Apologies for the lack of posting last week.  With all of the excitement of the Blue-Gold game, the NFL draft and the Top 30 Games of Next Season, we were buzzing, but last week was Final's Week in South Bend.  It sucked up a lot of time, as Rob dealt with a bevy of difficult accounting exams while I had to deal with one final paper left over from my semester in DC and having to lounge, drink and watch the NBA playoffs for a week.  But we're back now, and these are things you'll have to look forward to as we head into summer and the last throes of the football offseason:

Extended looks at some of our 2007 opponents.  Some of the great writers at SBN representing Irish pigskin adversaries this fall have agreed to help us out with any questions we'd like to ask now that spring practice is over and the depth charts might be a little more settled.  We're putting the questions together now, and hopefully we'll be able to reciprocate, although I'm not sure how many different ways I'll be able to write "Well, we really have no idea who the quarterback will be."

Pole Vaulting: I mean, why not?  I think this is where I'm supposed to make a Chris Hansen joke, but I think he's getting way too much run out of To Catch A Predator as it is.

Like that?  What if I told you she was a senior?  In high school?  I believe there's a giant "tsk tsk" involved here.

Continued updates on recruiting.  I think my ideal job would be a college basketball coach, if only I didn't have to worry about stroking the egos of petulant, self-serving seventeen year olds who've been taught the world revolves around them since middle school.  (What happens if you just stop recruiting and try to coach them up?  See: Smith, Tubby.)  Mike Brey has also adopted the "Eh, recruiting" strategy, but with Charlie Weis attempting to achieve his third straight top ten recruiting class, we're all lucky Rob is still around to do the in-depth research and monitoring of verbal commitments that really mean absolutely nothing.

(I really hate recruiting, but I realize it's a necessary evil and therefore will try my hand at complementing Rob on covering it.)

Dillon Panther Football: I'm going to begin unabashedly begging you to watch Friday Night Lights, which was just picked up for a full 22-episode season by NBC.  In order to reward quality television decisions like that, however, somebody has to watch the show, and who better than the same people that frequent the fantastic college football blogs on SBN?  I made a pitch to Pete to try to rally the BON crowd into watching since it's set in Texas and filmed in Longhorn Central, Austin, but I want to get this whole college network buzzing about the Peabody, Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton's acting and, of course, Minka Kelly.

You might find this surprising, but this isn't even the best reason to watch Friday Night Lights.

Assess the potential highs and lows of the 2007 Notre Dame Football season: We Irish fans have rather high expectations, and coming off two solid campaigns, there will be a certain want to continue the quality seasons.  This is good.  Expectations mean, at least most of the time, that you have a reason for hope.  I just want everyone to realize it's very possible we start the season 0-3 and also possible Southern Cal does dirty, nasty things to all four quarterbacks in the October game.  Do I think these things will happen?  Not at all, but I want to think about the potentially great (Sugar Bowl and massive debt again!?!?), the potentially terrible (missed bowl altogether) and all of the grey area in between (anything from the Insight.com to the Gator).  Rob and I both waver between overly optimistic and the most depressing, brooding, cynical people in the world, so it shouldn't be hard for us to cover the entire expectations spectrum.

Wanting New Orleans two years in a row: Greedy?  Yes.  Wise?  Absolutely.

College Lacrosse: Or not, considering our more-than-game Irish fell to perennial lacrosse powerhouses Johns Hopkins in overtime Saturday night.  Despite not coming from an area that plays a lot of lacrosse and thinking that this Slate piece is absurdly accurate, I always enjoy the lacrosse final four that happens on Memorial Day.  I know we spend a lot of time focusing on football and men's basketball here, but can we just take a step back and look at the quality of Notre Dame sports across the board?  Both the softball and baseball teams made their respective College World Series, both soccer teams made runs deep into their tournament, both basketball teams qualified for the NCAA tournament, the football team is coming off its second straight BCS berth and the hockey team was number one for a lot of the season.