Thoughts for the Day, December 8, 2025: An overreaction by Notre Dame

College Football Playoffs:

The 12 teams for this year’s version of the College Football Playoff were announced on Sunday. Conspicuously absent was Notre Dame who finished 10-2 with a ten-game winning streak to end the season. Chosen over Notre Dame were two non-power-four schools, James Madison 12-1 and Tulane 11-2. University of Miami, who beat Notre Dame in the first game of the season, was chosen to represent the ACC even though Miami did not win the ACC championship.

Considering that Notre Dame played for National Championship last year against Ohio State, being left out of this year’s playoff sent shockwaves through South Bend and the Notre Dame fan base. In what appears to be an emotional response, the Notre Dame leaders immediately decided that they would forego participation in any other college bowl game this year.

I think Notre Dame is going to regret this response. Not because of the money they will be forfeiting, which is substantial, but because they are foregoing an additional 15 days of practice and a game, which most teams not in the CFP use to develop their underclassmen who will be with the team next year. They are forfeiting a chance to see these underclassmen perform in game conditions which is valuable for their development for the 2026 season.

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MSU is all in

After hiring a proven winner in Pat Fitzgerald as their head football coach on Sunday, MSU announced a $1 billion fundraising campaign for athletics during the week, and then on Friday, announced a single donation of $401 million towards the campaign by boosters Greg and Dawn Williams.

Per the Detroit News, the $401 million from will be broken down as follows: A $290 million donation for Michigan State athletics, a $100 million investment stake in the coming-soon Spartan Ventures revenue-generating entity, and an $11 million donation for other academic and extracurricular programs, including the Spartan marching and pep bands, and the Sparty program.

This is great for Sparty Nation, but it leads to my Questions of the Day.

Where are we going with college athletics? What message does this say to academic units who struggle to raise money and are having to cut back because of reductions in federal funding?

Don’t get me wrong, Greg and Dawn Williams can do what they want with their money. My bigger concern is what is going to happen with college sports. It appears that a day a reckoning is going to come sooner than later. My guess is there will be an elite group of universities (30 or less) and then there will be everyone else, which may be a good thing.

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Why is Hegseth still employed?

Here are excerpts from an article by Tom Nichols of the Atlantic

Pete Hegseth’s Weak Excuses and his evasive responses to Signalgate are shameful nonsense.

The report from the Pentagon’s inspector general’s investigation into Signalgate, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s transmission of the details of a U.S. military option in Yemen to a group on Signal—including, by mistake, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg—has now been released to the American public. Its conclusions are unequivocal and brutal: Pete Hegseth endangered the success of a U.S. military operation and put the lives of American military personnel at risk.

If Pete Hegseth were anyone else but the secretary—and if he didn’t have top cover from President Donald Trump—he’d be in a world of trouble. According to the report, he violated Defense Department regulations, refused to cooperate with investigators, and waved away the significant dangers he created…

The report notes that when investigators asked to speak with him, he declined…. When investigators asked to see Hegseth’s phone, he refused. When he was asked for a full transcript of his Signal chat, he again demurred, according to investigators, “because it was not a DoD-created record,” thus forcing them to rely on “The Atlantic’s version of the Signal group chat.”

The only response Hegseth gave to the IG team was a…letter, included in the report, in which the secretary claimed that he had the right to do what he did, that he did not reveal any classified information, and that his predecessor, Lloyd Austin, kept a personal cellphone with him…..

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A special Orchid of the Day: Detroit Tiger pitcher Sawyer Gibson-Long.

From Detroit Free Press sportswriter extraordinaire Jeff Seidel.

You wanna talk about toughness? You wanna talk about courage? And grit? And resilience? And living, I mean, truly living life? Let me tell you about Cailen Vela, a 7-year-old who is fighting cancer with grace and dignity.

“He says that his big hope is that his friends or family members don’t have to get a port [for an IV] and don’t get cancer,” Aly Vela, his mother, says….

