Chris W

@rakesofmallow

notre dame newsletter and podcast and posting. subscribe to both at link below. winning is hard but it's also fun. rakesreport@gmail.com

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Chris W@rakesofmallow· 2d

mike denbrock getting ready to play ten wide receivers, five tight ends and four running backs

i think you should leave tim robinson drive thru sketch

Chris W@rakesofmallow· 2d

Sonia Citron vs Jackie Young, to me

Chris W@rakesofmallow· 4d

love this Ja'Juan Seider quote on Aneyas Williams, any and all Orange Bowl reminiscing fine by me irishsportsdaily.com/s/27962/notr...

On Williams as a pass-catcher:
“Well, it starts with confidence. He's done it in a big game. Hell, I was on the other side of the sideline and saw him make one of the biggest catches ever, sent my ass home crying. So, you've seen it, right? You've seen it over and over, and then there were moments last year he made those plays — over-the-shoulder catch versus Stanford. Like, that's what you love about him, because there's no moment too big for him.

“Like, he may be the most confident kid I've ever been around. And that's rare. For all of us, it's no different, we see guys, even coaches get in front of the room and speak that first time, there's some [lack of] confidence moments until you get going. He, from the first get-go, is already confident. And those are the traits you look for, because when the game on the line, I know I can count on that kid in that situation. Why? Because he has proven it already. It's the truth.”

Chris W@rakesofmallow· 6d

Notre Dame Mystics ☘️🇨🇦 🏀 🥲

Chris W@rakesofmallow· 7d

Notre Dame running backs vs the Badgers, apparently

Chris W@rakesofmallow· 8d

FYI all the great @bridgetgoirish.bsky.social designs are on sale for next 48 hours if you wanted to re-up before the season rakesreport.dashery.com the option below and many, many more

Chris W@rakesofmallow· 8d

additional thought from the latest newsletter: allowing jersey patches is going to increase revenue for all programs, but it's already showing that the money gap is only going to get wider rakesreport.substack.com/p/rakes-repo...

While this will help schools increase revenue, it’s not going to help close the revenue gap and is in fact almost certainly going to widen it. Notre Dame is getting a reported $18-20 million per year for their patch, Ohio State is getting nearly $17 million, Illinois is getting $6 million, Michigan State is looking at up to $4 million and Big 12 schools are getting about $1 million for the conference’s Monster Energy deal. A number of other deals have been announced without the details disclosed, which leads me to believe they are not approaching the Buckeye or Irish range. This isn’t quite a K-shaped athletics economy, but it’s an alligator opening its jaws even wider while tilting its head up. Obviously doesn’t hurt Notre Dame’s cause, but if you like the sport they’re playing generally I wouldn’t say this is ideal for its long-term health.

Chris W@rakesofmallow· 9d

☘️ new newsletter ☘️ Everything you need to know from Marcus Freeman's camp opening press conference, plus how you build an elite passing offense (2023 LSU was bonkers) and how jersey patches are bad for the reasons you think but also some other reasons. rakesreport.substack.com/p/rakes-repo...

Let’s look specifically at how the best non-Love Denbrock offenses have been formed. In 2023, LSU finished No. 2 in F+ and Jayden Daniels won the Heisman. That pass distribution was first-round pick Malik Nabers (89 for 1569) (are you kidding me), first-round pick Brian Thomas Jr. (68 for 1177) (and 17 touchdowns), tight end Mason Taylor (36 for 348) and the late Kyren Lacy (30 for 558). No one else had more than 14 catches.

In 2015 at Notre Dame, Denbrock dealt with a lot of injuries, including needing to turn to an inexperienced quarterback by the end of the second game. The Irish still had the No. 7 F+ offense and were also, to use a technical term, Really Fun To Watch. That reception breakdown looked like Will Fuller (62 for 1258), Chris Brown (48 for 597), Amir Carlisle (32 for 355), Torii Hunter, Jr. (28 for 363) and C.J. Prosise (26 for 308). Perhaps this is a framework the Irish could aspire to in 2026, but that would require someone to be as good as Fuller as your clear-cut alpha who is drawing multiple defensive backs on a lot of snaps and running by all of them anyway.

