notre dame 31, georgia tech 13 | monday, november 2, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com
Taking care of business Defense shines, Irish beat Yellow Jackets as top-5 showdown with Clemson looms
HYOSUB SHIN | Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Irish sophomore running back Kyren Williams dives forward for a touchdown during Notre Dame’s 31-13 victory over Georgia Tech on Saturday at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta. Williams was the game’s leading rusher, running 15 times for a total of 76 yards and two touchdowns, and he also leads the Irish in those categories over the whole season.
Notre Dame needs to just keep winning now Liam Coolican Sports Writer
It’s rare for a coach to publicly admit that they are looking ahead on the schedule, but that is what Brian Kelly has done these past few weeks. Kelly said after the Pittsburgh game that his team was “looking ahead a little bit,” adding that the team needed to elevate their competition level before the much-anticipated matchup with Clemson. If any opponent is worth looking ahead to, it is Clemson, in what will perhaps be the biggest game at Notre Dame Stadium since the infamous Bush Push. Coaches and pundits always warn of the danger of looking past an opponent, but Notre Dame has not shown any weaknesses, dominating Pittsburgh and Georgia Tech, both on the see COOLICAN PAGE 3
By CHARLOTTE EDMONDS Senior Sports Writer
In their second-straight road game, Notre Dame traveled to Atlanta to take on Georgia Tech for the first time since 2015. While the Irish were the heavy favorite over the Yellow Jackets, this 31-13 victory came down to game management and discipline. On one end, the Notre Dame defense, led by graduate student defensive lineman and captain Daelin Hayes, held Georgia Tech to 238 total yards and only two red zone attempts. On the other end, graduate student quarterback Ian Book, sophomore running back Kyren Williams and graduate student wide receiver Javon McKinley led the way for the Irish offense. Taking the field at the 22yard line, graduate student quarterback Ian Book immediately made a point to silence his doubters, connecting on five straight passes. Book ran and threw for two more downs before handing the ball over to Williams who struggled to find a gap through the Georgia Tech defensive line. A quick 11yard pass to senior tight end
Brock Wright followed by 23 yards from Williams brought the Irish into striking distance. Book, Williams and freshman running back Chris Tyree all chipped away at the distance between the line of scrimmage and the goal line. Starting from the eight-yard line, Book found junior wide receiver Joe Wilkins Jr. in the back of the end zone to put the Irish on the board. This was only Wilkins’ fifth catch on the season and his first career score. Following senior kicker Jonathan Doerer’s successful extra point, the offense returned to the sideline for a brief rest while the defense handled the Georgia Tech offense in a mere two minutes and 41 seconds. With true freshman Jeff Sims under center, the Yellow Jackets made it clear they wanted to keep the ball on the ground. Sims has struggled with ball security early in the season, throwing 10 interceptions — eight of which came in the first three games of the season. While he managed to escape today’s game unscathed in that category, the run game failed to materialize the points
the Yellow Jackets needed. The Irish offense returned to the field for the final three-anda-half minutes of the quarter and moved the ball 50 yards, highlighted by a 15-yard catch by McKinley. Returning for the second quarter, the Irish were poised to take a two-touchdown lead before Williams was stripped of the ball along the left sideline. Georgia Tech redshirt sophomore defensive back Zamari Walton scooped up the ball and was off to the races, bolting 93 yards past the entire Notre Dame offense to tie things up at 7-7. Despite the swing in momentum, Kelly said he wanted to ensure that Williams and the entire offense didn’t let that one play dictate the outcome of the game. “You’re just re-emphasizing the things that he needs to deal with,” Kelly said. “In that situation, he’s trying to get extra yardage. This is a defense that’s trying to rip at the ball. But also that we trust you.” The Irish didn’t dwell on that turnover for long. No less than see VICTORY PAGE 3
D-line coming together at the right time By LIAM COOLICAN Sports Writer
Throughout the years, and particularly this season, Notre Dame’s offensive line has gotten much praise, and deservedly so. They are a dominant unit, ranked as the top offensive line in college football by Pro Football Focus. However, their counterparts on the defensive side of the ball have quietly been putting together a fantastic season. One of the group’s unquestioned leaders is graduate student defensive end Daelin Hayes. After missing all but four games last year with a shoulder injury, Hayes had only 1.5 tackles and no sacks coming into Saturday’s game. “A lot of people have been making a big deal about my production as far as being a pass rusher,” Hayes said after see D-LINE PAGE 2
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the game. “There’s been wins, there’s been times where I’ve been close to the quarterback or I’ve had good rushes, it’s just [that] sometimes it doesn’t play out, those plays don’t come to you.” They certainly came to Hayes on Saturday. He finished with 4.5 tackles, two sacks and two forced fumbles and was awarded the game ball by head coach Brian Kelly. “Today, just happened to be a day where those plays came to me, and I was excited,” Hayes said. Kelly added that the plays to Hayes were immensely important to the overall game. “Elevating the play of Daelin Hayes might be singularly as important as anything that happened today,” Kelly said postgame. “He was at a different level of play.”
Kelly also praised his performance in practice. “He’s been single-minded in his focus for the last month or so in terms of his craft, and I’ve just seen a different player when it comes to wanting to be a dominant player in football,” he said. “He has made a choice — a conscious decision — that he wants to be a great player.” Despite the lack of production, Hayes said he knew his hard work would eventually pay off. “In practice, it’s just being consistent day in and day out, busting your butt, working your craft, honing in on your craft, extra meetings, spending extra time with our coaches, anything that you can do to give yourself an edge come Saturday, it always shows up in some form or fashion,” he said. Hayes’ leadership has been instrumental for a group that has been one of best in college football. In the last three games, the defense has allowed just 16
points. Hayes attributes much of that success to the bond that the group shares. “We go out and we play for each other, we love each other,” he said. “Honestly, six points that we gave up [against Georgia Tech] is six points too many.” The front seven has been one of the best in the country, recording 17 sacks through six games. The run defense has also been outstanding, allowing less than 100 yards rushing per game. Hayes gives credit to the depth of the defensive line, and to associate head coach and defensive line coach Mike Elston. “We have a lot of guys who are really good players,” Hayes said. “The commitment in our D-line room, from the youngest guy to the oldest guy, the fifthyear captain to the true freshman, the commitment and buy-in, from the top down, led by Coach Elston to our youngest guy — we all care and we all
love each other.” Sophomore defensive end Isaiah Foskey has broken out this year, leading the team with 3.5 sacks. The interior of the line, led by Hayes’ fellow captain, fifth-year senior Adetokunbo Ogundeji, and senior defensive lineman Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa has been instrumental in stopping the run, and senior nose tackle Kurt Hinish and junior defensive end Ovie Oghoufo have played big roles as well. When you factor in players like juniors Jayson and Justin Ademilola and sophomore Jacob Lacey, this is one of the deepest units in the country, and the Irish can constantly have fresh players on the field. “When you bust your butt in practice, Coach Elston [is] going to give you opportunities to go out and play, because they’re earned opportunities,” Hayes said. “Coach Elston has done a great job with creating that type of dynamic within our D-line room because it keeps
everybody hungry, and it gives everybody opportunities to go out and play… Everybody gets to go out and put out a performance for their brotherhood.” The brotherhood Hayes refers to is not just limited to the defensive line. It extends to the entire defense, and allows the defense to perform as one: “It’s all one unit, one organism working in tandem with one another to be the best version of itself,” he said. Even with the defense already among the best in the country, Hayes has high expectations for the group. “We want to be perfect, we want to be the best defense, we take it personally, we care about each other, we love each other,” he said. “When you have that love and care factor, man, [the] sky’s the limit for for any group, so we always say ‘for the brotherhood, FTB.’” Contact Liam Coolican at lcoolica@nd.edu
HYOSUB SHIN | Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Irish graduate student defensive linemen Adetokunbo Ogundeji, left, and Daelin Hayes pursue Yellow Jackets quarterback Jeff Sims as he scrambles with the ball during the Notre Dame-Georgia Tech game Saturday that the Irish won 31-13. The Notre Dame defense limited their opponent to just 88 rushing yards and allowed a single touchdown.
