Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1468566
12 JUNE/JULY 2022 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED UNDER THE DOME Notre Dame will open the 2022 season in prime time. The Irish's Sept. 3 game at Ohio State will kick off at 7:30 p.m. ET on ABC, per a May 17 release. ESPN's "College GameDay" will be in Columbus for the game as well. If offseason top 25 rankings are any indication, it will be a top-10 or even top-five matchup. Ohio State appears in the top five of nearly all early top 25s and frequently at No. 2. Notre Dame has been ranked as high as fifth and often in the top 10. The game is the first half of a home-and-home series that will bring the Buckeyes to South Bend in 2023. The two teams last played in the 2015 Fiesta Bowl, which Ohio State won 44-28. Their last regular-season meeting was in 1996, a 29-16 Ohio State victory at Notre Dame Stadium. Notre Dame last played at Ohio Stadium in 1995, losing 45-26. Ohio State leads the all-time series 4-2. Marcus Freeman makes his regular-season debut as Notre Dame head coach in the sta- dium he played in as an Ohio State linebacker from 2004-08. He began his coaching career as a graduate assistant with the Buckeyes in 2010. He previously coached in Ohio Stadium as a visitor in 2019 as Cincinnati's defensive coordinator. Notre Dame also opened at night last season, at Florida State on a Sunday. The Irish played half their regular-season games in prime time, two at home and four on the road. They won all of them. Eight of Notre Dame's regular-season games now have kickoff times. The Irish announced start times for their six home games and the Shamrock Series in April. The home games against Marshall (Sept. 10), Cal (Sept. 17), UNLV (Oct. 22) and Boston College (Nov. 19) will kick at 2:30 p.m. ET. The home meetings with Stanford (Oct. 15) and Clemson (Nov. 5) are at 7:30, as is the game against BYU in Las Vegas (Oct. 8). All will be televised on NBC. Kickoff times and TV networks for road and neutral site games against North Carolina (Sept. 24), Syracuse (Oct. 29), Navy (Nov. 12) and USC (Nov. 26) will be announced later. — Patrick Engel DREW PYNE RETURNS TO MANNING PASSING ACADEMY AS COUNSELOR Notre Dame junior quarterback Drew Pyne will once again spend a week with the Mannings this summer. Pyne is serving as a counselor at the 2022 Manning Passing Academy, held June 23-26 in Thibodaux, La. It will be his second straight year working the camp, which invites around 40 college quarterbacks to assist in running it each year. This year's invite list was released throughout April and includes 32 current players. Among the Power Five starters invited this year are C.J. Stroud (Ohio State), reigning Heisman winner Bryce Young (Alabama), K.J. Jefferson (Arkansas), Stetson Bennett IV (Georgia), Phil Jurk- ovec (Boston College by way of Notre Dame), Will Levis (Ken- tucky), Spencer Rattler (South Carolina), Brennan Armstrong (Virginia) and Sean Clifford (Penn State). Former NFL quarterbacks Peyton and Eli Manning, along with their brother, Cooper, and father, Archie, run the camp each summer in their home state. It's open to all quarterbacks, running backs, receiv- ers and tight ends in grades 8 through 12. This year will be the 26th iteration. Archie invites the college quarterback counselors himself. Ian Book, Brandon Wimbush, DeShone Kizer are the most recent Notre Dame quarterbacks to work the Manning Passing Academy before Pyne. Pyne is competing with sophomore Tyler Buchner to be Notre Dame's starting quarterback, though Buchner is considered the favorite as the Irish head into a break before summer workouts. — Patrick Engel LOGAN DIGGS UNDERGOES SHOULDER SURGERY Rising sophomore running back Logan Diggs underwent left shoulder surgery April 29 to repair a torn labrum, Notre Dame announced. There is no timetable for his return, but Notre Dame's release did not explicitly say he will miss regular-season games. He was injured during the Blue-Gold Game April 23 and could be seen leaving the field holding his shoulder, clearly expe- riencing discomfort. Irish head coach Marcus Freeman previ- ously said just after the game he believed Diggs' removal from the contest was "pre- cautionary." "I think his shoulder got banged up a little bit, it was in the second half," Freeman said. "I wanted to get some of those guys out anyway. We will get a medical report to- morrow and see what the injuries are from the game." Diggs carried the ball 52 times for 230 yards and 3 touchdowns in 2021. The 5-11, 200-pound back also caught 6 passes for 56 yards and a receiving score. His best two yardage totals came in blowout wins over Navy (8 carries for 59 yards) and Virginia (9 carries for 64 yards). He averaged 7.3 yards per carry between the two contests. Prior to leaving the spring scrimmage, Diggs had 3 carries for 20 yards along with 4 catches for 10 yards. — Ashton Pollard OPENER AT OHIO STATE TO KICK OFF IN PRIME TIME Diggs, a sophomore, injured his left shoulder in the Blue-Gold Game and had surgery on in it April 29. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER