Print Edition of The Observer for Monday, September 14, 2020

Notre dame 27, duke 13 | monday, September 14, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com

Shaky but successful start Defense, young RBs Williams, Tyree flash talent as Notre Dame wins 19th straight home game

HAYDEN ADAMS | The Observer

Irish junior linebacker Bo Bauer, left, leaps to break up a pass as senior linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah approaches during Notre Dame’s 27-13 season-opening win over Duke on Saturday at Notre Dame Stadium. Bauer finished with two total tackles, while Owusu-Koramoah led the team with nine, including six solo, while adding a forced fumble.

An internal dialogue about the Irish win Hayden Adams Sports Editor

Watching Notre Dame’s season opener against Duke, I could really feel myself channeling the spirit of my predecessor as sports editor, Connor Mulvena. Mr. Mulvena was relentless in his criticism of Ian Book, and while I am a persistent optimist when it comes to my teams, I have to say I was getting really frustrated.

I suppose it comes with the territory.

Because of this, I’m experiencing some cognitive dissonance. I feel like I have an angel on my left shoulder and a devil on my right. Or, rather, I have a Notre Dame apologist on my left shoulder and a sports editor on my right. So, I’m going to give each of them an opportunity to present oral arguments on how to interpret the Irish season opener, and hopefully the rational see ADAMS PAGE 2

By HAYDEN ADAMS Sports Editor

It was a historic day for Notre Dame football. They extended their home win streak to 19 games, the longest run since 1990, with a win over Duke, and in doing so locked up their first-ever conference win. Notre Dame (1-0, 1-0 ACC) is now the winningest team in ACC history percentage-wise after having joined the league for a season due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, joining a conference was not the only effect the pandemic had on the Irish. While the defense performed remarkably well considering the confusing looks Duke (0-1, 0-1 ACC) threw at them as well as rampant poor tackling — because of a lack of practice — by several teams early this season, the Irish offense came out of the gate stagnant.

They attempted to establish the run early, featuring sophomore Kyren Williams and freshman Chris Tyree as options one and two, respectively, but they gained little ground or lost yardage.

Graduate student

quarterback Ian Book could not find a rhythm with his receivers early as the Irish fell behind 3-0 at the end of the first quarter. Head coach Brian Kelly attributed the rocky start to the lack of time Book had to gel with so many new pass catchers.

“You gotta understand, no spring ball, and let me just go over how many new players that he is blending into this offense,” Kelly said, “whether it’s [freshman tight end] Mike Mayer, [junior tight end] Tommy Tremble getting a bigger role, [junior wide receiver] Joe Wilkins, [graduate student receiver] Ben Skowronek, [graduate student receiver] Javon McKinley, [junior receiver] Lawrence Keys, all the backs… So, it’s not in a situation where he knows exactly where they’re going to be; he will.”

Notre Dame only recorded 13 net yards of offense in the opening period: three rushing on seven carries and 10 passing on 1-3 completions.

They also recorded threeand-outs on their first three offensive possessions.

In the second quarter, things picked up for Notre Dame. After finding

themselves in a 4th-and-8 situation at their own 21, the Irish faked a punt and sophomore punter Jay Bramblett managed to scramble for 14 yards and a first down, injecting new life into the Irish offense.

“My thought process was I hope to heck it works,” Kelly said of the play. “… It was there, we saw it on film, we felt like it was there. It was one of those that you needed to call it in a very vulnerable area, in other words when you’re backed up. Jay’s a very good athlete, and you saw that he had to cut back to make that first down, but felt very confident that he was going to get an opportunity to convert that. And we needed a little bit of momentum, and so I just felt like it was the right time to make the call.”

Notre Dame proceeded to march down behind big plays from Mayer, Williams and senior running back Jafar Armstrong, with Williams capping the drive with a oneyard rushing score to give the hosts the lead for good.

Each team would punt on their next possession, but the see VICTORY PAGE 3

Kyren Williams lights up Notre Dame offense

By CHARLOTTE EDMONDS Senior Sports Writer

At the risk of making a premature declaration one game into the season, it’s time to welcome Kyren Williams to the big leagues. One-hundred-twelve rushing yards, 93 receiving yards and two touchdowns on a day when the Irish offense struggled to find its mojo for much of the game, Williams was their answer time and time again.

Throughout the offseason and training camp, head coach Brian Kelly and graduate student quarterback Ian Book have repeatedly spoke of William’s unique skillset and what a valuable asset he is to the program.

“He’s the same guy every day,” Book said. “In Fall camp he truly, he brings the energy every day. So when you go out onto the field on game day, he’s doing the same thing, and that’s what it’s all about. … Personally, to be in the backfield with him see WILLIAMS PAGE 3

2

Insider

The observer | monday, September 14, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com

Adams Continued from page 1

observer within me will evaluate appropriately.

Mr. Sports Editor, you have the floor…

Sports Editor: Thank you, good sir. If it pleases the court, I would like to begin by paraphrasing Aaron Burr from the Tony Awardwinning musical “Hamilton”: “I have some questions, a couple of suggestions,” on how to dominate instead of scraping by on the backs of your defense and special teams.

WTF was that Ian Book? I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe for you to not overthrow your big, athletic tight end Tommy Tremble for an interception or to grossly underthrow stud of a freshman Michael Mayer? Or to overthrow Lawrence Keys III twice, once for an interception that was called back by the grace of God for an offsides penalty.

Notre Dame Apologist: To be fair, for all we know Book saw that neutral zone infraction and knew he had a free play.

SE: Doesn’t change the fact it was an awful throw.

NDA: Alright, granted. See, we can be rational and civil here.

SE: Nope, you got “rational” in your title; I don’t.

Back to my point about Mayer, and to paraphrase Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers franchise, could you please, for the love of God, throw us a freaking bone here by throwing him the ball a few more times?

NDA: Quoting Aaron Burr and Dr. Evil. Great strategy, guy.

SE: Mayer made a play every damn time he touched the ball, you idiot.

NDA: Look, to address your first point, Ian Book said it himself postgame: “Missing spring practice and then being delayed a few times… those are the important reps that you wish you had. Every day counts, especially with quarterback-receiver timing, too. Chemistry’s everything; it’s trust, and obviously when you miss those days you lose them.”

And to address your second point, you’ve said before that you want Book to spread the wealth with all the new receiving weapons he has instead of singling in on a target like he did with Cole Kmet or Chase Claypool.

Granted, Mayer made the most of the plays where they were able to connect, but Book was trying to spread out the attack.

SE: Thank you so much for bringing me to my next point, and this is addressed to Brian

Kelly. (clears throat) What is your deal!?

Apparently you have a condition, one that prevents you from allowing a freshman to just let loose unless C.J. Prosise gets hurt or you have a 4-8 season and fire your defensive coordinator, but for cripes sake give the young guns some runs! It took until the final minute of the second quarter for a Notre Dame wide receiver to catch a pass, and it was Joe Wilkins.

I get that Bennett Skowronek was hurt in the second quarter, but he didn’t even get a real target early on. Also, not to beleaguer the point, but with Braden Lenzy (mysteriously) out with what you have now identified as a hamstring injury and most of the healthy receivers stinking it up, Xavier Watts and Jordan Johnson should’ve gotten a chance to show their stuff.

NDA: Well, again, Notre Dame’s offense didn’t kill Duke like Clemson did the Demon Deacs, and I think that was because Duke’s defense was obviously pretty decent and they were trying to confuse this Notre Dame team. Plus, do you really expect Rees to change the offense so drastically with the abbreviated offseason?

SE: That’s the thing, it’s not a drastic change like LSU needed.

Book showed he could take some deep shots at the end of last season, and he showed he could be efficient in the short-to-intermediate in 2018. Why not just put those two together?

NDA: Can we at least agree that the defense and the special teams played outstanding all things considered?

SE: Oh, dude, that Jeremiah Owusu sack and that Bramblett fake punt… absolutely filthy.

NDA: I know, right!

SE: Amen, man… Hey! You’re not distracting me. I gotta talk about the run game.

I’ll give them a pass because of Kyren Williams (and to a lesser extent Chris Tyree), and at least the one thing Javon McKinley is reliable with is blocking, but that push from the O-line ain’t gonna cut it against Florida State and Clemson.

NDA: Florida State just lost to Georgia Tech.

SE: Actually, that’s very fair.

Well so much for the ACC presenting the Irish a challenge outside of the Tigers.

Alright gents, that’s enough.

You both raise some really good points. Obviously, there is some consensus that the defense and special teams performed admirably and the run game

adequately so given the level of competition it appears Notre Dame will face this season.

I, in fulfilling the roles of judge, jury and executioner, recognize that it is a semi-valid excuse that the offense has not had the appropriate time to meld together from a passing game standpoint.

That said, there is no excuse for the lack of accuracy which Mr. Book displayed on the throws to Tommy Tremble, Michael Mayer and Lawrence Keys III which Mr. Sports Editor mentioned (and two to Kyren Williams which he failed to mention).

The expectations for Ian Book coming into this season as essentially a third-year starter, from my perspective, did not pertain greatly to his physical attributes.

He is who he is, and what he is is a quarterback with underrated mobility and arm strength, but one who will not wow in either department.

Mr. Book was expected to make gains from a mental perspective and the offense was expected to become more efficient under new coordinator Tommy Rees. Those changes should have been similar to those made by LSU last season as Mr. Sports Editor also mentioned, though Mr. Apologist is correct in pointing out that the Tigers are a

dramatic example — more of an exception than a rule.

Ian Book came out and despite his postgame press conference comments that he felt “comfortable” in pass protection, he looked far too excited. That would be understandable given the uncertainty of this season and the catharsis achieved by finally taking the field, except for the fact that Mr. Book is indeed a third-year starter at Notre Dame and still seems to be susceptible to his emotions getting the better of him. That is a worrisome reality.