Play of the game
player of the game
zamari walton’s 93-yard fumble return for a touchdown
Notre Dame defensive end daelin hayes
After Notre Dame scored on their first drive and then quickly got the ball back, threatening another score at the Georgia Tech 13-yard line. Yellow Jackets junior defensive back Juanyeh Thomas punched the ball out of Irish running back Kyren Williams’ arms, and Yellow Jackets redshirt sophomore defensive back Zamari Walton grabbed the ball and sprinted down the sideline for a game-tying touchdown.
Graduate student and captain Daelin Hayes had had a slow season on the stats sheet prior to Saturday, only posting 1.5 tackles and no sacks. He quickly made up for lost time, however, and tallied 4.5 tackles, a quarterback hit and two strip-sacks, one of which was recovered by the Irish. “He was at a different level of play,” head coach Brian Kelly said postgame.
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Volume 55, Issue 32 | MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com
Students cast votes ahead of Election Day Some tri-campus students voted early by mail, while others were able to cast their votes in-person By ISABELLA VOLMERT Associate News Editor
W hile Election Day is tomorrow, as of Sunday afternoon a record 93 million A mericans have a lready voted, which is t wo-thirds of the entire voting population of the 2016 election. The New York Times reported the countr y is estimated to surpass 150 million votes for the first time in A merican histor y. The Obser ver recently polled its followers on Tw itter ask ing how they are voting in the election. Of the 177 responses, 72.9% have a lready voted by mail, 11.9% said they
voted in-person, 9.6% said they have yet to vote, but w ill and 5.6% said they w ill not be voting. Senior Michael Marotta, cochair of ND Votes, said while it’s too early to know how many Notre Dame students have voted, he predicts students will complete their ballots in greater numbers than in the 2016 election. ND Votes is a student run, nonpartisan campaign sponsored by the Center for Social Concerns, the Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy and the Constitutional Studies Minor
ISABELLA VOLMERT | The Observer
see VOTING PAGE 4
The mailbox outside of South Dining Hall is one of the on-campus locations Notre Dame students could mail their absentee and mail-in ballots. Most ballots must be received by election day to be counted.
Holder speaks on voting rights
SMC sustainable farm offers ecological benefits By GENEVIEVE COLEMAN News Writer
Last Friday, Saint Mar y’s Going Green Committee and the Farm Group hosted the inauguration of the College’s new sustainable farm. The farm is located on the north side of campus near the athletic fields. To begin the event, College President Katie Conboy
Eric Holder, the 82nd U.S. Attorney General, spoke on voter suppression in America and structural inequality in a virtual lecture Friday.
News Writer
This past Friday, Eric Holder, former Attorney General of the United States, spoke on voting rights as part of the Building an Anti-Racist Vocabular y lecture series. Hosted by the Klau Center for Civil and Human Rights, the lecture series features scholars and leaders from around the world to better understand systematic racism and racial justice. Holder held office from 2009 through 2015 during former President Barack Obama’s
NEWS PAGE 2
tenure, and he is now a partner at Covington & Burling LLP and chairs the board of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, an organization devoted to addressing the issue of gerr ymandering. The lecture began by addressing the relevant histor y and context of voter suppression, addressing the time period after the passage of the 15th amendment, which prohibited the denial of the right to vote on the basis of race. see LECTURE PAGE 4
SCENE PAGE 5
who explained the significance of the farm as well as how it w ill benefit the College. “[The farm] is t wo acres being used to grow produce sustainably using compost from the dining ha ll as a fertilizer for food that is going to be grow n at the site and that students are going to see FARMING PAGE 3
Student government to host mock election
ELIZABETH PRATER | The Observer
By ELIZABETH PRATER
welcomed attendees and expressed her excitement about the farm’s completion, as well as the project’s cooperation w ith the Sisters of the Holy Cross. “We are so pleased to be work ing and farming the land that has meant something to the Sisters for a ver y long time,” Conboy said. She then introduced English professor Chris Cobb
By IVERSON SUN News Writer
Notre Dame student government w ill hold a mock election for the school Monday, before Election Day Tuesday. Due to COVID-19 concerns, voting w ill be online through Qua ltrics. Student government w ill send out an email to the entire student body at 6 a.m. Monday, and the v irtua l polls w ill close at 6 p.m.
VIEWPOINT PAGE 6
Riya Sha h, director of nationa l management in student government, said a mock election gives students an opportunit y to get to k now what it is like to be civica lly engaged. At the same time, it a llows internationa l students and undocumented students who cannot cast their vote the chance to experience the A merican electora l system. “Since this is the first presidentia l election for ever yone on campus, it’s ver y
interesting, and ... Even the seniors who I do k now have mentioned that they don’t think any thing like a rea l mock election happened last time around,” Sha h said. “I k now that a lot of other universities and high schools have this in the U.S, and I feel that this mock election would be a great opportunit y to understand where the student body stands.” Unlike the U.S. presidentia l
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Saint Mary’s held a Dia de los Muertos event Friday featuring free food and t-shirts to mark the occasion. Dia de los Muertos is a Mexican holiday traditionally celebrated Nov. 1 in remembrance of friends and family members who have died.
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Free Professional Headshots 5th floor of Duncan Student Center 11:00 a.m. - noon All are welcome.
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2020 Conway Lectures: “Race in the Middle Ages” virtual 2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. All are welcome.
“Algorithmic Bias: Sources and Responses” virtual noon p.m. - 3 p.m. Featuring Cathy O’neil.
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SMC holds feminine hygiene product drive By NOLA WALLACE Talent & Inclusion Manager
Campus leaders from Resident Life, the Religious Studies Department, Student Activities Board and the Office of Civil and Social Engagement, have come together to create a feminine hygiene product drive for the homeless in the South Bend community, running from Nov 2-13th. One of the organizers, Rebekah Go, who is the director of the Office of Civil and Social Engagement stated that after a similar successful campaign earlier in the year, numerous students came forward to put together another drive before the end of the semester.
