in the area and the large amount of Irish alums up and down the eastern seaboard, this is going to be a tough ticket.

* Theo Riddick is moving over to wide receiver, hopefully immediately becoming Golden Tate 2.0.  Quoting the coach:

"We have to get more touches for the three dynamic players at running back," Kelly said. "We got three really dynamic players that need to get on the field.

"So if you assume that the other guy we have to find room for is Cierre Wood, then if you have Cierre and Theo, somebody's not going to get a chance to get touches. So somebody had to go to wide receiver. And Theo has the best overall skills. So he's going to get a chance to compete for that inside slot receiver (spot) right away."

Kelly basically envisions Riddick, who rushed for 167 yards and 5.5 yards per carry as a freshman, as a clone of Oregon State's Jacquizz Rodgers, a multifaceted performer that can help in numerous ways.

Works for me.  Riddick showed some nice flashes at tailback last year, so getting the ball into his hands as much as possible is a good thing.  It's an even better thing if you're keeping Armando Allen's carries up and finally getting Cierre Wood some burn.

* Jack Swarbrick sat down with the media today in New York City.  The topic?  Notre Dame's place in the potentially evolving landscape of conference alignments, especially in regards to football independence.  From Pete Thamel at the Times:

"I think seismic is a possibility," he said. "I don’t know where the spectrum falls out. You have such an interesting media environment here. It’s having such an impact on people. You have two conferences who have separated themselves economically. And you have all the other conferences lined up in successive years for broadcast negotiations. That’s a tough situation for everyone in that position. The bar has been set so high, and the media market is so tepid, that it creates tension."

He added: "I’ve been in and around this business for 29 years now. This is as unstable as I’ve seen it."

Not great news that we'll look at it more in-depth once the hoops season settles down.  I'm sure the administration is very much aware that a large majority of Notre Dame alums cherish the football independence and will hopefully be making every move possible to maintain.  Keep working the phones, Jack.  I don't think you want to deal with the masses if Notre Dame football finds itself as part of the Big Ten or Big East.  If you're interested, Sports Illustrated has another look at today's presser.

Golden Herman Tate III

MEASUREMENTS: 6' and 180 lbs. out of Hendersonville, TN.

THE TWITTER SUMMARY: Steve Smith-clone with great hands, enhanced escapability, anti-tacklability and the perfect name for a star wide receiver.

THINGS THE PROS GET RIGHT: One of the first thing scouts mention when talking about Tate is his size, which is certainly a factor, as a lot of the NFL's best receivers have freakish metrics.  Reggie Wayne, Steve Smith (Carolina Panthers-version) and Wes Welker are all slight of stature, but your high draft picks of wideouts are the big guys that jump off the film (Calvin, Braylon - if he had hands, Andre, Moss, Fitz).  Seldom does a smaller receiver go high in the draft, unless Cam Cameron is making the pick, at which point you draft Ted Ginn, Jr., because he has a good family and will make a nice special teams player (reasons in order of importance to Cameron). 

Golden is six feet tall on a good day, and that's not changing, but everyone is also wise enough to recognize that his work ethic, proclivity for finding the end zone and sheer will not to be tackled still make him a very special talent.  A lot of scouts have written that Golden lets the ball get into his body on some catches, but that happened very rarely, and he was just as likely - if not more so - to catch it with hands extended, like at the 4:50 mark of this horribly scored video or this play:

The point is, save for a couple drops against Michigan, Golden caught nearly every ball slung his way.  He ran the wildcat (GOLDENEYE) for scores.  He returned a punt for a score.  The number of times he was actually tackled in the field of play, as opposed to being corralled out of bounds or scoring a touchdown, barely reaches single digits, and it always involved about three or four defenders.  In a rare case of college football awards going to someone that deserves them, Golden was your 2009 Biletnikoff Award winner and a consensus All-American.  He's really, really good.

THINGS THE PROS MAY NOT ACCOUNT FOR: Golden was a running back in high school, so 2009 - a season where he set Notre Dame records for catches and receiving yardage - was only his third as a wide receiver.  His freshman year all he knew how to run were fly routes, but oh, he ran them well (1:00 mark of this video).  If you think he's good at running routes now, he's still got a lot of room to grow.

I also think it would be ridiculous to judge Tate on anything he does or does not do at the combine.  Who cares what his 40 time is?  Have a Tackling Drill, where defensive prospects have to just try and tackle Golden.  It would make for great TV and I know who I would be betting on.

NON-FOOTBALL THING YOU MAY FIND ENDEARING/CHARMING/INTERESTING: Golden also played centerfield for the Irish baseball team and was a 42^nd round pick (1252^nd overall) of the Arizona Diamondbacks coming out of high school.  He OPSed .802 for the Irish in 2009, going 13 of 14 in stolen bases, knocking out one homer and scoring 45 runs.

TOTAL SUMMARY GRADING OF OVER/UNDERRATED: A lot of early mock drafts had Tate going to the Jets in the late teens, but as the Jets' pick fell, so did Golden, and now some mocks don't have him going in the first round at all.  I think the late first round is fair for Tate, especially since he's capable of returning kicks and taking wildcat snaps.  There's no reason Tate can't be Percy Harvin-like, and really nothing but opportunity and a good quarterback separating him from turning into Steve Smith (Carolina Panthers-version).  Just watch this highlight reel, and ask yourself "Would I like this gentleman on my team?".  You know you would, it's just a matter of whether your team has more pressing needs in the trenches or on the defensive side of the ball.