In conclusion, it is the ruling of this judge-jury-executioner that Ian Book manages to compose himself and find the chemistry he so desperately needs between himself and his pass catchers in as swift and judicious a manner as possible. Games against South Florida and Wake Forest in the coming weeks should provide ample opportunity for such development.

However, if this change is not made rapidly, it is absolutely imperative that the offensive line reach Joe Moore Award caliber levels of play from a running game perspective. While Kyren Williams and Chris Tyree present agility and speed, neither possesses the requisite physicality

to bulldoze defenses of his own accord, nor do any other running backs on the roster — with the possible exception of linebacker/ situational running back Osita Ekwonu.

But even if the Irish become proficient in controlling the trenches, as Mr. Sports Editor alluded to, it will not be a sufficient factor on its own to surpass Clemson as the kings of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

In summation, Ian Book’s showing was worrisome even when taking into account the circumstances regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on this season. It is up to him to make any and all prudent adjustments to become the caliber of signal caller who can compete for the Heisman, and in doing so to relieve pressure on his defense, special teams and running game.

If he does not do so, then Notre Dame fans may (and should) be saying, to quote Thomas Jefferson from the musical “Hamilton,” “this kid is out.”

Contact Hayden Adams at hadams3@nd.edu The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.

HAYDEN ADAMS | The Observer

Irish sophomore running back Kyren Williams, back, tries to find the right perimeter during Notre Dame’s 27-13 victory over Duke at Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday. Williams’ longest run was 26 yards.

Play of the game

player of the game

Jay bramblett runs for a first down on a fake punt

Notre Dame running back kyren williams

Early in the second quarter, an Irish drive had seemingly come up empty again, and sophomore punter Jay Bramblett headed onto the field to punt it away for the fourth time, with Notre Dame at fourth-and-eight on their own 21 yard line. Bramblett faked the punt and rushed 14 yards for a first down, giving the Irish offense momentum that led to their first touchdown.

Sophomore Kyren Williams only saw action in four games as a freshman, picking up just 26 yards over four carries. He blew those numbers out of the water Saturday, however, tallying 112 rushing yards (including Notre Dame’s first two touchdowns) and 93 receiving yards. Seventy-five of those yards came on a run after a short pitch pass, setting the Irish up in the red zone.

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Volume 55, Issue I1 | Monday, September 14, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com

Students share game day experiences Coronavirus guidelines change plans, some thankful for ‘sense of normalcy’ regardless of differences

By ISABELLA VOLMERT Assistant News Editor

Notre Dame football returned Saturday with a win over Duke in Notre Dame Stadium on a game day like no other. With the campus largely closed off to spectators and fans, many traditions were banned or modified for the highly anticipated weekend. Students shared their experiences of the historic season opener with The Observer.

First-years Mary Hanstad and Adison Steinke enjoyed their first Notre Dame football game, despite the lack of tailgating and other events on campus.

“We heard about a lot of

traditions,” Mary Hanstad said.

She said she was still glad to experience some of them including the in-game cheers and touchdown push-ups.

On and off rain cast a shadow over the games, however, the weather and the radically different atmosphere did not stop the Irish from beating Duke 27-13.

Senior Olivia Venvertloh said she was grateful for the game day, which provided “a sense of normalcy.”

The former Farley resident now resides off campus, and she attended the game with her two roommates, who celebrated with brunch beforehand. see GAME DAY PAGE 3

Community holds 9/11 prayer service

ISABELLA VOLMERT | The Observer

Only students, faculty and football players’ families are allowed as spectators in Notre Dame Stadium for the 2020 football season. Students are seated by household and are spread out throughout the stadium.

Provost leads COVID-19 research initiative

By SERENA ZACHARIAS Notre Dame News Editor

In collaboration with the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute and researchers at multiple universities, Notre Dame launched the Indiana COVID-19 Registry Sept. 1 to better understand the transmission and the effects of the virus across the state. Lead

by Provost Marie Lynn Miranda, the registry has received 100 responses as of Friday.

The Indiana COVID-19 Registry is a research study that

MAGGIE KLAERS | The Observer

The tri-campus community gathered Friday at the Grotto for an annual prayer service to honor those affected by 9/11.

By MAGGIE KLAERS News Writer

Nineteen years and 12 hours after the first plane struck the World Trade Center, the Notre Dame community came together to remember those lost to the tragic events of 9/11 in a prayer service at the Grotto Friday.

University President Emeritus Fr. Edward Malloy shared his

SCENE PAGE 5

memories of the day and the response on the campus in the days to come.

Following the attacks, Malloy arranged for mass to be held near the flagpole in South Quad.

Nearly 10,000 community members came together that afternoon, Malloy recalled.

“It was like, ‘Well, the world is see 9/11 PAGE 3

VIEWPOINT PAGE 6

aims to gather data related to the coronavirus through a survey open to Indiana residents.

Participants can choose to join the registry by taking an initial survey which asks about symptoms, exposures, behaviors and economic and household impacts. After taking the initial survey, registrants will be asked to take follow-up surveys for updates.

Prior to officially beginning her position as provost in July, Miranda began working on the Indiana COVID-19 Registry in June.

The idea of the registry dates back to 2017 when Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, Texas, causing significant environmental, health and economic impacts in the area. As the provost of Rice University at the time, Miranda worked on a team to document the impact of the hurricane on people’s health and housing.

Knowing the health registry established after the World Trade Center attacks had a large impact on the kinds of programs and resources that were see REGISTRY PAGE 4

Klau Center hosts lecture on Islamophobia The Klau Center for Civil and Human Rights hosted Dalia Mogahed, Director of Research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU)

in Washington D.C., to speak about Islamophobia on Friday as a part of their Building an Anti-Racist Vocabulary lecture series.

The weekly series, held on Zoom, features different guest speakers every week who speak on issues such as

the Black Lives Matter syllabus, allyship and health inequity.

Islamophobia, Mogahed said, is “anti-Muslim bigotry and discrimination based on an irrational hatred and fear

Viewpoint PAGE 7

FOOTBALL PAGE 12

SPORTS PAGE 12

By Trinity Reilly News Writer

see KLAU CENTER PAGE 4

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Game day Continued from page 1

Despite the differences, Venvertloh said she and her friends were going to go and make the most their last first football game no matter what.

“I wasn’t even sure it was going to happen,” she said. “Now we have the opportunity to be in the stadium and have the game day experience.”

Venvertloh looks forward to the rest of the season.

“I’m definitely excited for another win,” she said.

The parking lots were void of tailgaters, but students still celebrated before the game by playing various lawn games such as spike ball and corn hole on the quad and taking pictures in front of the dome. A sign on south quad informed campus visitors the quad was reserved for student activity only.

At the game, students grouped by household were scattered throughout the stadium. The cheerleaders led the crowd, this year in a line from the stands, below the first row of seats on the west side instead of on the field. Armed with pompoms and signs, the cheerleaders and leprechaun Conal Fagan, who is a senior, could not sport any tumbling acts, but could still lead the traditional “Go, Irish!” stadium chant.

Leprechaun Lynnette Wukie, who is a senior, served as new game day host, which was a new position this year meant to lead the students in games and announcements during the time outs. The band, spaced out, stood in the normal student section and played the traditional pregame music and a number of songs during halftime, although they could not march.

Family members of the players and the opposing team sat in the visitor’s sections of the stadium.

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First-year Maria Frech and band member said the game lived up the the hype. The trumpet player especially liked the cheers and the band traditions.

“It has always been my dream to be in the band and play at the games,“ she said.

Frech said she’s looking forward to the next game despite the restrictions.

Students jigged “Rakes of Mallow“ and enjoyed the fourth quarter Sgt. Tim McCarthy’s safety reminder. After each touchdown, students did push-ups with the help of their household in the tradition style or did real push-ups on the stands.

Sophomore Josh O’Brien noted how Notre Dame is one of few universities allowing an autumn football and student spectators.

“I like that we even get to be there,” he said. He did miss the noise of the regular 80,000 fans, he said.

“It’s different in the crowd,” he said.

First-year Luke Fortener also noted how the reduced crowd resulted in a quieter stadium. A

South Bend native, Fortener has been to numerous games over the years. He said he was most excited for, “the community among the students.”

James Chrisman, sophomore, said a tradition he missed was tailgating and sitting in the student section like normal.

“It’s strange to be spread out,” he said.

Chrisman said he was able to enjoy the game with the people around him, but wished students could have made their own group of friends to sit with, instead sitting with their households.

First-year Emma Eckstein sat with another resident of her dorm, since neither of their roommates bought tickets. While she still enjoyed the game, “the atmosphere was kind of off,” Eckstein said.

Eckstein said she might have set her expectations too high for the first game.

“I’m looking forward to it [the next home game] now I know what to expect,” she said.

In order to attend, students were required to wear a mask at all times and remain in their assigned seats.

Sophomore Summer Kerksick expressed concern about the actual health practices of the student spectators.

“People weren’t really following the mask wearing and social distancing guidelines,” she said.

Kerksick said at the beginning of the game, students wore their masks and sat in their assigned seats. However, as the game progressed, students began moving down and sitting in larger groups with others.

“That became really frustrating,” Kerksick said.

Kersick said students around her began pulling off their masks and some even began juuling. She saw students ask fellow students to put them back on, but she wished the ushers would have enforced the protocols more.

Kerksick said she hoped the University will do more to enforce the protocols at future games.

Notre Dame faces the South Florida Bulls this Saturday, Sept. 13 at 2:30 p.m.

9/11

first-year Annmarie Hackworthy said the emotional support and fellowship of the Notre Dame community was not lacking in Friday’s event.

“Everybody still was distanced, but you could tell that we still have that unity,” Hackworthy said. “The way everybody was standing when we came and walked out, it seemed like everyone was hopeful and together and unified in remembrance of 9/11.”

