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Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
What does history tell us about the current Notre Dame football quarterback competition?
SOUTH BEND ― We didn't see it until we saw it. It was summer 1993, a simpler era of Notre Dame football. The Loftus Center indoor facility seemed state of the art, stadium capacity was 59,075, and almost every minute of every practice was open to the media. What a concept. What a time. Advertisement It was then that media and players and coaches would trudge, often side by side, to and from the practice field. Head coach Lou Holtz would zoom past in his golf cart, often leaving a trail of pipe smoke. Offensive line coach Joe Moore would breeze by in his comp car, which he would park along a fence at the back of one end zone. It was there on those practice fields where everyone assumed that the starting quarterback that season would be a freshman phenom from Western Pennsylvania by the name of Ron Powlus. Few were certain about what they'd see from that '93 team, but we'd probably see Powlus under center. He was the chosen one. Noie: How did one group of Notre Dame football fans plan to spend a spring game Saturday? Advertisement A broken collarbone suffered when Powlus was buried under a pass rush in the final scrimmage seven days before the season opener scrapped that plan. It opened the door for a career backup known more for his BMX talents. Nobody gave the guy the time of day. Nobody likely even asked him the time of day over his first three seasons. Kevin McDougal seemed just another guy. While the Powlus hype swirled, McDougal was quietly cementing confidence among the offensive linemen, through the locker room and with the coaching staff. Like, we could win with K-Mac. Notre Dame won with McDougal, won almost every time out in 1993, won right up until a certain left-footed kicker from Boston College split the uprights and cost Notre Dame a national championship. Thanks, David Gordon. Advertisement McDougal, the career backup, the guy no one saw coming, was magical that season. He made the most of an opportunity few thought he'd ever see. Fast forward 23 years to 2018 when another Notre Dame quarterback competition centered on average recruit Ian Book and all-everything Brandon Winbush. Everyone figured the job would go to Winbush, who could run and pass and confuse defenses like nobody since maybe Tony Rice in the early 1990s. Book seemed just another guy. We didn't see until we saw. At a practice inside the stadium on a Saturday morning in August, the quarterbacks were in a drill that demanded they throw screen passes into several spots at a nearby net. Wimbush missed high. He missed low. He missed wide. He missed, to the point where you wondered if he was just clowning the media. It couldn't be that complicated. Advertisement Book handled throws with relative ease. Pinpoint ease. Poise ease. Book left Notre Dame in 2020 as the winningest quarterback ― 30 wins and two College Football Playoff appearances ― in program history. With McDougal and with Book, you didn't see until you saw. You didn't know until you knew. That brings us to Notre Dame football 2025. Questions about what we will see come fall from Notre Dame spray everywhere. Can the defense pick up under first-year coordinator Chris Ash where it left off under Al Golden? Who will be captains? Will this team finish what it started last season in getting this close to the school's first national championship since 1988? Advertisement Oh, and who will play quarterback? Nothing else may matter as Notre Dame looks to build off last season's 14-2 run. The assumption following the transfer portal departure of veteran Steve Angeli, who landed at Syracuse, is the job will go to freshman CJ Carr. He's big and he's strong and he's athletic and accurate and he seems built to handle everything that comes with being the Notre Dame quarterback. Somewhere down the line in early August, nobody would be surprised if head coach Marcus Freeman steps to the podium inside Notre Dame Stadium, which no longer holds 59,075, and tabs Carr to be the guy to lead Notre Dame into Hard Rock Stadium against Miami (Fla.) on August 31. Don't sleep on sophomore Kenny Minchey, long considered one of the other guys in the QB room, but likely never the main guy. When it was time to talk to the quarterbacks in 2023, it was important to get with graduate transfer Sam Hartman and Angeli, his backup. When it was time to talk to the quarterbacks in 2024, it was important to hear from graduate transfer Riley Leonard and, hey, there's Carr. Advertisement Minchey always off to the sider someone who got maybe a question or two or three. A backup, the third guy in a two-quarterback competition. He seemed destined for the portal whenever he realized that it wasn't going to work. It may work. Minchey has quietly gone from a non-story to a potentially