“He’s taught me a lot about perseverance and maturity, just the way he approaches life and is able to adapt,” Detroit Tigers pitcher Sawyer Gipson-Long says. “It’s amazing to get that kind of perspective from someone even though they’re so young. He’s taught me a lot about life.”

Gibson-Long and Cailen have been friends since they met on the field at Comerica Park on Sept. 10, 2023 – the day Gipson-Long made his Tigers’ debut, and the day the Tigers held a special event to honor children with cancer – and the relationship has continued off the field.

Now, on this cold winter night, they were back together again at a Detroit Red Wings game at Little Caesars Arena on Tuesday, Dec. 2.

Sitting at a restaurant off the main concourse, Gipson-Long leaned against a table, talking to Cailen about a video game they play against each other online. “That’s my buddy, my friend, and he’ll be my friend forever, and I’ll be friends with that family forever,” Gipson-Long says. “It’s bigger than baseball.”

Let me tell you about Gipson-Long. While he lives down South and is in the process of buying a home in Tampa, Florida, he flew up to Detroit for three days this week for several charity events. He went to the 12th annual Hometown Holiday Assist for Detroit PAL youth at a Meijer. He bought lunch for the Tigers ticket sales department and spent time at the Children’s Center in Detroit, donating about 50 winter coats. Then, he went to a “Kid Kicking Cancer” “ class in Southfield.

He’s done this for three years now, coming to Detroit during the offseason to try use his Tigers platform to do some good – and yes, that should be applauded. There aren’t many athletes who make a special trip back to Detroit every winter, just to do a whirlwind of charity work.

Now you know why Sawyer Gibson-Long gets a Special Orchid of the Day. See my Image of the Day

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Quote of the Day: Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) said: “There is a difference between being accused of being a bad guy and being a bad guy. It is called the presumption of innocence. It is called due process. It is called, basically, justice that our country was founded upon.” “Congress, if they had any kind of gumption at all, would not be allowing the administration to summarily execute people that are suspected of a crime.” “I]f the public sees images of people clinging to boat debris and being blown up, I think that there is a chance that finally, the public will get interested enough in this to stop this.”

Orchid of the Day: The Lions’ Jahmyr Gibbs and Amon Ra St. Brown.

With three touchdowns on Thursday, Jahmyr Gibbs now has more in his first three seasons than Hall of Famers Earl Campbell, Eric Dickerson and Gale Sayers did. He’s tied atop that list with HOFer Barry Sanders at 47, and the two Lions are also tied for the most TDs before turning 24 years old.

Not only is Gibbs outpacing several of the top 100 players in NFL history, but he’s also done it despite splitting time with David Montgomery for two seasons. It is hard to overstate how impressive that is, considering Montgomery scored 32 touchdowns in that same frame.

Not to be out done, Amon Ra St. Brown. despite a major ankle sprain that had him on crutches for most of the week leading up to Thursday’s game, finished with six catches for 92 yards. His 37-yard catch-and-run on a dig route with just under 3 minutes left in the game effectively sealed the win for the Lions. It also set a new NFL record for most catches in a player’s first five seasons, moving St. Brown past Michael Thomas with 511 for his career.

Onion of the Day: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

Question of Day: Where are we going with college athletics? What message does this say to academic units who struggle to raise money and are having to cut back because of reductions in federal funding?

Lyrics of the Day: You’re a vile one…You have termites in your smile
You have all the tender sweetness of a seasick crocodile,,,
Now given the choice between the two of you
I’d take the seasick crocodile

The words that best describe you are stink, stank, stunk
(Ooh) No, no, no
Stink, stank, stunk

If you think you know the answer, post your response in the comment section of the blog.

Lyrics of the Day for December 4, 2025. Katmandu by Bob Seger

Image of the Day:

Detroit Tiger pitcher Sawyer Gibson-Long (right) walks with Cailen Vela-7 (center) and his father Cody Vela on the concourse of Little Ceasars Arena on December 2 for the Red Wings game with the Boston Bruins.

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