On campus in the days following the attacks in 2001, Malloy said there was that same sense of unity present, even amidst the fear of the times.

“There was a terrible sense of anxiety; were more things going to happen? So much we had taken for granted was not so assured. And so when we were going to say the Lord’s Prayer

during mass, where we usually hold hands, people instinctively locked arms like the alma mater because it was more comforting,” Malloy recalled in his speech.

Malloy said he visited New York City around 40 days after the attack. In his speech, he described his horror in witnessing the aftermath of the crashes firsthand.

“Watching them retrieve bodies, smelling the smells and hearing the sounds and watching what was like a picture of hell — with things burning, steel being pulled up and while these courageous people were looking for the remains of their colleagues and friends,” Malloy said.

Much of today’s Notre Dame’s student body is either too young to remember the infamous day themselves or weren’t alive to experience it, at least in the same way Malloy recalled in his speech on Friday night. Despite this, a generation of post-9/11 students gathered in remembrance and reverence for the lives lost.

Hackworthy was not yet born on Sept. 11, 2001. As a member of the Air Force ROTC at Notre Dame, she had the opportunity to present the colors at the memorial, a tradition that she says is a way of honoring those who gave their lives to protect civilians.

As she was presenting the colors, Hackworthy said she noticed there was a palpable energy within the grotto.

“The atmosphere was very similar to that feeling that you get when you walk into the Grotto,” Hackworthy said. “You’re walking down the stairs, and if you’re walking with someone and you were maybe chatting, and it’s just like a hush, a feeling of a weight off your shoulders, and just kind of a presence of everybody just understanding how special that place is.”

Continued from page 1

up for grabs. We at Notre Dame can be in each other’s presence and that’s consoling, in and of itself,’” Malloy said in his speech.

In a similar way manner, students and community members gather on Sept. 11 every year.

Sophomore Sabrina Curran, director of faith & service in student government, was in charge of planning this year’s memorial prayer service.

“Planning this event amidst the coronavirus pandemic was by no means an easy task,” Curran said in her opening speech.

Now, in the era of COVID-19, such physical togetherness that was characteristic of the memorial services of previous years is not possible in the same way, yet Paid Advertisement

Contact Isabella Volmert at ivolmert@nd.edu

Contact Maggie Klaers at mklaers@nd.edu

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The observer | Monday, September 14, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com

Registry Continued from page 1

made available to those affected, Miranda’s team decided to launch a similar registry.

“No one ever really launched a registry associated with the impact of Hurricane Katrina, so we didn’t want to miss that opportunity, so we worked with a coalition of local health departments and community groups to launch the Texas Flood registry,” Miranda said.

The registry initially focused on Hurricane Harvey but later expanded to cover other flooding events in the region.

There are currently 20,373 registrants in the Texas Flood Registry.

When the pandemic began, local health departments asked Miranda’s team to construct a COVID-19 registry using the infrastructure of the Texas Flood Registry. After gathering data for a few months, the Rice University COVID-19 Registry could launch a dashboard containing anonymous information from the surveys to provide public data regarding the

Klau Center Continued from page 1

of Islam, and it is both individual and institutional.”

Many people assume that terrorist attacks by Muslims are to blame for spikes in Islamophobia, she said.

However, the data contradicts this assumption. Mogahed shared figures that show spikes in anti-Muslim sentiment are more heavily concentrated around elections, rather than terrorist attacks.

“Islamophobia is a manufactured phenomenon, not an organic response to terrorist attacks,” Mogahed said. “The idea that Islam encourages violence more than other religions is refuted with evidence.”

However, the media often spins terrorist attacks, focusing heavily on their association with Islam, she said. Mogahed cited one headline that said the majority of fatal attacks on US soil were carried out by white supremacists, not terrorists.

This sort of language, she said, can further Islamophobia and intensify the public’s belief in a direct link between Islam and terrorism.

Islamophobia does not only affect Muslims, Mogahed said.

Efforts to restrict the rights of Muslims, via anti-Sharia or anti-foreign law bills, overlap 80% with efforts to restrict rights of other minorities via voter ID laws, breaking unions or antiimmigration laws, she said.

“Even if you’re not a member of a minority group, even if you’re the victim of a hate crime, even if you think all of these things don’t affect you, they affect you because fear erodes freedom,” she said.

“Fear makes us more accepting

spread and impact of the coronavirus across the United States.

“One of the things that we clearly discovered was that many more people had symptoms than were getting tested, and we were able to look at which neighborhoods people were having symptoms and who is getting tested and who wasn’t getting tested, and that helped the local health departments, figure out how where they might want to put some of their mobile testing sites,” Miranda said.

While the Rice University COVID-19 Registry currently has 8,319 registrants, the Indiana registry will need more people to participate before the data can be analyzed and published. The Center for Research and Computing has also been working to support the registry and created a highly secure data system to protect the confidentiality of the responses, Kallie Lies, software development manager said.

Miranda said the team will need an adequate number of responses per county, around 50 responses, to create a sub-map.

In order to encourage people to respond, the team will run a series of Facebook ad campaigns and outreach efforts across the state.

“For these registries to work, you have to successfully reach out to and connect with community groups and neighborhoods, and communities themselves, all over this state,” Miranda said.

Jessica Brookshire, the senior program director of Notre Dame research, has been assisting with communication efforts across the state.

“I think it’s a really great opportunity for Notre Dame to be a partner in a bigger state project,” Brookshire said.

Having worked with the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, a partnership between multiple universities and organizations in the state, to launch the registry, Brookshire said she looks forward to seeing the data the surveys produces.

“I think we’ll be able to see a lot of similarities throughout the state, but I would imagine, what I started to see was some differences based upon community

and county policies and changes, so it’ll be interesting to see how we’re all the same and also think about ways in which we’re different in various communities,” Brookshire said.

Serving as project manager for the Texas Flood Registry, Rice University COVID-19 Registry and the Indiana COVID-19 Registry, one of Rashida Callender’s roles is to look at survey development.

When she began working on the Indiana registry specifically, her team considered ways to make the questions more culturally relevant to the state by altering some of the questions.

After participants enroll in the Indiana registry, Callender said her team will continue making adjustments to the survey to improve.

The biggest challenge of a registry or any survey, she said, is attracting enough participants of varying demographics.

“Because it is a web-based survey there is a bias as a sample that we would have to take into consideration when we present the results,” Callender said.

Surveys like the COVID-19

registry tend to attract people who possess a higher level of education, she said. These studies also receive more responses from women and older adults.

Miranda encouraged everyone to take the survey regardless of whether they tested positive for COVID-19 or not because they need people of varying experiences for the registry to gather comprehensive data.

“We’re living through the era of COVID, and it’s challenging us in all kinds of ways,” Miranda said. “And in some ways you feel a little helpless to do anything about the challenges that COVID is posing for our immediate community, for our country and for our world, and participating in the registry is a way to do so mething very direct to help the medical community, the public health community and to help governing agencies to understand the impact of the virus on all of us and shape programs that will better support all of us coming through the pandemic.”

of authoritarianism.”

The effects of Islamophobia, Mogahed said, make everyone less free and less safe. Her research with the ISPU proves that there are ways to combat Islamophobia.

Any kind of bigotry, she said, tries to make the victim feel isolated. In order to address victim’s isolation, allies should build coalitions with people who want to fight Islamophobia, she said. People should also try to have meaningful conversations across the political divide. And another key factor, she said, is to demystify Islam as a faith.

“According to our research, knowing about Islam is one of the strongest protective factors against Islamophobia,” Mogahed said.

Mogahed’s lecture fell on the 19th anniversary of the Sept.

11 attacks. Three days after the attack, Mogahed said she was afraid to go to the mosque, assuming that there would be protests or backlash. Instead, she said, people of other religions and non-religious people showed up in solidarity to support the Muslim community.

“I really mark that moment as a turning point in my life where it inspired me to dedicate my life, to dedicate my career, to building bridges, rather than building bunkers and isolating ourselves,” Mogahed said.

“It’s really in this spirit that I do my research, that I do the work that I do. And this topic specifically, Islamophobia, is one that I think is absolutely critical to young people, especially during the time we live in now, especially during an election season.”

For those who want to continue educating themselves

on Islam and Islamophobia, Mogahed recommends taking a class on Islam, checking out the resources on the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding website or reading the book she co-authored with John Esposito, “Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims

Really Think.” And, she said, get to know a person who is Muslim and accept the real Muslim in the room as the norm and the fanatic on TV as the exception.

“The main message that I hope you will walk away with today is that Islamophobia is a threat to every American,”

Mogahed said. “We can all think about it, of course, as something that impacts Muslims. But Islamophobia is a threat to every single American who cares about freedom and democracy.”

Contact Serena Zacharias at szachari@nd.edu

Contact Trinity Reilly at treilly5@nd.edu

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Christina Wolbrecht is a Professor of Political Science, Director of the Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy, and the C. Robert and Margaret Hanley Family Director of the Washington Program at the University of Notre Dame, where I teach and write about American politics, political parties, gender and politics, and American political development. Her recent book, with Kevin Corder, is A Century of Votes for Women: American Elections Since Suffrage (Cambridge University Press, 2019).

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The observer | Monday, September 14, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com

By AVA DELONAIS-DICK and CHRISTOPHER PARKER Scene Writers

The last concert we saw before lockdown was on a small, dark stage in the back room of a restaurant.

We had come to see the openers and were grabbing a bite to eat when we spotted the band, ten feet from our table. We panicked — can we go up and ask for a picture? Is that bad etiquette? One of us didn’t mind being that pushy fan, and far from indignant or condescending, The Happy Fits seemed thrilled to take a photo with us. In hindsight, this shouldn’t have been a surprise; the music of this three-man group bursts with joyful and authentic energy, and in this review of their most recent album, “What Could Be Better,” we’re hoping to highlight the qualities that make this band so special.