great story. Like McDougal. Like Book. He can run. He can throw. He can backflip to celebrate a score. It will be Carr or Minchey in South Florida. Minchey, like Angeli in recent seasons, carries himself like a capable quarterback. That lost look he showed into earlier meetings with the media is gone. In its place is a confidence that knows the offense. That he can run the offense. That he can be the guy. He looks the part, but can he play it? His next start at Notre Dame will be his first start at Notre Dame. That's a big leap, but there's something about Minchey that makes you believe he can stick the landing. Advertisement Nobody saw McDougal coming. Nobody saw Book coming. Both were guys that were dismissed and doubted. The same once was thought of Minchey. Just when you think you know ... We may not see it until we see it. Again. Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at tnoie@ This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: This isn't first time that Notre Dame football carries QB question into summer
The Guardian
15-04-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Trump's ‘chosen one' Giorgia Meloni heads to Washington to play delicate balancing act
Sitting alone at the end of a dinner party, under chandeliers, next to a table with white roses and leftover wine, Giorgia Meloni and Donald Trump are locked in conversation. It is early December and they are pictured in an opulent dining room of the Élysée Palace, where the French president, Emmanuel Macron, hosted guests after the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral. It was the first time Italy's far-right prime minister had met Trump, a rendezvous that followed years of her nurturing relations with his Make America Great Again (Maga) militants. For all we know, they could have been bonding over a shared disdain for French cuisine. Whatever was discussed, however, Meloni appears to be holding sway. Trump later described her as 'a real live wire' and someone he could work with 'to straighten out the world a little bit'. He may well have received positive reports on her from Elon Musk, with whom the Italian prime minister has met on several occasions and whom she has called 'a brilliant man'. As the relationship progressed, Meloni paid a flying visit to Trump's Mar-a-Lago golf club in Florida a month later, and was the only European leader to attend his inauguration as US president. Now her influence over Trump is to be put to the test when the pair reunite in Washington on Thursday for their first bilateral summit. Meloni is the first European leader to meet Trump since he paused some of his planned tariff hikes last week. The summit will be closely watched. On one hand, it is an ideal opportunity for Meloni to demonstrate an affinity with Trump, with whom her natural political tendencies lie, while boosting her credentials as a conduittowards more meaningful dialogue. On the other, it will be a delicate balancing act for the prime minister, who also knows she must be careful to maintain her allegiance to Italy's EU partners. Behind the scenes, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and Meloni are understood to have discussed a gameplan. Still, the solo trip has caused anxiety among EU allies, with the French industry minister, Marc Ferracci, warning last week that it threatened to undermine European unity against the US tariffs. Their concerns are not without reason. Meloni, a former Eurosceptic, defended a blistering attack against European values by Trump's deputy, JD Vance, at the Munich Security Conference in February. She will be back in Rome on Friday to meet Vance, who is in Italy for the Easter weekend. On Ukraine, despite going along with allies during Joe Biden's US administration, her Brothers of Italy party abstained, for the first time, on a European parliament resolution in March reaffirming support for Kyiv against Russian aggression. She has been lukewarm over the 'coalition of the willing' advocated by Macron and Keir Starmer. Kathleen van Brempt, a Belgian socialist MEP and vice-chair of the European parliament's committee on international trade, said the worries about Meloni were understandable. 'But we need to be a bit more nuanced,' van Brempt said. 'Meloni knows she needs the support of the council, commission and the parliament in all the talks she has. She can't go any further than what has been agreed upon. The first goal is getting somebody on the other side of the negotiating table. That is exactly what Meloni will try to do in Washington.' Antonio Giordano, a Brothers of Italy MP and general secretary of the European Conservatives and Reformists party (ECR), who attended last year's Republican National Convention in the US, said Meloni's priority would be to have a frank conversation with Trump – hopefully one that would break the EU-US deadlock. 'That's Meloni's character – when there is a problem, she tends to face it directly, to talk about it,' said Giordano. 