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election, the student government mock election will not be following the electoral college system. “We initially proposed that each dorm would not represent a different state and would be given a certain number of electoral votes,” Shah said. After talking with students who expressed concerns
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eat,” Cobb said. Attendees were then invited to walk over to the site of the compost pile and the sustainable farm. Senior Ana Martinez discussed how the compost for the farm was generated. She said since the spring of 2017, the College’s compost crew had saved over 30,000 pounds of food to be used for the farm. Cobb then explained that the farm would begin as a series of raised beds and would continue into the recently acquired field adjacent to them. In a follow-up interview email, Cobb said the farm had been in the making for the last five years. “The project began out of conversations on campus around food, sustainability, education, and spirituality that were sparked by programming created by the Center for Spirituality
Another student organizer, junior Hannah Chenoweth, said she is happy to be a part of such a meaningful drive, and she is excited to be able to help fellow women in need. “This drive here at Saint Mary’s is one of the many examples of how Saint Mary’s gives back to our community,” Chenoweth said. “As a whole Saint Mary’s prepares us for the world and teaches us how to help people. This drive is a convenient way for students to help even when they are busy with classes.” Collected donations will be distributed through the Center for the Homeless and Saint Margaret’s House to aid local South Bend homeless women in obtaining items such as deodorant,
razors, toothbrushes and other feminine hygiene products. Residence halls and student clubs and organizations can create a donation box on behalf of themselves if they contact Go at the Office of Civil and Social Engagement. The South Bend homeless community has been greatly affected by the COV ID pandemic. After police cleared out a homeless encampment on Michigan Street, other homeless camps have formed around the city, with homeless individuals experiencing a lack of sanitation and overcrowded shelters. It is estimated there are over 5,600 Indiana Hoosiers currently suffering
homelessness, a 3% increase from 2019. Recent initiatives have moved to help house the homeless in the area including apartments for the homeless in the Edison Park neighborhood. In addition, 75 homeless individuals are able to stay in motels as a result of federal grant money St. Joseph County received from the CARES Act. The Le Man Hall Director Holly Borrero said she sees the drive as a great way to exemplif y the Saint Mary’s pillar of justice. “We must remember there are a lot of people who aren’t able to access these items during this time,” Borrero said. “It speaks to the spirit of Saint Mary’s college to provide for those in need.”
Donations from students, faculty and staff across the tri-campus community are welcome. Drop off boxes can be found at the Le Man front desk or on the second f loor of the Saint Mary’s student center. Sophomore Morgan Martin, a member of Student Activities Board, encouraged the community to donate in any way that they can in light of all of the problems in the world today. “Everyone knows how important it is to support and provide for those struggling right now,” Martin said. “The drive is a great way for everyone to get involved. I’m hoping for a good turn out.”
about having their entire dorm lean to one party, Shah said they decided not to use the electoral college system in order to be more inclusive. Shah said they decided that a popular vote would be more appropriate, with whichever candidate receiving the most votes winning the mock election. “However, we are going to try and calculate the electoral college votes as well … and report that as well to see if the results
from the popular vote would align with the electoral college,” Shah said. Instead of analyzing the specific results of each dorm, Shah said they will look at trends across different areas on campus, such as South Quad, North Quad, West Quad and more. There will also be an election night event hosted by College Democrats, College Republicans, ND Votes, BridgeND and student government to talk about the
implications of the mock results, and what it means for Notre Dame’s campus and civil discourse. “Through the mock election, it is our intention to foster civic engagement, mobilize students to political activity and promote fruitful dialogue,” senior and student body president Rachel Ingal said. Ingal said by holding the mock election, student government also strives to help students be more aware of this
historic election. “We hope that the exercise will serve as a launchpad for person-to-person conversation, with the goal of empathetic understanding,” Ingal said. “It is our aim to keep our campus aware of the national moment and its importance, in order to be discerning citizens who advocate for the common good.”
under Elizabeth Groppe’s direction in 2014 to 2015,” Cobb said. “Around August of 2015, a group of 5 or 6 people got together to have a conversation about what it would take to establish a sustainable farm at Saint Mary’s, and the project unfolded from there.” According to Cobb, setting up the farm was a multi-stage process. After creating a business plan, the group had to prepare the land, find an interested farmer to work with them, and obtain the funding to keep the project going. Cobb explained how the farm sets itself apart by being ecologically and economically sustainable. “Ecologically, [sustainable farming] improves the soil, sequesters carbon, and fosters biodiversity while providing healthy, nutritious food to people,” he said. “Economically, it will provide a living for a farmer working the land sustainably through the sale of produce and by providing hands-on
environmental education opportunities. By being sustainable in both these ways, the farm should be able to continue indefinitely on the land where it is situated while maintaining the health of the land, the people who work it and the people who eat from it.” Cobb noted that the farm can be used by a variety of communities now that it is open. “The farmer, Saint Mary’s classes, students and faculty who do research or volunteer, and members of the local community can use the farm,” he said. “The farmer, with assistance from interested members of the Saint Mary’s community will maintain it. The College will be responsible for maintaining the buffer zone around the sustainable farm.” Cobb explained the dangers of unsustainable farming to soil fertility and crop production. “Unsustainable farming practices damage the land being cultivated through loss of topsoil and damage to the microbiotic communities that
maintain soil fertility,” he said. “When land becomes too damaged to grow food crops, it is lost as farmland. Since our lives depend on food grown on farms, using up the land on which we can grow food is a very serious, long-term problem.” In Cobb’s opinion, sustainable farming is the solution to the shrinking amount of cultivable farmland in the world. “The world is running out of suitable, uncultivated land, and converting all that land to agriculture is devastating for biodiversity, on which human health also depends,” he said. “Sustainable farming, then, is essential to a healthy future for our human civilization... The work we are doing at Saint Mary’s is a very small part of this larger, essential project of protecting agricultural land, the human food supply, and global biodiversity by transforming unsustainable industrial agriculture into a sustainable agriculture system.”
Junior Lindsey Shank spoke about how she got involved in the farm this year. “I am really just getting involved with the start of the farm this year in my Sustainability position for Student Government, besides participating in compost maintenance in previous years, but I am passionate about agro-ecology, so it has all been super exciting,” Shank looks forward to the possibilities that the farm now offers the community. “Having a sustainable farm on campus is so exciting, because there are great opportunities for ecological research and hands-on learning for students,” Shank said. “In addition, the farm provides us an opportunity to use the organic food waste we produce in the dining hall for compost, which ultimately reduces our carbon footprint as a campus.”
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with the mission of mobilizing and educating Notre Dame voters. The have sponsored a number of events this past semester in preparation for the election, and they prepared a voting guide for students. ND Votes participates in and utilizes the work of the National Study of Learning Voting and Engagement (NSLVE), an initiative of the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education (IDHE) at Tufts University’s Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, a research center focused on college students’ participation in democracy. The NSLVE created a report on student voting rates at Notre Dame in the 2016 election, and concluded a 54% voting rate among students at Notre Dame. Both Marotta and senior Rachel Sabnani, who is also a co-chair of ND Votes, expect a larger turnout among students this election.