In some ways, “What Could Be Better” takes the band in a new direction. Frontman Calvin Langman’s relentless cello strokes, which drive past happy-golucky tracks like “Dirty Imbecile” and rock anthems like “Mary” alike, are largely absent. In their place, The Happy Fits have honed their use of harmonies and created a much larger sound for their music.

The important things have remained though: a poprock-indie sound that exhibits the band’s excellent vocal talent, a diverse catalogue that switches easily from head-banging to side-swaying and — of course

— fruit-themed cover art.

The album opens with its first single, released back in June, entitled “Go Dumb.” The boys seem to have taken a page out of Cage the Elephant’s playbook, employing distorted vocals backed up by a snare beat.

The song doesn’t quite sound like any others in their catalogue, so it’s clear from the start that this album will be a little different. Still, the bouncy guitar riff post-chorus brings the characteristic levity that makes The Happy Fits such a fun band.

They change gears for the next highlight off of the album, “The Garden.” The cello is back in action here with steady but fluid arpeggios that keep the song moving forward. The main attraction on this track are the Queen-esque harmonies, led by Langman’s fitting falsetto. On a mostly fast-paced setlist, “The Garden” provides a moment of peace.

In a short dip into beach rock, “She Wants Me (To Be Loved)” comes complete with a groovy bass line and maracas. This choice surprised us given the lyrics, as the singer pines for his best friend, who obliviously hopes he finds happiness with someone else.

Listening to just the production, though, you’d have no idea. The groovy indie sound will get your hips swaying.

We’ll end with the penultimate track, “Get a Job,” to demonstrate the classic Happy Fits sound. The song rocks pretty hard with it’s production and a brief

solo that could have come off the Ramones’ “Road to Ruin.” The punk influence is evident, and as the intro starts, we’re ready to embark on another headbanger.

Instead, drummer Luke Gray Davis delivers a beat you can sit back in, giving an otherwise electric song a slightly more relaxed feel.

As we discovered during the concert, the infectious joy in The Happy Fits’ music is completely authentic.

The band is just three friends who really love the music they make. A frontman with mad scientist energy and a drummer who sings — what more could you want?

Contact Ava Delonais-Dick at adelonai@nd.edu and Christopher Parker at cparke22@nd.edu

“What Could Be Better” The Happy Fits Label: The Happy Fits Records Favorite songs: “She Wants Me (To Be Loved),” “Get a Job” If you like: Wallows, lovelytheband, Sure Sure

LIYA BLITZER | The Observer

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The observer | monday, steptember 14, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com

Inside Column

It’s OK to wear shorts this summer

Where is the love? Why fear is the wrong approach for climate activism Renee Yaseen Outside the Lines

Katie Harmeyer Viewpoint Copy Editor

Lots of suits. Blouses, dresses, shoes that look professional but I can’t really walk in. Carefully crafted resumes in official-looking folders.

The career fair is Tuesday!

For me, the mention of the career fair brings a whole array of emotions. I know having access to the kinds of opportunities available at the career fair is an indescribable privilege. I’m excited to see where everything I’ve learned at Notre Dame can take me. Yet, I also feel quite a bit of pressure and intimidation.

Unfortunately, it seems talk of summer opportunities and your future and life after Notre Dame can bring out the competitive side of the student body. That’s understandable, because we’re all definitely experiencing some pressure and intimidation. I don’t need to tell you that a culture of comparison doesn’t really get us anywhere, though.

Thus, amidst the pressures of this week, I’ll offer another narrative: It’s okay to choose shorts over business-casual this summer. It’s okay to decide against the prestigious internship route. We have a limited number of “free” summers left before we begin life beyond an academic-year calendar. Shouldn’t those summers be filled with whatever will make us better people? Isn’t forming us into better people the whole goal of higher education? (I think the Meruelo Family Center for Career Development would probably agree with me, too.)

Here’s a reminder, then, that the opportunity that will make me a better person this summer is likely different from what’s best for you. A business-casual internship across the country might facilitate growth for one of us, while the other would learn much more at home working in a tank top and running shorts. Your resume may say you worked your high school job for another year, but it won’t convey all the wisdom you gained because you got to spend extra time with your grandma.

Right now, I don’t know what kind of summer plans would be best for me. I will probably explore a lot of options. Last summer, though, I definitely had a summer of shorts, as the pandemic and a whole lot of luck led me to work as a waitress in a tourist town. I took the job because it sounded fun, and it was a blast.

Looking back (and maybe this is a self-serving position to take), last summer produced a lot of growth, too. I made great friends who were both strikingly similar and wildly different from me. I worked many hours on my feet and gained a lot of appreciation for the service industry. I learned to multitask like nobody’s business. I got better and better at making small talk with customers, which was a big win as an introvert. I was also truly on my own for the first time, having never lived anywhere but Notre Dame and with my family. I’d like to think that was a valuable use of time!

I’m writing this column as a reminder to myself as much as anyone else. I certainly fall victim to the culture of comparison at times, and perhaps putting this all in writing will make it stick in my own head. Here’s to taking a deep breath, and letting the growth happen however it does.

When writing fiction, I’ve frequently heard the advice, “Let your location be a character in itself.” For example, when writing a great chase scene through a forest, maybe your hero’s foot gets caught in a malevolent fist of brambles. Perhaps he takes a moment to catch his breath and re-evaluate his strategy at the flank of a gentle stream. Nature plays a role in the story’s action. It’s good advice. Many of our most cherished personal memories are inseparably linked with locations and elements of nature. Camping trips with our parents and siblings, the thrill of swimming in the open sea and the gentle breeze on grandma’s porch swing: Nature is not a passive backdrop upon which we write a story, it’s just as much an active “author” of our memories as we are.

We’ve gotten stuck in a loop, however. Much like the authors who killed off Dobby, Prim, Rue and Leslie from “A Bridge to Terabithia,” we continue to kill off the individual lives that make up “the environment.” An “environment” has no feelings, no senses, no intrinsic or unique beauty. But a koala made homeless by wildfires, tigers that will soon go extinct due to “hunting and habitat destruction,” the 500,000 people in Oregon forced to evacuate their homes due to wildfires, and the millions of children in war-torn regions who also face climate-change-accelerated food insecurity, have all of these and more. The sanctity of life does not stop at human life; the beautiful and mysterious force of creation is just as much at work, carving the individual veins of the leaves on a tree as it is forming every cell of our fingernails.

Words are important. I can’t say that the barrenness of cleared tropical forests and all the life they once contained is appropriately captured by the word “murder,” in the sense of the term most people know. But I frame the climate crisis this way, like fiction authors killing off beloved characters, because many of us don’t view the environment as really, imminently worthy of the level of care we deem appropriate for other human beings. Our relationship with nature is not just unhealthy, it’s disrespectful to life. We take, we demand and we force — rarely do we nurture, sacrifice or evaluate the needs of our relationship partner. A human relationship like the one we have with the natural world would be abusive and life-threatening. At the risk of sounding dramatic, I will ask (in full-stage makeup and with the advantage of blinding overhead stage lights): Where is the love when it comes to protecting nature? We won’t solve the climate crisis without consciously evaluating whether we love the planet even more than we fear losing it.

Emotionally expressive rhetoric can move huge swaths of people to collective action. But I want to make it clear that appealing to fear as a persuasive technique will not work as a motivator to pro-climate

behavior. Climate scientists in the U.K. found that while fear might be effective in drawing people’s attention to the crisis initially, it’s not very helpful in getting people to consistently engage in the climate-preservation effort in the long-term. This makes sense. When we conceptualize the fight against climate change as small groups of individuals throwing puny rocks at “unsinkable” tar-spewing, carbon-emitting multibillion dollar corporations, the problem seems impossible. And who would put in years of work on an impossible problem? This is how well-meaning groups can lose focus and motivation.

Instead, the aforementioned researchers found that a rhetorical approach involving “individual’s everyday emotions and concerns” is more effective. Our thinking, our feeling and our actions for the environment must be motivated by a love for what the aforementioned article denotes as our “objects of care.” These objects of care are our family, our friends and, if we can cultivate the right kind of love, plants and nonhuman animals as well.

Speaking of cultivating a love for plants and animals: To love is to be known. According to The Solutions Journal, “young children can recognize over 1,000 corporate logos, but few can identify more than a handful of local plant or animal species.” How can we raise a generation to love the blessing that is our planet when children are spending less time freely playing outside than ever before (on average, just 4-7 minutes daily)? Maybe my upbringing in the bluffs of Wisconsin and my parent’s fondness for hiking and gardening has biased my thinking, but I think we can and must do better at exposing children (and ourselves) to the beauty of nature.

Love in the context of climate change is not a flimsy serenade from a moral balcony at sunset — our level of emotiveness toward the climate can predict our policy positions. Climate love has been expressed in legal proceedings against governments that fail to protect citizens’ liberty and life from climate change.

The field of social entrepreneurship is now filled with people who love the excitement of innovation and the planet. Love motivates us to be better versions of ourselves, as it often does. To act on our best behavior. This column should neither shock you nor scare you. I only encourage you to expand the circle of those whom you experience love for. Find time to get to know the natural world around you. It’s what love asks of us.

Renee Yaseen is a junior who majors in international economics and Arabic. She’s currently on a gap semester doing lots of creative stuff and lots of un-creative stuff. She can be reached via the chat on a shared Google Doc at 3 a.m., on Twitter @ReneeYaseen or by email at ryaseen@nd.edu The views expressed in this column are those of the authors and not necessarily those of The Observer.

Contact Katie at kharmeye@nd.edu The views expressed in this Inside Column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.