'This is the first objective of the discussion, regardless of the possible results.' Giordano said that while Brothers of Italy, a party with neofascist origins, has a natural closeness with Trump's Republicans, Meloni was good at 'reaching a significant level of empathy with everyone'. Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion 'She did a great job with Joe Biden too,' he said. 'Obviously, she will be representing Italy, but she has also been clear about Europe being compact. At the same time, she has always insisted that Europe maintains an open dialogue [with the US] and that we do not close the door to a natural ally.' Meloni has no choice but to be cautious. With Italy being the EU's third largest exporter to the US, she will be under pressure to protect Italian business and investment interests. She could, some say, try to exempt domestic specialities such as pasta, cheese and wine from the tariffs. Another key issue will be the US's biggest trade rival: China. Meloni travelled to the country last year to reset trade ties after withdrawing Italy from the controversial Belt and Road infrastructure investment scheme. However, she is expected to distance herself from attempts in the EU to forge closer ties with China amid its tariff war with the US. At home, Meloni is also under pressure to maintain unity in her government coalition, especially with Matteo Salvini, recently re-confirmed as leader of the far-right League, challenging her with his explicit support for Trump and criticism of the EU's policies on Ukraine. But however much their political instincts are entwined, Meloni might need to lower expectations of her capacity to be Trump's 'whisperer' in Europe. 'She has created an illusion of being Trump's 'chosen one', but it is more and more clear that this is not happening,' said Sandro Gozi, an MEP with the Renew Europe group and Italy's former Europe minister. 'Trump sees the EU as an obstacle to his imperialistic strategy and he's not doing anything to hide it. But if he wants to negotiate with us, it will be through von der Leyen and not Meloni.' True to character, as Meloni sidles up to Trump, she has also been engaging with some of her Italian opposition, recently attending the congress of Azione, a liberal centrist party. The party's leader, Carlo Calenda, said Meloni was 'at a crossroads', faced with the dilemma of choosing between the US and Europe. 'I told her this when she came to the congress,' he said. 'There is an aspiring autocrat in the White House who considers us enemies – his plan is to break up Europe. But our future is indissolubly linked to Europe, and Italy must be part of the decisions that are taken together. I don't think Meloni has made that choice yet.'
Associated Press
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Miami's Haitian community gathers in prayer as crises escalate in homeland and US
MIAMI (AP) — Packed pews, rollicking singing and emotional devotions have marked Lent worship services at Notre Dame d'Haiti, the Catholic church at the heart of the largest Haitian diaspora in the United States. For a community caught in the crossfire of growing violence in their island homeland and disappearing humanitarian protections in the U.S., clinging to faith in God is one of the few lifelines left. 'We believe in him. We pray for possibilities,' said Kettelene Fevrier. She fled Haiti two years ago under a temporary humanitarian program created by the Biden administration and canceled by Trump's, effective later in April. At the weekend Mass closing a Lent revival program, Fevrier sang with the choir that kept more than a thousand congregants dancing in the aisles well past midnight. Singing is praying, she said, and she has two main intentions. 'First, that I stay here,' she said. 'Second, that God will lead me on the right path.' Among those swaying to the Creole hymns was Sandina Jean, an asylum-seeker who fled Haiti in 2023. In her increasingly gang-controlled homeland, such a celebration would be hard to safely hold, she said. 'Haiti is getting worse. We don't have a home to go back to,' Jean said. 'When you pray, when you come to Mass, it helps you to keep moving.' The spiritual home of the Haitian diaspora Notre Dame d'Haiti was founded nearly 50 years ago as a mission of the Catholic Church in Little Haiti, a neighborhood near downtown Miami that grew as people fled waves of turmoil. About half a million Haitians live in Florida, making greater Miami by far their largest home away from home. 'Notre Dame d'Haiti is the point of rallying of this community,' said the Rev. Reginald Jean-Mary, who has led the parish since 2004. 'We accompany Haitian migrants to integrate in U.S. life.' Today, their greatest need is a sense of peace. 