Denbrock made the four-team playoff with Cincinnati in 2021 with four receivers (including future Day Two NFL Draft picks Alec Pierce and Tre Tucker) and two tight ends all between 26 and 52 catches. Another potential framework, but quarterback Desmond Ridder was a rushing threat and that offense only finished 17th in F+. The Irish have to aim higher to win multiple playoff games.

Chris W@rakesofmallow· 21d

Happy Friday! It was Leonard Moore Week at the Report. ☘️ In newsletter form, wrote about all the ways he is awesome: rakesreport.substack.com/p/rakes-repo... ☘️ On the pod, we drafted Notre Dame players who could end up with All-American status come December: open.spotify.com/episode/7kgt...

Chris W@rakesofmallow· 22d

Jackie Young vs Sonia Citron

Al Pacino saying what a picture in OUATIH

Chris W@rakesofmallow· 23d

☘️ new pod ☘️ @jessicasmetana.bsky.social @sjwerner11.bsky.social and I drafted Notre Dame players we think have the best chance of earning All-American status at the end of the 2026 season. Lot of fun candidates, including lots of cool guys in the secondary. open.spotify.com/episode/7kgt...

Chris W@rakesofmallow· 25d

☘️ new newsletter ☘️ An ode to Leonard Moore, who has a chance to be the most special Notre Dame defensive back in a run of very special Notre Dame defensive backs. rakesreport.substack.com/p/rakes-repo... Also: Shamrock Series, BYU series, best players, fifth years.

Moore wasn’t a no-brainer elite player and so much credit must be given to Mike Mickens. The Texas native was ranked as the 432nd best player and 38th best corner in the country in the 247 Composite. (Shoutout to the great Jamie Uyeyama, who wrote upon Moore’s commitment, “I think Notre Dame is landing a steal who could end up developing into a high-level man coverage defender,” which is both accurate and still somehow underselling what he would become.) It was in Moore’s first August camp that future second-round pick Benjamin Morrison said, “This might be a stretch, but Leonard Moore will be better than I will be here. He’s a special kid.”

Chris W@rakesofmallow· Jul 8

Looks solid here. Another year, another non-black alt tho 😔.

Drayk Bowen wearing the 2026 shamrock series uniform, it looks a lot like the 2024 Yankee stadium edition

Chris W@rakesofmallow· Jun 29

~nodding enthusiastically~ www.cbssports.com/college-foot...

6. Who looked the most ready to run an offense tomorrow?
This shouldn't come as a surprise, but the answer is Notre Dame's CJ Carr.

Since high school, Carr has handled himself like a 10-year veteran, combining a high level of maturity and on-field confidence into consistently poised performances. Friday's throwing exhibition was no different. The rising sophomore's skill set was highlighted by his boringly good accuracy, clean mechanics and quick release.

Chris W@rakesofmallow· Jun 21

Sonia Citron and Olivia Miles matched up on each other (with bonus Kayla McBride)

Chris W@rakesofmallow· Jun 16

Walked by a little later and someone taking a photo remarked "the sky looks fake" to their friend -- true!

Chris W@rakesofmallow· Jun 10

this is the checklist that playoff-era champions have hit most/all of (three coming courtesy of @bcfremeau.bsky.social's great work)

Top-8 in OF+
Top-15 in DF+
Joe Moore Award semi-finalists
Top ten in QBR
Top-15 in explosive passing plays of 20+ yards
19.5% havoc rate or higher
Above 1.47 net points per drive
Over 50% blue-chip ratio in recruiting

Chris W@rakesofmallow· Jun 10

☘️ new pod ☘️ Had a very fun time with Jamie Uyeyama talking about why Notre Dame recruiting is on a roll + how many of the usual national champion benchmarks the 2026 Fighting Irish seem likely to hit. open.spotify.com/episode/7FMR...

Chris W@rakesofmallow· Jun 8

☘️📨 ☘️ 📨☘️ 📨☘️📨 ☘️ The newsletter today is looking into whether 2026 should count as a "Championship or bust" season for Notre Dame (and a few other schools). rakesreport.substack.com/p/rakes-repo... This fact should make all the preseason title favorites a little nervous -- nothing guaranteed.