Submit a Letter to the Editor: viewpoint@ndsmcobserver.com KERRY SCHNEEMAN | The Observer

The observer | monday, september 14, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com

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Septuagenarians and the future Trevor Lwere On The Other Hand

When Joe Biden officially accepted his nomination as presidential f lagbearer for the Democratic Party, he became the oldest presidential candidate in the history of the United States, a record previously held by his opponent Donald Trump. A U.S. presidential race between two septuagenarians, Biden (77) and Trump (74), has great symbolism both domestically and globally. Domestically: America, confronted by a daunting future for which it has no clear vision, is reaching back into its glorious yet fading past to rediscover itself.

Globally: The world cries out for leadership and a vision for the future. Perhaps most importantly, this moment symbolizes our generation’s unique historical mission.

Two septuagenarian presidential frontrunners represent America’s effort to reach back into its glorious but fading past in hopes of rediscovering herself. The U.S. is at a crossroads, confronted by a daunting future for which it is utterly unprepared on the one hand and tempted by a glorious yet fading past on the other. One would imagine that the future is the obvious choice. Not for America.

The country seems to have no clear vision for the future and is rather responding in typical human fashion — when in doubt, revert to what you know.

This is the context in which the 2020 presidential race ought to be understood. Neither Biden nor Trump offers America — or the world — even a semblance of a vision for the future. Trump, in seeking to “make America great again,” evokes a fading memory of American exceptionalism.

Biden’s platform is essentially the same, though worded differently — he seeks to “restore the soul” of our nation. Both Trump and Biden, and by extension their supporters, believe that America has lost something which ought to be recovered. For Trump, it is the economic might and global inf luence. For Biden, it is America’s soul — whatever that means. Consequently, both candidates are promising to lead the nation not to the future, but to a familiar past.

Reverting back to the past can be understood either as an act of self-preservation or a tactic of strategic retreat. As strategic retreat, one seeks to reorganize themselves and re-launch much stronger and better organized. As self-preservation, all one is doing is simply saving themselves to see another day. But you cannot win a boxing match if you are outside the ring. In that sense, therefore, self-preservation is not a winning strategy. In the case of America, going by the campaign platforms of the presidential frontrunners, one is hardpressed to say that America is not on a strategic retreat. Either candidate’s lack of a clear vision for the future suggests that in this election, America is simply on a self-preservation mission. If indeed that is the case, regardless of the winner in the November election, America’s retreat into the past will have serious implications for the future of the world, not least because America has ably superintended the post-war world order for the past several decades.

On the global stage, this presidential race lays bare the impending global leadership crisis — an absence of new ideas and vigor to lead the world into the next phase of human history. With America’s retreat into the past, a global leadership gap emerges. In the face of a daunting future, this crisis is compounded by the recourse to septuagenarian ideas amongst America’s European allies.

As America runs to old people, Europe is running to old ideas ill-suited for the world’s present challenges. Britain’s decision to leave the European Union is indicative of yet another return to a familiar past in the face of an uncertain future.

Brexit was not so much a strategic retreat but a self-preservation tactic. Elsewhere in Europe, narrow nationalism is resurgent. The leaderships of the U.K., France, Germany and even Russia are nothing but variants of a deficient and dying world order that persists at the behest of capital and military might. As America, captain of the band, retreats, the rest of the pack is far from able or ready to offer the world a vision for the future, owing to their own existential crises. Perhaps, as some analysts have argued, we’re starting to see the beginning of the end of the Western hegemony. The

sun is seemingly setting on the West and rising in the east. But for us, as the younger generation, our interest ought to be in having the sun shining everywhere — not just in the east or the west.

With America retreating into the past and a global crisis of leadership emerging, this presidential race also signals the task at hand for our generation; the world cries out for direction into the next phase of human history. Franz Fanon says that every generation “must, out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it.” As next-generation leaders, our work is cut out for us: to craft a bold, innovative vision for the world that radically breaks away from the old, recessive ways of thinking and doing things which have brought some of us prosperity at the expense of others and midwifed our present challenges. Yet, while we all may have ideas of what that vision ought to be, there are certain “non-negotiables” that we, from all corners of the world, ought to agree on if we even remotely care about a better future for humanity. As a bare minimum, our guiding principle ought to be a humanism underpinned by love.

Under such a humanist conception of the future, person — not profit or the market — ought to take precedence. Down with narrow nationalism, racism, sexism, exploitation of man by man and all forms of human oppression.

As Cornel West once said, we do not need leaders who are “well-adjusted to injustice and welladapted to indifference.“ We need leaders “who love the people enough and respect the people enough to be unbought, unbound, unafraid, and unintimidated to tell the truth.” Here at Notre Dame, with our access to power and privilege, we are well-placed to lead in crafting a bold vision for the future — if we hearken to the religious character of our alma mater and her mission of being a force for good.

Trevor Lwere is a junior at Notre Dame majoring in economics, with a PPE minor. He hails from Kampala, Uganda, and lives off campus. He is a dee-jay in his other life and can be reached at tlwere@nd.edu The views expressed in this column are those of the authors and not necessarily those of The Observer.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

In response to Brian Evans, CFO of GEO group In a recent letter to The Observer, Notre Dame alumnus and GEO Group CFO Brian Evans offers unsolicited advice on how students should focus their political energies. Mr. Evans is no stranger to political action. As treasurer of the GEO Group Inc. Political Action Committee (the GEO Group PAC), Mr. Evans is a key player in the political activities of the company he works for and defends. The “energy” he devotes mainly consists of money: over $650,000 of it since January 1st 2019, according to Federal Election Commission data. Maybe Mr. Evans believes six-figure PAC budgets are the civilized way to effect change.

It might be surprising to learn that GEO Group has a PAC at all, considering Mr. Evan’s assurances that the firm, which operates immigrant detention centers and private prisons worldwide, “never played a role in setting immigration or criminal justice policy.”

It certainly appears that “never” playing a role in policy is a high priority for GEO Group and Mr. Evans.

Through the 2013-2014 cycle, GEO’s PAC spending hovered around $50,000 per year and was reasonably split between Republicans and Democrats. However, in the lead-up to the election of a president who as early as August 2015 put forward an immigration plan promising mass deportation and “detention — not catch-and-release,” the PAC ramped up proRepublican spending to $372,500, 98% of their total

in 2019-2020. The first contribution to Trump Victory appears in the PAC’s disbursements in July 2016, and the contributions have continued ever since.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with giving money to political causes. FEC individual contributions are designed so that citizens can make their voices heard in the arena of government. But this is exactly what Mr. Evans denies. If we take his claim that GEO Group does not advocate for immigration policy at face value, then his time as treasurer of GEO’s PAC has been one of tremendous wastefulness. After all, if $120,000 in total donations to Trump Victory hasn’t helped to elect and re-elect the president who has increased the daily number of immigrant detainees by 40% since his inauguration, the money must have been squandered along the way.

Mr. Evans might also be surprised to find that his company has been throwing away cash when paying Brian Ballard, a lobbyist who, according to the New York Times, was hired by GEO Group and registered to lobby for “immigration regulation.” If he has not been “advocating for or against enforcement or sentencing policies” while on the job, then Mr. Ballard’s payroll checks have been a foolish expenditure. Of course, maybe the waste simply goes unnoticed in a company which collected $184 million in federal funding for detaining immigrants in 2017. With the system already so slanted in GEO’s favor, Mr. Ballard

hardly has much work to do.

The GEO Group PAC has also been involved at the state level, where their activities have flown in the face of Mr. Evans’ claims. In Texas, GEO appears to have contributed to a bill which would make it easier for their detention centers to be licensed as child care facilities. According to state Rep. John Raney, “I’ve known the lady who’s [GEO Group’s] lobbyist for a long time ... That’s where the legislation came from.”

The inspiration was likely not limited to ideas, as the GEO Group PAC spent $320,000 lobbying the Texas legislature in 2017 according to the according to the Associated Press. I cannot help but wonder whether this money could have been better spent “invest[ing] in the success and empowerment of those entrusted” to GEO, as Mr. Evans claims.

In the landmark Supreme Court case that paved the way for GEO Group’s outsized corporate influence, Citizens United v. FEC, Justice Kennedy found that monetary political donations by corporations amounted to free speech. While I disagree with the finding, I agree the hundreds of thousands of dollars the GEO PAC has spent under Mr. Evans’ leadership does speak for itself. It speaks volumes.

Christian Bunker class of 2020 Sep. 9

8

DAILY

The observer | Monday, September 14, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com

Crossword | WILl shortz

Horoscope | Eugenia Last Happy Birthday: The past will offer insight into how best to proceed this year.

Touch base with people who have been instrumental in helping you get ahead, and you will begin a collaboration that is certain to bring good results. You are overdue for a change, and with a little help from your friends, good things will transpire. Embrace the future with open arms. Your numbers are 4, 11, 17, 28, 32, 36, 49.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Spend time with someone you love. Make unique plans that encourage a relationship that means a lot to you to enjoy positive growth. Don’t let anger or discord emerge when your life’s quality is dependent on peace and love. Romance is favored.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Keep an open mind when dealing with emotional and domestic matters. Listen and consider suggestions rather than force your will on others. Take the necessary precautions to protect your health and well-being. Be a leader, not a follower.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Aim to get things done on time with the least amount of friction. If an argument erupts with someone close to you, it will ruin your plans. Allowing others the right to have an opinion will ensure you receive the same treatment in return.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Partnerships will stress you out and test your patience.

Take a step back and do your own thing. Work on home improvements, tidying up loose ends and sourcing out interests and skills that you can use to bring in disposable cash.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Don’t buy into something that doesn’t make sense. Use your charm and intellect to navigate your way through any situation that might compromise you physically, financially or emotionally. Set goals, and do your own thing.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Keep your money in your pocket. Focus on offering reasonable help, not making a donation. Take pride in what you do, and don’t shy away from doing your own thing. Personal growth and positive lifestyle changes are favored.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): A rational response is the best way to handle an emotional situation. Sit back, relax, offer legitimate suggestions and focus on the changes that will make you happy. Back away from temptation or people who are a terrible influence.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Take the lead. Find solutions that accommodate family and friends, and set your plans in motion. An innovative approach to something you want to do will bring about positive change. Take the initiative and be a hero.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Stay in your comfort zone. Take precautions when it comes to money as well as your health. Live within your means, and abide by the rules. You will set an example for those feeling pressured or uncertain or are having trouble fighting temptation.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Emotions will rise to the surface due to the changes you want to make being not widely accepted by those close to you.