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“In the post-Civil War era, you had a flowering of Black voter participation, and frankly, the creation of Black political power that threatened the status quo, particularly in the South and measures were then put in place to disenfranchise newly freed people,” Holder said. “Poll taxes, literacy tests, the use of violence, to make sure that people did not register and then did not vote.” Holder described how the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s combatted these obstacles. “The [1965] Voting Rights Act is justifiability called the ‘crown jewel of the civil rights movement.’ It essentially put under federal examination the Old South and those states that had a history of discrimination,” Holder said. Holder continued to explain that any changes to the voting system would then have to go through the Justice Department. “That was something that led to the flower again of voter participation, but also, the rebirth of Black political power,” Holder said. “You see an astronomical leap in the number of Black political officials.” Through his work in the Redistricting Committee, Holder addressed some of the systemic racial measures that have taken place in the U.S. “If you have huge numbers of Black people in a district or in an area in the South, or in the North, you come up with ways in which through the process called gerrymandering, you minimize that power,” Holder said. “You draw district lines in such a way that you encapsulate Black people into just one district or crack and spread them out over a number of districts. Either way, you really kind of minimize the amount
Sabnani said their organization saw an uptick in interest in their work this year, starting back in the summer. “We have really exponentially grown,” she said. ND Votes’s task force is made up of student dorm representatives and representatives of various political and non-partisan ]clubs and organizations on campus. “Our task force has doubled and tripled in size,” Sabnani said. Additionally, the club has been contacted by a number of other ND organizations as well such as academic departments, the athletics department and even personally by Muffet McGraw. Sabnani said they were also contacted by national organizations with similar missions as ND Votes such as Democracy Works and Voting Counts. Sabnani attributed the increased interest in ND Votes to a few factors, one being the club’s neutral position. “I think the country became more partisan and divided in
the past few years, [so] people are drawn to our nonpartisanship,” she said. She also noted college students this year were in high school during the last election. She said since then, they have noticed how the government has affected their families and lives. “I think a lot of new young people are forming a political conscious,” she said. Marotta said almost everyone they have asked are registered to vote, which he believes is a result of the 2020 election’s heightened polarization. Saint Mary’s junior Catherine O’Neil cast her ballot through the mail, although she said she had a difficult experience. O’Neil, originally from Illinois, initially requested a ballot from her home county to be sent to her school address. “It was my first time voting in a presidential election,” she said. After weeks of waiting, O’Neil called the county clerk’s office and discovered her ballot had instead been sent to
her permanent home address. O’Neil then requested a new ballot, but also had to mark the first ballot as “spoiled” for her new one to be counted. O’Neil said she had trouble finding information on what do do in her situation and several of her friends from her hometown experienced a similar problem. She is still worried if her new ballot will be counted in time. “Is my vote even going to be counted at this point? ” she said. O’Neil said she is passionate about making sure her vote was accounted for especially after the events of this past year. “It’s a big year for the president, it’s a big year for the House,” she said. “It’s really important to make sure that the people that are in charge are people who are willing to speak for the people instead of just themselves or their donors.” Margaret McGreev y, a Notre Dame junior, was able to vote in-person a few weeks ago in South Bend. “I’m local so it was
easier for me to vote in-person. I wanted to be sure my vote would be counted,” she said. McGreev y and two of her friends went to vote early in the morning one Friday. She said the process of voting took about an hour and fifteen minutes, as there was a long line, and then got breakfast together afterwards. “We kinda made like a half day of it,” she joked. McGreev y and her friends, after voting, saw former South Bend mayor and former Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg in line. “He was just standing in line along with everyone else,” she said. “It was kinda cool to see a politician going through the voting process just like anyone else.” The three friends were then able to take a socially-distanced picture with Buttigieg. “I think voting is so important,” McGreev y said. “I felt very empowered to go in-person and very lucky.”
of power that African American communities should have.” While partisan gerrymandering as existed for decades, Holder said racial gerrymandering has gained more traction in recent years. “As African Americans become more closely identified with the Democratic Party, there is kind of an overlap between partisan gerrymandering and racial gerrymandering,” Holder said. “There are sometimes, and very often, a part of the same thing.” Durham asked for Holder’s opinion on the Supreme Court’s recent decision that states that they will no longer be addressing partisan gerrymandering cases. “I think that’s an awful decision,” Holder said. “Why do the federal courts exist, but to somehow grapple and resolve these
issues? I think that the notion that gerrymandering has been with us almost as long as we have been a republic doesn’t mean it is something that we should accept, being partisan or racial gerrymanders.” Holder said he thought the court’s decision “really turns its back on protecting our democracy.” The discussion continued to address voter suppression that may appear neutral, but may impact more significantly marginalized communities, such as the requirement of a photo ID. “African Americans and Hispanic Americans don’t have driver’s licenses to the extent that their white counterparts do. But it even goes a little beyond that,” Holder said. “ In Texas, if you look at the way the law was
written there, if you had a stateissues license to be able to carry a gun… that was fine. If you had a University of Texas State issued photo ID, that was not acceptable.” Holder also addressed concerns of voter fraud in discussing photo ID laws. “These unnecessary photo ID laws, supposedly, it is to try to protect the voting system form in-person voter fraud. Brennan Center has done a study and said that you’re more likely to be hit by lightning than cast an in-person fraudulent vote.” Holder said that this isn’t to say voter fraud doesn’t exist, but rather, the events are very isolated and these measures are drastic, given the “negative collateral impacts of these measures.” Holder ended the discussion
by leaving book recommendations to learn more about the topics discussed, such as “Slavery by Another Name” by Douglas Blackmon and “The Second Founding” by Eric Foner. Additionally, addressing the large undergraduate student body that was attending the lecture, he gave a call to action to the young audience. “You see the problems, now the question is what are we going to do as a nation to deal, deal with those problems? And this is not something that we simply leave to our elected leaders,” Holder said. “The question is what are we as individual citizens, going to do, to be a part of the process of electoral reform?”
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Contact Isabella Volmert at ivolmert@nd.edu
Contact Elizabeth Prater at eprater@nd.edu
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The observer | MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com
By NIA SYLVA Scene Writer
Over the past few years, we’ve seen some Eddy Street restaurants come and go. We’ve said sad goodbyes to places like Yats and BarBici while big-name fast food chains have stood the test of time (Chipotle and Five Guys, I’m looking at you). So when I heard that a new restaurant would be opening this year — and one with an unfamiliar name — my first thought was one of skepticism. Could a smaller chain like Bru Burger survive on Eddy Street? Well, that’s not quite the truth. My actual instinct upon learning the news was to ask myself the following: another burger place? Really? It’s true; there’s Smashburger on campus, and Five Guys, Brothers and O’Rourke’s on Eddy Street, all of which have burgers — and pretty good ones, at that — on their menus. So not only was I unsure whether this new restaurant would be able to stay open, I also doubted that it was even necessary in the first place. But Bru Burger won me over. The decor is sleek and modern but cozy, with outdoor seating for warmer days. The waitstaff are friendly, and the menu items, while not as inexpensive as, say, a Chipotle quesadilla, are perfectly reasonable for a sit-down place. The real highlight, though, is the meals themselves. The appetizer options may not be particularly groundbreaking, but they still
By DASHA KUDRIAVTSEVA Scene Writer
When you see the pink-colored poster for the Italian series “Baby,” the last thing you’d imagine is a story of underage prostitution inspired by real events, but the third season of the Netflix show continues to unravel the dark, hidden lives of a pair teenagers. The main character ‘baby,’ Chiara (Benedetta Porcaroli), is dissatisfied with her privileged life as a teenager living in Rome’s most beautiful neighborhood. An image of the perfect girl with good grades, friends and sports creates the reality Chiara wants to escape. “Like exotic fish in a pristine tank, longing for the sea. That’s why, even though everything looks perfect, to survive, we need a secret life,” Chiara says in the opening lines of the series. So far, her only problems were falling for bad guys and having a secret relationship with her best friend’s brother; however, this time, she goes a little further. After making a new friend in reckless classmate Ludovica (Alice Pagani), Chiara’s life turns 180 degrees. They perfectly complement each other like black and white. Chiara is sick of her old perfect friends and life, while Ludovica is a black sheep among her peers who unconsciously seek support and love. As Chiara gets closer with Ludovica, she comes into a completely different lifestyle filled with nightclubs, alcohol and older men. Chiara and Ludovica go to a party at Ludovica’s friend’s place, Saverio (Paolo Calabresi) or, as Ludovica calls him, “the cocktail guy.” At first, everything seems harmless and fun — loud music, disco lights, free cocktails — except for
amount to a (tasty) variety of upscale pub mainstays. The soft pretzels, for instance, are a good alternative for anyone who’s missing Ben’s gameday pretzels; the charcuterie platter or “Bru board”— which includes cheeses like white cheddar and habanero jack, cured meats such as soppressata and crostini — is quite a step up from dining hall cold cuts. Other appetizer options like the chicken tenders and chili make good main courses. Speaking of main courses, let’s just say Bru Burger knows what it’s good at. While the restaurant does offer a small selection of salads, its specialty is clearly not piling vegetables on top of lettuce. Bru Burger does sandwiches, and it does them really well. The menu’s burger section ranges from “The Beginning” — a simple cheeseburger — to “The End” — an elaborate treat topped with horseradish Havarti, an over easy egg, tomato, caramelized onion, lettuce and truffle aioli — and makes stops along the way. The Bru Burger, for instance, reflects well on its namesake with Taleggio cheese and caramelized onions piled high atop a juicy beef patty. And if one is in the mood for more of an exotic main course, the Provencal burger and its herbed goat cheese, marinated red onions, sauteed mushrooms and basil aioli are always an option. But if we’re talking about sandwiches, Bru Burger has far more to offer than your usual beef burger. For those of us who are vegetarian or vegan, the black bean
burger, the impossible burger and the grilled portabello mushroom are available, as are an ahi tuna burger and a salmon burger (which is really just a salmon fillet laid atop a layer of guacamole and placed on a bun.) Both fish offerings are fresh-tasting and flavorful — perfect for anyone who’s craving some high-quality fish. So the entrees are varied and delicious. But what about the fries? The desserts? For their part, Bru Burger’s fries are thick and hearty but still crispy. They are wide enough to be good carriers for the restaurant’s specialty ketchup (it’s homemade) and, while they may not be as greasy or salty as your typical fast food fries, they are definitely worth the extra few dollars. Meanwhile, Bru Burger’s dessert options may be some of the best things on their menu. I haven’t yet had the chance to sample all of the restaurant’s offerings, but the whisky brownie is incredibly moist — almost like a molten lava cake — and comes with ice cream and contains a hint of whisky flavor that is not overpowering. To put it simply, Bru Burger’s bread pudding is an absolutely delicious swirl of rich butter and cinnamon goodness. The food is tasty, the menu is big but not too big and the prices are reasonable. So if you go to Bru Burger — which you definitely should — just make sure to save room for dessert!
the teenage girls. However, Saverio intimidates the audience during one of the first conversations with Ludovica. His advice, “sometimes they work out… those bad decisions,” indicates right away that something is off. He does a good job of simultaneously spoiling Chiara and Ludovica with charming compliments and slowly getting into their minds, persuading them to make a bad decision. Little do the girls know Saverio thinks of them as objects, the secret weapons that can bring more money to his pocket. “The best thing about living a secret life is that you never know what’s coming next” becomes the backbone of the series. During the dinner with Saverio and his assistant Fiore (Giuseppe Maggio), Ludovica receives an offer to accompany older gentlemen under the pretext of her needing money to pay her high school. “Many of them would pay handsomely to spend an evening with a girl like you without any obligations,” Saverio temptingly persuades. Chiara embraces the new self with her own free will and joins Ludovica in her undertakings. Their relationships with Saverio’s clients evolve from friendly dinners with cute presents to sexual satisfaction for a higher price. You could say that they sell themselves, but it seems that they sell their feelings more than anything, not bodies. “Feelings, I mean… They’re really just illusions. But then, money’s real,” Chiara offers as an explanation for behavior. What I like about this series is that it covers a real story involving multiple complex characters and revealing all the ailments of human society — family and romantic relationships, affairs, adultery and betrayals. Chiara and Ludovica’s secret lives are not about prostitution itself, but rather the
struggles of adolescence, the desire, sometimes out of control, to behave contrary to the expectations of parents waiting for you to know what you want to do and who you want to be in the future. Teenagers are as fragile as Play-Doh. You can play around with them as much as you want, with or without knowing what you are doing, and it will have an impact on them, even if you press very slightly. They can be lost, not knowing who they are and just seeking an answers as to how to be a grownup. Oftentimes they find a way to feel powerful and fight the apathy gnawing from the inside by doing things that might harm them. In the end, as one of the screenwriters of the series, Romolo Re Salvador, says, “It’s still a story about love, not prostitution.” Maybe love is what most of these young adults are missing, starting with love for themselves.
Contact Nia Sylva at asylva@nd.edu
Contact Dasha Kudriavsteva at dkudriav@nd.edu
“Baby” Season 3 Starring: Andrea De Sica, Anna Negri Favorite episodes: “No More Secrets,” “Beyond the Aquarium” If you like: “Elite,” “Euphoria” Where to watch: Netflix
LIYA BLITZER | The Observer
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The observer | monday, november 2, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com
How to fight maskne on a college budget Peyton Stearns Social Media Staffer
Disclaimer: This article is not sponsored and all products listed are recommendations. Always check the ingredients listed before use. Let’s face it, this year has been wild and completely stressful. It has also taken a toll on my skin! In an effort to fight the pandemic, and stay on campus, everyone is wearing a mask. However effective this may be to fight a virus, it is not effective in fighting acne. Wearing a mask causes heat, friction and blockage on the skin. It is combined with a moist environment from sweating, talking and even breakouts. This, my friend, is the definition of maskne.