'People are very desperate, broken, hopeless and at the same time, they continue to believe,' Jean-Mary said. The gangs that control the vast majority of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, have stepped up the attacks that have killed thousands of people across the country and left more than one million homeless. Sixty thousand were displaced in a single month — a record — according to a late March United Nations report. So growing numbers of Haitians have fled to the United States. More than 200,000 came under a 'humanitarian parole' program created in late 2022 that the Department of Homeland Security said it would revoke in late April. Earlier this year, the U.S. government also announced that in August it would end 'temporary protected status' for about half a million Haitians. Their status had been renewed by the Biden administration, which had widely expanded that type of humanitarian visa. Some Notre Dame congregants felt that these new arrivals strained available resources — and voted for President Donald Trump, whose immigration policies have found support among many in Miami's long-established Latino communities, too. But most congregants are still stepping up to help their compatriots who often sold what little they had in Haiti to take advantage of legal protections in the United States, Jean Suffrant said. He leads the Pierre Toussaint Leadership and Learning Center, Notre Dame's social services hub, which offers free day care, job training, and language and tech classes. Last week, one immigration session — held by Catholic Legal Services on church grounds — lasted until 1 a.m. because so many people lined up, desperate for advice, Suffrant said. 'It's never been this bad' for Haitians in the U.S. and on the island, he said. 'What a heavy burden, being told you're no longer allowed in a country that welcomed you.' Octavius Aime said the new arrivals' difficulties affect the entire community, which he's seen grow over 40 years at Notre Dame. Many are terrified to lose their work permits, which came with humanitarian protections, since their U.S. salaries are lifelines for families in Haiti. 'We're hurting,' Aime said. 'We are so worried, we don't know what to do.' Lifting the Haitian diaspora in prayer The uncertainty makes it especially important to gather and uplift all Haitians at events like the revival, at which Aime volunteered. It centered on the biblical story of the Jewish people's miraculous escape from slavery in Egypt after Moses parted the Red Sea. The event's motto was that nobody can close a door opened by God — or 'Bondye' in Creole, which is derived from the French for 'good God.' 'We all need it at this moment,' Savio Magloire said of the biblical message as he and his fiancee watched Mass projected on a screen outside the packed church. A few folding chairs were set up under the palms. In normal times, the grounds would be full with the overflow crowd, but now many are too afraid because of their immigration status to be seen in public, said Sandra Monestime, who was sitting near Magloire. She's been coming to Notre Dame for more than 40 years, since she was a teen, and trusts that the intergenerational congregation with more than three dozen ministry groups will survive this latest period of turmoil because it's 'like family.' Dressed in bright white with soft pink flourishes, a youth group called 'mimers' — a Haitian tradition, they mime some of the liturgy through dance — led the Mass entrance processional. The children are both U.S.-born and new arrivals, coordinator Asencia Selmon said. 'That's what the church brings,' Selmon said, of youth participation. 'We help them to be involved in church, not only spiritually but socially. When the priests preach, they show people not to despair.' That's the message that Helene Auguste, a parishioner for the past 40 years, tries to convey to her brother, a teacher in Haiti. Every time the phone rings, she fears it's with news he was killed in the escalating violence. 'There's no life for the people of Haiti,' Auguste said, adding only the power of prayer remains. 'Now you can't talk to any people, you speak to God.' A faith that energizes, amid crushing crises And speak — and sing, and dance — to God is just what the congregants of Notre Dame do. At the closing revival event, the faithful had lined up before 5 p.m. to enter the church — to get splashed, one by one, with holy water by a visiting Haitian priest. Eucharistic adoration followed, then a more than four-hour-long Mass and a reenactment of the ancient Israelites crossing the Red Sea to the promised land. That's when music surged, and the faithful jumped to their feet, singing, as the celebrating priests pumped fists, clapped and swung to the rhythm. Even the ushers, demurely dressed in white shirts, started rocking to the beat. 'If you want a stronger faith, an energizer, you come here,' Suzie Aristide, an usher, said. 'Then you get out and you're ready — your soul, your body, your mind. That's what we are: our faith.' ___