Rethink your objective and motive, and you’ll find a way to get what you want and please loved ones.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Make meaningful relationships priorities. Spend time with people who are mentally stimulating and undeniably fun and thoughtprovoking. A mental challenge will lead to new ideas and solutions to pending problems.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): What you do to help others will be applauded and bring about positive change, but don’t let your desire to be a savior put you in harm’s way. Abide by the recommendations put forth by experts first and foremost.

Birthday Baby: You are possessive, caring and loyal. You are proactive and supportive.

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SPORTS

ndsmcobserver.com | Monday, September 14, 2020 | The Observer

Sports Authority

Sports Authority

Ranking the best pro sports jersey designs

Hiring Nash shows diversity problem Liam Coolican Sports Writer

Hiring a head coach in the NBA is challenging, especially on a team with dynamic superstars with big personalities like Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.

It is certainly a difficult job for any coach to manage to keep the players content while still maintaining his authority, all while dealing with the tremendous expectations that come with competing for a championship.

New Brooklyn Nets head coach Steve Nash will have to manage all that, while at the same time making the adjustment to coaching, as he has never coached at any level. There have been some players who made the jump to head coach that have found tremendous success, such as Steve Kerr, and some major failures, like Jason Kidd.

The point of this column isn’t to argue whether or not Nash was the right choice. It is merely to point out that the NBA — and sports as a whole — has a diversity problem when it comes to coaching.

In 2003, the NFL instituted the Rooney rule, named for Dan Rooney, the former Steelers owner and chairman of the league’s diversity committee.

It requires teams to interview minority candidates for headcoaching and senior operations positions. The rule has only been marginally effective; there are currently three black head coaches in the NFL. In college football, the problem is even more striking. There are just 13 black coaches out of 128 Division I programs, even though the majority of student athletes are black.

There was an assortment of candidates who were objectively more qualified than Nash. Jacque Vaughn, the Nets top assistant coach who took over as the interim head coach in March, was considered by many the top candidate. He led the injury-depleted Nets to more success than most expected in the bubble and was the head coach of the Orlando Magic from 2012-2015. Vaughn was reportedly the only other candidate who was interviewed, but there were rumors surrounding former Warriors coach Mark Jackson, and Irving’s former coach Tyronn Lue was also considered. All three of these coaches are black. If the Nets had hired someone who was objectively more qualified, such as Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich, or even someone like Jason Kidd, most would not see an issue. It is the fact that they hired Nash while passing over black candidates who had much

9

more experience is what leads many to suggest that this is part of a systemic problem.

I’m a big fan of Nets general manager Sean Marks, and the turnaround that he has engineered in Brooklyn after the disastrous trade with the Celtics in 2013. Steve Nash may well be the right choice for Brooklyn, and I hope he succeeds. He was a master tactician as a player, and his time as general manager of Team Canada will help from the organizational perspective.

If we were solely looking at this hire, it would not be a bad one.

However, we must examine it as part of the greater system.

While there are currently five black head coaches in the NBA — and two who were recently fired — black coaches get hired at a lower rate and have trouble getting rehired as a head coach.

Lue, who won a championship with Cleveland, has not found a new head coaching position since being fired in 2018. It is comparatively rare for a black head coach to get a second or third chance at a head coaching position, while some white coaches are perpetually rehired, such as Tom Thibodeau, who was just hired as the Knicks head coach, despite being fired from each of his previous two jobs.

It is clear that this is a systemic problem across sports. In the NFL, more than 70% of the players are black, but very few of the coaches and executives are.

Football is the only major sport where most of the successful coaches were not NFL players.

There is no definitive reason why, but making an effort to hire more former players, who understand the game at a high level, would certainly result in more minority head coaches.

It is easy to point out the problem. It is less simple to find solutions. The Rooney rule was a good starting point, but it has not been very effective. There was a proposal to enhance the rule by giving teams draft pick incentives to hire minority coaches, but that has been put aside. I don’t think incentives or rule changes are what is necessary, although they certainly may help. Most major leagues are aware that there is a problem, and have publicly acknowledged it, but there are no short term solutions. There needs to be a top-down culture change, but that is difficult to achieve and would take years. For now, we must be content with marginal improvements.

Contact Liam Coolican at lcoolica@nd.edu The views expressed in this Sports Authority are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.

Hayden Adams Sports Editor

Whether it’s to relive glory days on the court, pitch or gridiron, or it’s to live vicariously through others, sports fans love to wear the jersey of their favorite team or athlete.

Consider this Sports Authority a two-parter, with this first installment addressing the best designed jerseys among professional sports teams. Now without further ado…

Honorable Mention MLS Jerseys

—

I hate to do it, but I just can’t put any soccer uniforms on here.

When you sell your soul (and the primary image on your jersey) to advertisers for a quick buck, you lose a lot in my esteem. The New York Red Bulls are LITERALLY named for the energy drink.

I would be remiss though if I didn’t at least acknowledge their logo still looks good, as do the Seattle Sounders’ with “XBOX” on them. But again, show off your own original name with pride on the front of the jersey if you want in my rankings.

9. Baltimore Ravens I’m going to throw NFL fans a bone here because, spoiler alert, this is the only football team on this list. I hate to do it to the rest of the league, but let’s be real, the helmet does way too much of the heavy lifting, and those deserve their own ranking altogether.

There’s no logo of significant size on the actual jerseys, but Baltimore has a unique color scheme (not many purple teams in professional sports), sharp numbers and, while birds are overused as mascots, a raven is a seldom-seen pro sports nickname.

8. New York Yankees I’m sure this already has people fuming. Say what you will about New York sports teams or the city in general, but those pinstripes are iconic. They’re so iconic that Notre Dame football didn’t think twice about making some REALLY funky uniforms with pinstripes on their pants and shoulders.

7. San Antonio Spurs People sleep on the Spurs for a variety of reasons, not the least of which, I feel like, is due to their uniforms. Black, white and grey just don’t pop like the Lakers’ purple and gold or Celtics’ green.

But the design is economic, the nickname unique and the logo

variable enough to serve as the “u” in “Spurs” or as the sole image on the jersey; it’s also one of the few logos that can survive the constant attrition the NBA puts jerseys through.

6. St. Louis Cardinals To be honest, baseball is pretty much the antithesis of the NBA when it comes to jerseys. The league doesn’t have a lot of variation. Heck, even the Red Sox logo doesn’t serve as the primary image on their jerseys.

I know what I said about birds being overused as mascots, but I have to hand it to St. Louis, they have some good-looking teams.

Given the lack of variation, a couple of cardinals sitting on a baseball bat as if it’s a branch seems pretty good (relatively speaking). Plus, the logo still looks good regardless of if the jersey is red, black or light blue.

5. Milwaukee Bucks This may be a hot take, but I think Milwaukee has some nice unis. I’m not a huge fan of what the NBA has done with (most of) their new designs of uniforms, but like the Spurs, I think the Bucks make a lot happen without a lot of pageantry.

Again, like the Spurs and Ravens, it’s rare to see a buck as a mascot. Put it in the middle of a jersey with a number right in the middle of the antlers and it looks pretty good. That hunter green color also goes well with their secondary colors, even cream.

That said, I’m not totally sure how to feel about their “Cream City” jerseys. Cool…?

4. St. Louis Blues Like I said, there are some good-looking teams in St. Louis.

And I’m going to be honest, I think the NHL has the most depth in terms of quality uniform design. And as for this one, sure, it may be a pretty big primary image, but that logo just appeals to me for some reason.

I can’t really explain why this appeals to me more than, say, the NBA’s Utah Jazz. Both are named for music and have a musical note as the symbol. I don’t necessarily think wings on that note are better than a basketball drawn within it.

In any case, the Blues earn a little more cache for standing out in a crowded field of nice threads. The size of their logo is OK since that’s the only thing on the front. Plus, blue, black and yellow look awfully good on that jersey. Blue, yellow and red on the alternates isn’t too shabby either.

3. Pittsburgh Penguins The city of Pittsburgh should probably get a bit more creative with colors aside from black and yellow, but it seems to be working well enough for them. A lot of the credit here goes to the fact that a penguin is a perfect hockey mascot, and it manages to look competitive (as opposed to adorable) as the image on their jerseys. I can’t really explain why, but the triangle in the background is a very nice touch.

2. Vancouver Canucks A few things go into this.

One is the blue and green color scheme, with red and blue alternates. Plus, the design still manages to stick out in a crowded field of nice jerseys.

For one thing, not a lot of NHL jerseys have the name of their city on there, so putting Vancouver on the front is a great start. However, the real deciding factor is that, with the stereotype of Canadians being overly polite, they Yankee-Doodle-Dandy’d the word “Canuck,” stuck a shark on their jersey and said, “Come get some, eh.” And you know they can back it up, because they’re Canadians, and every Canadian comes out of the womb on ice skates and picks up a hockey stick before they speak their first words.

1. Miami Heat This wasn’t as tough as you may think. I bet this is a real hot (no pun intended) take to some people, especially because, while the red and black is sick in its own right, I’m actually a big fan of the “Miami Vice” jerseys. Say what you will, but the franchise and fans really bought into going from red and black to PINK and BABY BLUE. That’s a combination you never see, but it looks good on their jerseys and court, especially with a script font that manages to differentiate itself from other frequently used script names.

Breast cancer awareness is just a bonus.

This may or may not be the most controversial piece I have ever written, but it doesn’t end here. Stay tuned for the second installment of this series, where I’ll rank which sports have the best-made uniforms in terms of comfortability.

Contact Hayden Adams at hadams3@nd.edu The views expressed in this Sports Authority are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.

The Observer accepts classifieds every business day from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Notre Dame office, 024 South Dining Hall. Deadline for next-day classifieds is 3 p.m. All classifieds must be prepaid. The charge is 5 cents per character per day, including all spaces. The Observer reserves the right to edit all classifieds for content without issuing refunds.

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Sports

The observer | Monday, September 14, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com

Football Continued from page 12

like he has in the past and learns to spread the field with his new targets he will be able to give Dabo Swinney’s Tigers a run for their money in November, December and possibly even a third time in January in the Playoffs. The Irish are in contention for the playoffs every year but always seem to fall inches short. The stars seem to have aligned this year: The Irish are in a conference. They are playing football when other schools around the country are not, Ohio State and Michigan to name a few. Notre Dame will not be able to beat Clemson in their first game of the season but they will meet again at the ACC Championship. This game will be the final test for Ian Book, and I think it will be this game that will determine whether the Irish have what it takes this year to win a national title and if Book has what it takes to give the Irish the claim of having the most Heisman winners of all time.

SEASON PREDICTION: 10-1

Charlotte Edmonds For the past three years I’ve struggled to understand the eternal optimism of senior writers on this beat. Alas, here we are. While I’m not going to be so bold as to suggest Notre Dame will run the table, I have a good feeling about this team. They were disrespected in the bowl game selection last year and responded accordingly with a 33-9 win over Iowa State. While the secondary and receiving corps lost major contributors to graduation and the NFL Draft, they’ve reloaded with a deep lineup of untested but talented players. Notre Dame also no longer has to worry about the pressure of bigtime games (i.e. Wisconsin) or the intricacies of Navy’s triple option. Unfortunately for the Irish, Clemson is just a different breed of football, and I anticipate will be too much for them to overcome even at home. However, despite a narrow regular-season loss to the Tigers, the Irish will have their way with the rest of the ACC and will meet Dabo for the third time in as many years in the conference championship.

SEASON PREDICTION: 10-1

Ellen Geyer Ah, the inaugural season prediction. If the past six months have taught me anything, it’s that life is a crushing disappointment. The resident beat pessimist returns! I will admit that Notre Dame’s schedule certainly got easier after joining the ACC (take that, literally everyone), but the Irish still face an uphill battle with Clemson. The two pieces of good news are that the Tigers aren’t on the

schedule until November, and that they’ll likely incur seasonal affective disorder during their two-day stay in the dirty Bend. However, Trevor Lawrence’s squad will still be too much for the Irish, handing Notre Dame what I anticipate will be their first loss of the season. Dejected, the Irish will falter in one of the two subsequent games — BC or UNC — ending with two losses on the year. They’ll still qualify for the ACC championship, but will once again prove outmatched in the Cotton Bowl 3.0.

SEASON PREDICTION: 9-2

Aidan Thomas To predict the Notre Dame football season is to try and mix my pessimism — garnered from rooting for the Irish for a decade — with my somewhat unwarranted optimism that has me desperately believing that 2021 will bring about the end of the national championship drought in South Bend. That being said, I’m ready to push my chips to the center of the table with this Notre Dame squad. It is said that good teams rebuild and good programs reload.

This will be a key year to determine what exactly Brian Kelly has built. He has a quarterback in his third year under center, but fifth-year Ian Book will be surrounded by a cast of largely unproven skill position players. The defense lost a lot, but they also return Kyle Hamilton, Daelin Hayes and numerous other promising pieces.

Can this intriguing blend of talent mesh together for a promising season? I’m saying yes. The biggest game on the schedule is obviously Clemson, whom the Irish host on Nov. 7. Clemson has not won a true road game against a top-10 opponent since 2009, and it’s a challenge they haven’t even faced in the Trevor Lawrence era. Notre Dame hasn’t lost at home since the Georgia takeover in 2017, and they haven’t lost by more than a possession at home since 2013. I think Notre Dame keeps it close against Clemson and takes the win late. That leaves me worried about trap games like their visit to Pitt or their trip to Chapel Hill to take on North Carolina. There’s opportunity for the Irish to trip up, but I’m allowing my optimism to get the best of me.

It’ll be an undefeated regular season for the Irish and a trip to the ACC Championship.

SEASON PREDICTION: 11-0 Contact Hayden Adams at hadams3@nd.edu, Charlotte Edmonds at cedmond3@nd.edu, Ellen Geyer at egeyer1@nd.edu and Aidan Thomas at athoma28@nd.edu The views expressed in this column are those of the authors and not necessarily those of The Observer.

ian tibbals | The Observer

Former Irish midfielder Jack Casey looks to pass during Notre Dame’s 1-0 win over Denver at Alumni Stadium on Sept. 8, 2019. The Irish start their season Sept. 17 at 7 p.m. at home against Kentucky.

Schedules Continued from page 12

a men’s or women’s soccer game, a cross country meet and a volleyball match or two per week.

Each of those stories gets its own preview and wrap, and with four to five events per week that gives us eight to 10 stories, and that’s not even counting breaking news, Saint Mary’s and Holy Cross sport updates or all of the football content we have with Brian Kelly press conferences. Oh, and the Observer Roundtable does wonders for filling space on a weekly basis with football talk. It’s even more abundant in the fall and spring when we get tennis, golf, swimming & diving, basketball and hockey starting up.

This fall, we’ve had football talk, and that was pretty much it. Adding an extra Sports Authority and a daily column, leaning on the Roundtable and getting inventive with team chaplain previews has helped, but it still hasn’t been easy by any means for us.

That said, it has still been an incredibly rewarding experience.

This has taught to appreciate the plethora of sports Notre Dame has to offer rather than to dread having to report on all of them. I want to give due credit and attention to the various sports Notre Dame offers — heck, I got my start at The Observer covering volleyball because they told me the team hadn’t really gotten fair coverage the previous year and I had some experience as a team manager for it in high school — but it can be tiring with so many to report on, especially when we get to the

point that it isn’t totally necessary to cover them to fill space in print.

Having that much content is a blessing I will never take for granted again.

We are now beginning to get sports back. If we’re being real, football is an entity all its own. The powers that be were going to move mountains to make sure it happened for the revenue it would bring in.

Make no mistake, football is the crème de la crème of the fall sports, but soccer, volleyball and cross country add a variety of flavor to the mix.

I wait with bated breath for the day when we can have

Notre Dame’s host of varsity sports back in action and our budget can be overflowing with content, even those late night games for which we have to wait in our office until 11:00 p.m. for the game wrap to be submitted.

Give me all the late nights in the dingy basement of South Dining Hall if it means we get sports back.

Contact Hayden Adams at hadams3@nd.edu The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.

Observer File Photo

Irish senior Andrew Alexander competes in the Joe Piane Invitational on Oct. 4 at Burke Golf Course. He placed 23rd overall.

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The observer | Monday, September 14, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com

Cross country, soccer schedules released Hayden Adams Sports Editor

junya Kanemitsu | The Observer

Irish sophomore midfielder Michael Pellegrino scrambles for the ball during Notre Dame’s 2-4 loss against Clemson at Alumni Stadium on Sept. 13, 2019. He scored the game winner against Michigan State.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday of last week, Notre Dame announced the fall schedules for women’s and men’s soccer teams and the cross country squad, respectively, with contests beginning this week.

The Atlantic Coast Conference previously announced on July 29 that men’s and women’s soccer would play six conference games and that the top four teams would make the postseason conference tournament. They would be allowed to schedule extra games against conference or non-conference opponents at their own discretion so long as they satisfied ACC testing protocols.

Both Irish squads have scheduled eight opponents, with the men taking on seven ACC foes and the women facing an exclusively in-conference slate. The number of teams making the conference tournament has increased to eight total, four from each division of

the conference. Every team on the men’s schedule made the College Cup last season.

Cross country has their two regular season meets scheduled for Sept. 19 in the Irish Classic and Oct. 3 in the Louisville Classic. The ACC Championships are slated for Oct. 30. For now, spectators will not be allowed to attend any of these events on-person unless otherwise specified.

On a personal note, this comes as a great relief. After taking over as sports editor of The Observer, I was thrust into an unprecedented situation in which we had to come up with ways of producing content with a severe lack of sports to report on. Sports Authorities can write themselves to a degree since they don’t pertain to Notre Dame sports, but it’s honestly been difficult at times to create the diversity of content we usually have.

To give you an idea of how it usually works for us in the sports department, we fill out our weekly budget with stories.

In the fall we’ll typically have see SCHEDULES PAGE 10

football

Predictions for Notre Dame’s 2020 record Hayden Adams, Jimmy Ward, Charlotte Edmonds, Ellen Geyer and Aidan Thomas Sports Editor, Associate Sports Editor, Senior Sports Writers and Sports Writer

Editor’s Note: A version of this story was published online Sept. 11.

Hayden Adams I’ll admit, my season prediction last year was way too optimistic, and that was when we had an entire spring season and fall camp to actually evaluate this team. I think it’s safe to say though that, considering literally every other team is in the same boat, Notre Dame’s first ever season in a conference bodes well for them with a 14-1 record the last three seasons against nonClemson ACC teams. There are teams to worry about like Pitt, Louisville and North Carolina, but in reality this schedule is easier than what the Irish originally had slated for the 2020 season. One of the few things I’ve gleaned from this process is how well this Notre Dame team is handling its business with

COVID-19 protocols, and I think that translates to the field. Combine that with superior talent than most teams can boast, and even if it isn’t pretty, I see the Irish finishing with one regular season loss at worst and making the conference championship game in a rematch of their Nov. 7 game against Clemson.