Healing For starters, if you currently have maskne, don’t fret! Focus on soothing and healing the skin first. The acne can’t heal until the skin is completely nourished. Use an over the counter benzoyl peroxide with a 2.5-5% concentration only on the blemishes. This ingredient works to get rid of dead skin cells, excessive oil and bacteria that may be trapped underneath. The skin may be sensitive in its current condition, so I don’t recommend using a higher concentration. Before getting into skin care itself, it is important to know what your skin type is. Depending on your pH, you will have different product needs. Skin pH is typically around 5.5. When it deviates from that number, inflammation can occur.
Daytime Routine After you’ve taken a skin quiz, it’s time to find products for a skin care routine. A huge takeaway from this is that simple is okay. You don’t have to use every product, but here is the order of a daytime routine, from first to last: cleanser, toner, serum, eye cream, spot treatment, moisturizer and sunscreen. If you want to keep it simple, stick with cleanser, moisturizer and sunscreen. Why? For right now, these are going to be the best for your skin while wearing a mask. A cleanser will clear any leftover dirt or makeup from your face. The cleanser you use will depend on your skin type, but they will all get the job done. On a budget, you may want to stick with a micellar cleansing water. Since a cleanser can be used both in the morning and at night, this is a great product to invest in. If you are willing to spend a bit more, I suggest my favorite, Beste No. 9 Jelly Cleanser from Drunk Elephant. It is the best for my sensitive skin. Another great option — especially if you want to do a double cleanse — is the Glossier milky oil, which is only $12. A moisturizer should be your new best friend — seriously. Besides keeping your skin hydrated, it also acts as a barrier between your skin and a mask — it reduces friction. During the age of maskne, look for a moisturizer containing hyaluronic acid and no fragrances. Hyaluronic acid is a sugar found in our skin that holds water and helps keep our skin hydrated. Moisturizer is one product that truly varies depending on how much you want it to do. If your skin is super dry, you are going to want a completely different moisturizer than someone who has oily skin. Sunscreen is an everyday must! Even on cloudy, rainy days, the UVA and UVB rays can still penetrate your skin! There are many to choose from, which is great if you have ingredient preferences. If you’re looking for one that is more inexpensive but has clean ingredients, I recommend picking up SunBum face sunscreen on your next trip to the store. I’ve used it for years and it works great! Remember to give your skin a break and know that contributing factors like water intake, sleep and stress can also affect your beautiful face! The number one takeaway, do what is best for your skin … and remember to moisturize! You can contact Peyton at pstearns01@saintmarys.edu The views expressed in this Inside Column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
To the winner of the election Eva Analitis On Second Thought
You probably feel pretty good right now. Following an especially contentious election cycle, you’ve secured your seat in the Oval Office for the next four years. After campaigning across the country these past several months, from the coasts to the heartland, you did it — you won. But this is no time to rest. Your work is just beginning. Sure, some Americans cheered your victory after staying up late watching the results from battleground states roll in; they view it as a triumph of their values and interests. Others, however, are devastated and feel a new uncertainty in a year that has already had plenty. They wonder what their future will look like under your administration. Keep in mind that, regardless of how many votes you received, tens of millions of Americans voted against you. Let this reminder humble you. Those who supported your opponent potentially view you as a threat to their way of life, or even their very lives. You cannot shrug this off and charge ahead without considering them. You are their president, too. You are no longer in the campaign stage where the objective is simply to win over a majority of Americans. Instead, you are set to hold a position of power in which you are obligated to safeguard the liberties and rights of all Americans and create a country in which they can thrive. It is now your job to look out for all of us. This will be challenging — it might even seem impossible, considering the vast array of wishes and worldviews our population has. I will not pretend that all our diverse views actually converge and that we all really want the same things deep down. We as a people have some major differences. You can’t make everyone happy, but you don’t have to. You must, however, protect and affirm the rights of all people. Despite our different political inclinations, underpinning them all is a common thread of what you must ensure for every person: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This seems simple on paper, but for some reason it has been a challenge the past few centuries. Many of us convinced ourselves that whether or not our current problems in America continue depends solely on the outcome of the election — as though if the results go one way, all the problems will vanish like magic, and if they go the other way, the problems will persist. I will admit, who our president is will indeed greatly shape the next four years in our nation, but the reality is that our most salient problems will confront us no matter who he is. Regardless of which of you won, there were some problems that are going to face our nation on January 20, 2021 either way: At that point, we will still be plagued by a pandemic and lacking a widely available, effective vaccine. We will still have many people holding their breath as the Supreme Court — with a newly solidified conservative majority — rules on cases. We will still have pervasive racism and stark racial division in America. And I could go on. If you were president when some of these issues arose or worsened, it is not too late to work to ameliorate them. If you were not president when these situations came about, it does not mean you are not responsible for the course they take going forward. Both Democrats and Republicans warned us that their candidate must prevail in order to preserve our values (though they had different conceptions of what some of those values are)
and salvage our democracy. They had somewhat of a point. With foreign interference in our elections, an impeachment during the last presidential term, the inability of our government to pass coronavirus relief measures and overall gridlock and polarization, our Constitution is certainly getting a workout, leaving us to wonder if the document can last us another 230 years. While this fear is valid, many Americans actually have a more pressing concern than patriotism right now: their current lives. As pf Oct. 31, 229,109 Americans have died of COVID-19, according to the CDC, and the nation continues reaching record-high numbers of new cases. After being separated by border officials, 545 children remain apart from their parents. LGBTQ Americans are worried about the future of their right to marry and to not be discriminated against in places of business. Women fear for the future of their reproductive rights. Black Americans are terrified of encounters with law enforcement and continue to encounter racism ingrained in all aspects of American society. As of Sept. 16, 97,966 businesses have permanently closed. Approximately 23 million Americans risk losing their health insurance if the Affordable Care Act is overturned by the Supreme Court. Some of these problems might have resulted directly from your time in office, whether through the nomination of three conservative justices to the Supreme Court or the 1994 Crime Bill, while others have a more ambiguous and deep-rooted origin. I won’t quibble over who is to blame for these troubles. That does not matter at this point. What matters is that they are now your responsibility to work to resolve. These are the worries and struggles of the people you represent, and if you do not address these matters, you will have failed them. It was never about just winning an election. It was always about what the consequences of winning would give you the potential to do. The words you speak, the actions you take and the legislation you support will affect real people’s lives, for better or for worse. Right now, our nation is full of people who are struggling and scared, and it is your duty to lead them through a slew of simultaneous crises. We are a country in need — in need of leadership, in need of hope, in need of a vision, in need of policy and in need of unity. It is your duty to deliver these things. People’s lives are not a political game. Do not play with them. Eva Analitis is a junior in Lyons Hall majoring in political science and pre-health. If you see her around campus, don’t be afraid to whisk her off for an impromptu philosophical discussion. Otherwise, you can reach her at eanaliti@nd.edu. The views expressed in this column are those of the authors and not necessarily those of The Observer.
KERRY SCHNEEMAN | The Observer
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The observer | monday, november 2, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
FTT needs more Black representation In a few weeks, students will begin registering for spring courses. For me, this has always been an exciting time — I go on class search, look for interesting classes, check their reviews and session times and mix and match until I come up with the perfect schedule. This semester, Notre Dame’s department of Film, Television, and Theatre (FTT) has offered courses on Notre Dame football, shadow puppetry, podcasts, Ireland, robots, Sinatra and dictators. But there are no courses on Black cinema. In the past decade, there have been courses on Irish, Chinese, French, Korean, Japanese, Latinx and queer cinema. But there hasn’t been a course focused on Black cinema in almost thirteen years. That course — “Black Power at the Movies” — was taught by a non-Black professor who has since left the University. A year later, a Black graduate student taught a course on Black art in the diaspora, but it was not focused on film. And since then, “Performing Blackness” has been taught a few times by a Black woman. Incidentally, this professor is one of only three Black professors in the entire FTT department, which currently has 31 professors. Within the film concentration, there is only one Black professor. Clearly, FTT needs more Black representation. Why it needs more representation should go without saying — at this point in 2020, after an unprecedented uprising, we have hopefully done the necessary readings on racism, anti-racism and representation. Likewise, Black directors and their films can teach us about racist structures and how they affect people. 13th (Duvernay 2016), directed by a Black woman, explains why America’s criminal justice
system is inherently racist. Do the Right Thing (Lee 1988) tells an apparently timeless American story of rising racial tension. And Moonlight (Jenkins 2016) chronicles the development of Chiron, a gay Black boy living with his drug-addicted mother in a bad neighborhood. But it would be reductive to study Black cinema for strictly political reasons. I agree with film scholar Racquel Gates, who says “the very idea that Black film’s greatest purpose is to be an educational primer on race in America is a notion that we need to lay to rest. During this reflection on blackness and media, we must focus on the complexity and brilliance of Black film on its own merits. Now more than ever, we should return to ... films that connect audiences with the pathos, joy and even treachery of the Black characters and lives they depict, the films that recognize their complex humanity.” Indeed, few study Casablanca (Curtiz 1942) in order to learn about white people. We study Casablanca because we love its story, complex characters, cinematography and editing, and we want to know how each of these elements work. Why don’t we study Black cinema in the same way? Why don’t we study Losing Ground (Collins 1982) or George Washington (Green 2000) in order to see how they work as films about Black people rather than as “educational primers?” After all, as film majors, we study cinema. Black cinema exists, so we should study Black cinema — not only in courses about a broader topic, but in courses about Black cinema. In order for these courses to exist, Notre Dame should also hire more Black film scholars. Two is not enough. Of course, white professors can teach about
Black cinema — every lesson I’ve learned in college about Black film has been taught by a white professor. (Again, these lessons were not taught in courses dedicated to Black film.) But why not hire Black scholars? They can offer insights that white scholars cannot, and a more insightful film department is a better film department. A better film department improves the University at large. Other universities like USC, IU and Columbia College Chicago have a similar problem with underrepresentation of Black film professors. Notre Dame’s FTT department has the opportunity to be a national leader in this regard. Fortunately, the department has committed to many of the changes I have demanded: “[W]e acknowledge that we have the power to shape curricula based in anti-racist principles, to highlight the work of Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) creators and scholars, and to try to equip our students with the intellectual, creative and ethical tools and cultural competencies necessary to shape our communities and societies into places where racial justice and equality are vital priorities, not vague propositions,” FTT faculty wrote in a statement on anti-racism and racial justice in August. I applaud this promise and their acknowledgement that “mere words are painfully inadequate” if they are not backed up by actions. As students, we must hold FTT accountable, making sure it educates students in an optimally inclusive and socially responsible manner. Chase Cummings junior Nov. 1
God and mortality Andrew Sveda Church and State
If you talk with Christians about their faith, no doubt many will tell you about a deep crisis in their life — a death of a loved one or a terrible illness — during which they were brought to faith in Jesus Christ. Sometimes people are moved by these stories, but I think most of the time it is met with almost a sense of suspicion and skepticism — Freud’s suggestion of belief in God as an emotional response or “wishful thinking” surely pops into many heads. But might there be good intellectual reasons that one contemplating death and their own mortality might find particularly persuasive? In other words, is there a philosophical train of thought that may especially convince someone dealing with death to believe in God? I certainly think so. Amidst death and grief, we often find ourselves asking whether God exists. We do this because we, skeptic and believer alike, know in our hearts that death is bad, that it’s not right. Doubting God’s existence after a loved one’s death is an extremely emotional issue, but, intellectually, the emerging argument appears to be a non sequitur, for if there is no God and transcendent source of moral values, then what exactly is objectively wrong about death? It may be most disadvantageous to us that someone we knew and cared for has passed away, and we may personally feel their death was bad and wrong, but if there’s no ultimate meaning or purpose to the universe, we can’t say this was or indeed anything is objectively right or wrong. It’s just part of nature, the circle of life. It just is. Indeed, if none of our lives have any ultimate meaning or intended purpose anyway, then why does it matter when or how I die? To deny God’s existence is to deny that the universe and humanity has any ultimate meaning or purpose, but we know that this is simply not true
(even to deny that we have meaning is to implicitly assume that your objection has meaning). The pain we experience in grief is not evidence against God’s existence at all. Rather, it reminds us that our lives do have meaning and purpose, that some things are indeed objectively bad or good — things that can only be true if a theistic God exists. Death is wrong because we have a design, a purpose given by God, because we know it shouldn’t be like this. And maybe, just maybe, we were meant to live forever. Isn’t this mention of eternal life, though, just a logical leap? Let’s think about it a little more. As discussed above, our lives have meaning and purpose. What we do and what we think does matter. But if this life is all there is, then, when we die, there will be no consequence whatsoever for how we lived, what we did or what we thought. It won’t matter if you’ve lived like Mother Teresa or Joseph Stalin. This means that my character is not really what matters but how I present myself in order to get what I want. If there is no ultimate consequence to what I thought and believed and what I did, then being genuinely good and pretending to be good for selfgain, or even doing bad things for self-gain, makes no difference as long as the outcome is the same. Put differently, if this life is it, then we must grab all we can, and if there’s no ultimate consequence for my life, then anything goes. Good and bad quickly go out the window, and life becomes a set of calculations to see how I can best play the system to get what I want. It does not matter how I live. All that matters is not getting caught. But, interestingly, we call and know some things to be objectively right and wrong. Even things that would help us tremendously in this life we say simply cannot be done because they are wrong. This would be extremely strange, and quite disadvantageous, in an atheistic world. Only if our lives have ultimate meaning, only if we will be held accountable after we die by a supreme judge does this make
any sense. If theism is true, then there will be consequences for what we do, there will be justice, there will be ultimate meaning. And such a judgment, of course, can only occur if there is a life beyond this one, and, for the verdict to be put into action, it only makes sense that we will continue to exist in the afterlife beyond that point. We begin to see the need, then, for a judge, a judgement and an afterlife if our lives, our character, our thoughts and our actions are to have any genuine meaning and consequence. Understanding this, it makes perfect sense why someone dealing with death will arrive at the conclusion that God exists and that there is an afterlife. But that, of course, doesn’t mean they’ll accept the implications of this conclusion. This is important to remember. I can show you a ton of reasons why it makes sense to believe in God, and you may intellectually assent to them. But having trust, or faith, in God and what He has done, that is another thing. It will not matter in the slightest if you only accept God as a philosophical conclusion (cf. James 2:19). Your intellectual ability cannot save you; only a savior, the savior, can. In the end, we must either find our righteousness and worth in ourselves — our ability, our strength, our prestige, our salary, our GPA, our dating or marital status — or in the one “who knew no sin” and, out of his love and grace, died so that we, the unworthy and “the ungodly,” “may have life in his name” (2 Corinthians 5:21; Romans 4:5; John 20:31). These are the only two options, and we must be ready to answer even this very day. Which will it be? Andrew Sveda is a sophomore at Notre Dame from Pittsburgh majoring in political science. In his free time, he enjoys writing (obviously), reading and playing the piano. He can be reached at asveda@nd.edu or @SvedaAndrew on Twitter. The views expressed in this column are those of the authors and not necessarily those of The Observer.