Important: In 2024, five of the top 11 teams in preseason title odds did not make the playoff. In 2025, it was seven of the top 12 who fell short. We see at least one team from the top ten of the AP preseason poll finish unranked every single year. It would be an aberration from recent historical precedent if no one listed is flat on their face come December.

Chris W@rakesofmallow· Jun 7

Fresh newsletter for you tomorrow looking at Notre Dame and the rest of the preseason title favorites. Get signed up for a good time similar to the one below. rakesreport.substack.com

Chris W@rakesofmallow· May 26

sorry to keep hyping up Mike Elko on a random Tuesday but these are very good quotes www.si.com/college-foot...

“The cool thing about our sport is it has always been a challenge to get into the playoffs,” Elko said. “Every year there are good teams, whether it was four [from 2014 to ’23], whether it’s 12, there are good football teams who don’t make it. I was in the four era at No. 5 [as defensive coordinator at Texas A&M in 2020] with a really good football team that didn’t get in. Last year there were some really good teams that didn’t get in. That’s O.K. We don’t have to find a number that lets everybody get in, because you just saw it with basketball, right? All of a sudden now 68 isn’t enough because there’s still some teams getting left out so we’ve got to go to [76]. It’s O.K. to make it hard to get into the playoffs.”

Chris W@rakesofmallow· May 20

The just announced Kent State at Notre Dame game is scheduled for Oct. 2 (great spot after War Eagle) so either a) GT getting moved or b) Just announced Stanford game counts as part of ACC deal. Still not totally sure how Cardinal and Clemson series work with overall ACC pact.

Notre Dame's 2027 schedule showing at Sparty, auburn, Georgia tech and vs Wake Forest

Chris W@rakesofmallow· May 18

I think it's possible that you get less cowardly non-conference scheduling with an expanded playoff, but it's not a certainty, and that makes it a huge gamble with a very valuable resource (the best regular season in American sports). rakesreport.substack.com/p/rakes-repo...

That’s Bevacqua’s counterargument to the idea that CFP expansion would devalue the regular season. If expansion makes regular-season losses less punitive, Bevacqua believes more programs would be willing to take on bigger games. And for an independent football program that needs more than its guaranteed five ACC games to build a functional schedule, that willingness would be critical to maintaining a football schedule good enough to get the Irish into the CFP and interesting enough to satisfy the sport’s media partners, never mind the fans buying tickets.

My question here: Are you sure? I was among those who thought that expanding to a dozen entrants would mean teams would now have some wiggle room to schedule more interesting games. That was an incorrect assumption because much of the sport has veered the other way, trying to engineer a schedule that gets you to the playoff versus trying to prove you’re good against other good teams while playing games that are fun to watch.

If you believe that seeding and byes in a giant tournament will matter, are you 100% certain teams won’t just keep doing what they’re doing? Then you’ll have a regular season that matters way less overall without games that are meaningfully better on paper, and the few big games you have will be devalued because everyone knows the loser is still fine for their ultimate aspirations.

Chris W@rakesofmallow· May 18

Exploring why I hate the idea of 24 so much also helped crystallize what I think is important in a college football playoff. Will explore more but I think this gets you most of the way there. rakesreport.substack.com/p/rakes-repo...

1) If a team wins all its games (or even almost all its games in some instances), it should have a chance at the national title: This eliminates a two-team playoff and in a lot of years a four-team playoff (undefeated Central Florida, Cincinnati and Florida State teams were left out of the field). But there were other teams left out that it would have been fun to see. 2023 Georgia was 12-0 and on a 29-game winning streak before they lost the SEC title game to Alabama (a playoff participant). 2021 Notre Dame was 11-1 with its only loss coming to a playoff participant. I think it’s fine that those teams didn’t make it — hey, don’t lose your game against the playoff participant and you take their place — but I also think their inclusion into a larger field wouldn’t have been any kind of great stain on the sport.