SEASON PREDICTION: 10-1

Jimmy Ward The Irish are lucky to be playing this schedule instead of their original 2020 schedule. A team that probably would have missed the CFP by a mile will now turn into a team that can suffer a loss or even two in its regular season and still be in the conversation through the ACC Championship. And the Irish should be glad they have that wiggle room because this ACC schedule is nothing to bat an eye at. Clemson remains as the singular daunting obstacle.

Ian Book is returning to start under center and has legitimate Heisman potential.

If he navigates ACC defenses

Hayden adams | The Observer

see FOOTBALL PAGE 10

Irish senior kicker Jonathan Doerer winds up to kick a field goal during Notre Dame’s 27-13 win over Duke on Saturday at Notre Dame Stadium. Doerer made a 48-yard and a 34-yard field goal during the game.

Insider

Williams Continued from page 1

I just feel comfortable. He’s someone that helps motivate me and I do that for him.”

The sophomore from St. Louis saw action in the first four games of last season and then preserved his eligibility as he gained experience behind a lineup of Tony Jones Jr., Jahmir Smith, C’Bo Flemister and Jafar Armstrong. If Saturday’s showing was any indication of things to come, it’s fair to say that extra year of preparation and mentorship made all the difference. Williams had his way against the Duke defense, pummeling through the line of scrimmage and extending plays with craft.

Perhaps it was the new game experience or just first-game jitters, but the Irish offense came out of the gate rusty. An entire opening quarter with no first downs, Notre Dame offensive coordinator Tommy Rees was starting to look unprepared for

Victory Continued from page 1

Blue Devils managed to convert another field goal after Notre Dame’s punt and trim the margin to 7-6. On the first play of ND’s ensuing drive Book through a screen pass to Williams that went for 75 yards and put Notre Dame in the red zone. The very next play Book overthrew Tremble and Duke intercepted the pass on the goal line for a touchback. Kelly spoke on Book’s rough start.

“I thought it was up and down,” Kelly said of his signal caller’s play. “You know, Ian made some really nice plays for us. What I said to Ian on the sideline was that he’s gotta make some of the easy plays, the layups if you will…

Ian Book has got a whole new offensive group of skill players around him and he’s still working through that process… At times, Ian wants to be great, and he can’t be great yet because those guys are young and they need some more time. So just make some of those easy plays and he’ll be fine.”

Notre Dame got the ball back with 1:13 left in the half and proceeded to go 54 yards in nine plays to set up senior kicker Jonathan Doerer for a field goal as time expired, taking a 10-6 advantage into the break. Of note on the drive was Wilkins, who caught three passes for 33 yards in that span. They were the first catches of his career.

“He had been limited in camp with a hamstring injury, but we’ve always felt like when Joe got his opportunity that he was talented enough to make some plays,” Kelly said. “… There’s a lot of players that just needed an opportunity. He was stuck behind some really good players and

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ndsmcobserver.com | monday, september 14, 2020 | The Observer

this new responsibility. And then Williams happened.

Two short rushes and an 11yard gain by Williams followed by a Duke penalty set the Irish up for first-and-goal. While Armstrong brought them to the goal line, Williams was the go-to guy to punch it in. He recorded another touchdown midway through the third quarter, finding a gap along the left sideline and picking up 26 yards straight into the end zone.

Perhaps Williams most electrifying play was one that didn’t even result in points. In the closing minutes of the first half, Book hit Williams off a tunnel screen. He dodged several defenders and was off to the races, gaining 75 yards before eventually being brought down at the 11-yard line. While Book through a goal-line interception the next play, Irish fans got a glimpse of the dualthreat Williams could pose for opponents.

Following the game, Kelly said he was pleased with

William’s performance but has even higher expectations for him going forward.

“Well, he did something that hadn’t been done here in 25 years, so from that perspective … receiving yards over 90, rushing yards over 90,” Kelly said. “… There’s a number of run reads and blitz pickups and things of that nature that he’s going to get a great learning curve from, but obviously a really good day.”

Williams repeatedly demonstrated a dangerous combination of speed, power and high football IQ. He showed no signs of inexperience and let that confidence spill into his sideline celebration. Simply put, he had swagger — and that was with a lackluster performance by the offense as a whole. Imagine several weeks from now as the team starts to find their rhythm, Kyren Williams just might become every team’s nightmare.

Ben [Skowronek] gets a bit of a hamstring, not severe, but enough that he couldn’t play at 100%. So, next guy in and we’ve got a lot of confidence in Joe, and [he] made some terrific plays for us. That sideline catch was a really big catch for us.”

Skowronek’s injury was not the only one the Irish would suffer, however. Early in the third quarter with the same score, senior linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah stripped a Duke receiver which led to an Irish fumble recovery, but the receiver rolled up on sophomore safety Kyle Hamilton’s ankle. The staff confirmed Hamilton merely sprained his ankle and could have returned to play but remained out for the rest of the contest.

After recovering the fumble, the Irish found themselves in a 4th-and-1 at the Duke 26 and gave the ball to Williams, who bounced outside and ran through the defense for a touchdown to take a 17-13 lead. Williams would finish the game with 93 receiving yards and 122 rushing, earning the game ball for his effort.

“Pretty good opener for him,” Kelly said of Williams.

“There’s a lot that can build off of this certainly.”

Another scoreless possession by each team passed followed by Duke finally getting into the endzone on a quarterback keeper with Clemson transfer Chase Brice. Brice threw for 259 yards while completing 20-37 passes.

Notre Dame would respond again however with a 15-play, 83-yard drive. It was punctuated by a 17-yard touchdown pass from Book, who went 1931 for 263 yards on the day, to senior receiver Avery Davis.

“It was just a seam, it was man coverage so it was just me vs. him,” Davis said of the play.

“And he covered me pretty well but when the ball was in the air I just needed it. I couldn’t let that opportunity pass.”

Notre Dame locked Duke down the following possession then converted another field goal to make it a 27-13 edge, which they maintained to the finish line thanks in part to recovering a fumble by Brice the next drive as he was hit on the arm while throwing.

Aside from Williams and Wilkens making statements for themselves, Mayer also played well with three catches for 38 yards and garnered praise from his distributor.

“I was extremely impressed with Michael,” Book said. “He’s been doing that all camp as well, so I wasn’t surprised. But he’s just physical, and everybody saw that tonight. He’s not gonna go down the first time he’s touched and as a quarterback that’s huge.”

After the game was over COVID-19 policies continued to influence Notre Dame, as the tradition of singing the alma mater postgame was now conducted with the players social distancing.

“Very awkward, but we still got it done,” was how Davis described it.

The major takeaway from the game seemed to be that the defense and special teams unit had lost much of a step from last season while the offense is looking to discover its identity without Chase Claypool, Cole Kmet or Chris Finke. Even so, Book remains optimistic.

“We’ve been looking forward to this game today for so long and the fact that we were able to do it, another win in our stadium, to be 1-0 in the ACC, it feels great,” he said. “Got a long way to go but definitely a good start.”

Scoring Summary 1

2nd

3rd

4th

Total

3

3

7

0

13

0

10

7

10

27

duke 3, notre dame 0

Charlie Ham 29-yard field goal

7:01

remaining Drive: 10 plays, 79 yards, 3:53 elapsed

2

NOTRE DAME 7, duke 3

Kyren Williams 1-yard run (Jonathan Doerer kick)

10:39

remaining Drive: 12 plays, 96 yards, 4:37 elapsed

Notre Dame 7, duke 6 Ham 30-yard field goal

3:20

remaining Drive: 11 plays, 80 yards, 4:12 elapsed

Notre dame 10, duke 6 Doerer 48-yard field goal

0:00

remaining Drive: Nine plays, 54 yards, 1:13 elapsed

Contact Charlotte Edmonds at cedmond3@nd.edu

Contact Hayden Adams at hadams3@nd.edu

1st

3

notre dame 17, duke 6

Williams 26-yard run (Doerer kick)

7:57

remaining Drive: Seven plays, 59 yards, 3:32 elapsed

Notre Dame 17, duke 13

Chase Brice 2-yard run (Ham kick)

2:19

remaining Drive: Six plays, 39 yards, 2:24 elapsed

4

NOTRE DAME 24, duke 13

Avery Davis 17-yard pass from Ian Book (Doerer kick)

10:58

remaining Drive: 15 plays, 83 yards, 6:21 elapsed

NOTRE DAME 27, duk 13 Doerer 34-yard field goal

5:21

remaining Drive: Six plays, 40 yards, 3:45 elapsed

statistics RUSHING yards 73 178

PASSING yards 259 263

total yards 332 441

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Insider

The observer | monday, september 14, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com

HAYDEN ADAMS | The Observer

Irish defenders converge on Blue Devils senior running back Deon Jackson during the 27-13 Notre Dame win over Duke at home Saturday. Clark Lea’s defensive unit again held firm, allowing 30 points or fewer for the 26th time in Lea’s 27 games. Duke’s third-quarter touchdown was the first the defense had allowed in over 100 minutes of play.

debuting in the acc

Notre Dame’s offense started slow, failing to record a first down during the first quarter. The defense, led by sophomore safety Kyle Hamilton, gave them time to catch up, and the Irish headed to halftime up 10-6. Sophomore running back Kyren Williams recorded two touchdowns, and senior kicker Jonathan Doerer knocked in two 30-plus yard field goals to seal the win.

HAYDEN ADAMS | The Observer

Irish senior linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah dives for a tackle during the Notre Dame win.

HAYDEN ADAMS | The Observer

Irish graduate student cornerback Nick McCloud vies for a 50/50 ball during Notre Dame’s win in the season opener Saturday at home.

HAYDEN ADAMS | The Observer

Irish junior tight end Tommy Tremble gets tackled during the 27-13 conference win over Duke.

HAYDEN ADAMS | The Observer

Irish offensive linemen senior Dillan Gibbons, front, and junior John Dirksen escort sophomore punter Jay Bramblett as he runs for a first down on a fake punt during Notre Dame’s 27-13 win against Duke.