2) The schools left out should be very good teams that feel pain and regret at their losses: Obviously Notre Dame fans can’t relate to this. But it’s good BYU fans have to steam over being unable to split their pair with Texas Tech, and Texas rues their loss at a Florida team that fired its coach, and Vanderbilt feels the sting of missed opportunities in Tuscaloosa, and and so on and so forth. The losses hurting means the wins feel better! That’s the point of this. Conversely, the cutline for a 24-team playoff last year would have been somewhere in the middle of Georgia Tech, Missouri, Tennessee, Houston, Iowa, Navy and UNLV.

Chris W@rakesofmallow· May 18

🧐new newsletter🧐 I tried to understand why Pete Bevacqua and Notre Dame are now supporting a 24-team football playoff. So much about it is confusing, including the idea it will help with coach job security. rakesreport.substack.com/p/rakes-repo...

“It’s important in the tenure of a coach. We’ve seen firings when teams aren’t going to make it to the CFP. “

The American Football Coaches Association voted earlier this month to support a 24-team playoff and between that and Bevacqua’s quote it is troubling to me that anyone involved in this sport thinks if you lower the bar all the way to the 25th best team barely missing the playoff that there won’t be firings just because you made the field of two dozen. That’s crazy, man. You’ll obviously have coaches fired if they barely make the playoff field multiple years in a row and don’t advance, especially if some of those results are lopsided. You’ll have more coaches on playoff teams leaving for other jobs -- remember how fun that was with Lane when the entirety of Thanksgiving weekend coverage was dedicated to him? Multiply that.

You also could have a situation where the cut line being moved back from 12 to 24 gets more coaches fired, because now teams consistently finishing in the 30th to 45th range that historically have never considered themselves playoff contenders might think “Well hey, we’re just a few spots away from being in the bracket, why not get a guy who can get that final jump?”

Chris W@rakesofmallow· May 14

so many wonderful charts in here (all the words are good, too)

a very interesting chart showing cj carr throwing deep quickly is rather unusual (closest comp mendoza)

Chris W@rakesofmallow· May 11

expanding the college football playoff to 24 teams is a horrible idea that might be even worse for the sport than conference realignment, laid out why a little earlier this year (short version: it would nuke the regular season for the best teams) rakesreport.substack.com/p/rakes-repo...

“There’s no momentum to expand just for the sake of expanding,” a power conference executive told CBS Sports. “There’s this notion that college sports are really good about being reactionary and taking a short-term gain and not looking at the long-term implications of it.”

Smart! Going from four teams in a postseason field to 24 in less than a decade has to be unprecedented in the history of sports. Right now there is a nice balance between the regular season and the postseason, but doing this — even if you had byes and home field as rewards for higher seeds — is shifting it too much too quickly, especially if you overdo it on automatic qualifiers that would kill the meaning of non-conference games. You want some pain and regret for the teams that are on the wrong side of the bubble instead of putting in every somewhat respectable option.

If you wanted to go the FCS route and have 24 teams but every single conference champion is guaranteed a spot, I’d be more amenable, but I suspect that would never be the case considering the loud carping about the Group of 5 bid already. It’s also important to note that if the playoff expands to 24 and schools get a taste of the money that comes with it, there is almost no path to it getting smaller again, only larger. Holding the line at a maximum of 16 is a noble goal.

Chris W@rakesofmallow· May 7

We have to stop Tony Petitti because Bill is correct. Thankfully Notre Dame is now at a level where most of their regular seasons would be close to meaningless in an expanded playoff, too. rakesreport.substack.com/p/rakes-repo...

Rakes Report #282: The playoff isn’t expanding yet (good), but the threat of Tony Petitti still looms over college football (very bad)
It’s easy to find people to blame for the ills of the sport but the Big Ten commissioner currently stands alone atop the villain list.

Chris W@rakesofmallow· May 7

Shoutout @mbryan.bsky.social nailing Sparty Really Could Be A Night Game prediction in January spreadsheetsandtailgates.substack.com/p/january-ro...

For example, Week 3 (ND vs. Michigan State) is incredibly gross. Top options for NBC to handpick from the mighty B1G are either USC at Rutgers, Purdue at UCLA, Virginia Tech at Maryland, or Colorado at Northwestern. Very cool to have a bloated 18-team league where some weeks there are zero compelling games.

Chris W@rakesofmallow· May 7

a classic bri turner w www.espn.com/wnba/story/_...