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The observer | MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com
Crossword | WILl shortz
Horoscope | Eugenia Last Happy Birthday: Observe and learn. Broaden your awareness. Look at your options and consider your lifestyle. It’s time to make a change that will encourage you to use all the knowledge and skills you have developed to reach a goal. Keep your plans simple, and incorporate all aspects of life. Balance work, health, fitness and leisure time in order to ease stress. Your numbers are 9, 15, 23, 31, 39, 44, 47. ARIES (March 21-April 19): Keep your head down and your feet moving forward. What you accomplish will help pave the way to new beginnings. Trust in yourself and the ones you love, and do what’s best. Romance and personal gain are within reach. TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Confusion will set in if you listen to outsiders. Focus on what you know, and you’ll come up with a plan that will get you where you want to go. Embrace change, and take the path that will bring you the highest return. GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Pay more attention to the ones you love. Spending time with children, relatives or your lover will bring you closer together. A personal pick-me-up will brighten your day. Update your look, and focus on fitness. Romance is favored. CANCER (June 21-July 22): Don’t get angry; get moving. You have everything to gain by taking the initiative and following through with your plans. Refuse to let a disgruntled individual interfere in your life or make you miserable. Do whatever will make you happy. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Use your charm to outmaneuver anyone trying to talk you into something that you don’t want to do. Emotions will mount if you get involved in a joint venture that is costly and nonproductive. Focus on personal improvement. Romance is encouraged. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): An unexpected change of plans looks promising. Go with the flow, and you’ll find yourself in a good position. Expand your knowledge, experience and connections. A friend, relative or youngster will play a role in a decision you make. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Keep your life simple. Avoid getting into a senseless disagreement with someone who will never see things your way. Put your time and effort into personal gain, self-improvement and romancing someone you love. Make positive decisions, regardless of what others do. SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Feeling safe and secure will help you plan for the future. A partnership that enables you to gain insight spiritually, physically or financially is favored. Be open to suggestions, and you will find the path that brings you joy and peace of mind. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Make adjustments at home that will accommodate someone you love. Assess what you have been going through financially, and look for reasonable ways to make your life easier and less stressful. Romance will enhance your life experience. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Put an end to an ongoing problem with a friend or relative. A change to the way or location you live will lift your spirits. Protect against insult, injury and illness. Don’t take unnecessary risks or put up with poor behavior. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Think twice before making a change. Be a leader, not a follower, and come up with ideas and plans. Be on guard when dealing with shared expenses. Someone will have a problem sticking to a budget. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Keep an open mind. Arguing won’t solve anything, but research and fair play will lead to common ground. A change to the way you handle finances will help you avoid loss. Someone from your past will offer useful insight. Birthday Baby: You are courageous, insightful and mysterious. You are optimistic and scrupulous.
Sudoku | The Mepham Group
Jumble | David Hoyt and Jeff knurek
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SPORTS
ndsmcobserver.com | MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2020 | The Observer
Sports Authority
Sports Authority
Quit attacking Kevin Cash David Kramer Sports Writer
People love to complain about anything and everything, anytime and everywhere. The rise of sports statistics’ influence on management decisions is certainly no exception. Anti-analytical sentiment reached its apex on Tuesday night when Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash took the ball out of elite pitcher Blake Snell’s hand in the sixth inning. Amid a performance nothing short of dominant, Snell exited the game with nine strikeouts in five-and-a-third scoreless innings. Kevin Cash’s logic revolved around the fact, well-established in baseball analytics, that starting pitchers’ success significantly declines when facing the opposing batting order for the third time. Undoubtedly, the statistics-intensive Rays organization supported Cash’s choice to enter the bullpen, although his choice in relievers seemed questionable: righthander Nick Anderson. During a stretch only characterized as abysmal, Anderson allowed at least one run in each of his previous seven appearances against the lethal Yankees and Astros offenses. Atop the Dodgers lineup stood Mookie Betts, who not only punishes baseballs against right-handed pitching but also showed signs of frustration against Snell, striking out twice in his first two at-bats in Game 6. Further, Cash’s heavy use of Anderson in the postseason left the reliever with noticeable fatigue in the bullpen. In spite of these suggestions to either continue with Snell or bring in a lefty, Cash placed his trust in Anderson. This trust, grounded in statistics, is certainly no stranger to the Rays organization. For years, its management staff has governed a small-market team with small-market decisions, choices that agitate and perturb traditional organizations lagging behind the curve. Through their relentless — and sometimes even reckless — allegiance to analytics, innovative player development and progressive team strategy, they have gradually acquired an edge on the competition with a reliable formula: trusting the numbers. The decision to pull Blake Snell squares with the very team philosophy that lifted the Rays from a laughable program with an unfaithful fanbase and a meager payroll to a dominant system of analytical pioneers at the top of the American League. Critics on social media have attacked Kevin Cash for acting “on a script,” or blindly applying
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statistical methods without any consideration of Snell’s evident success in Game 6. In the course of a week, fans and players alike have utterly dismembered the same modus operandi that brought the Rays to the World Series in the first place. The accusations present the Rays’ decision-making process as cold and regimented. But is that really the case? Take second baseman Brandon Lowe, for example. Normally a consistent threat at the plate, Lowe hit a measly .118 in the postseason. The generic offensive metrics — batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage — might have suggested to Cash and his coaching staff to start a substitute for Lowe in the World Series lineup. Moving into Game 2, however, Cash maintained his trust and batted him in the cleanup spot. What appeared to be a completely irrational decision paid off as Lowe cracked two home runs and drove in three runs, including the gamewinning RBI. Coincidentally, Nick Anderson walked away from his relief outing with a win. In numerous cases, as with Lowe, the Rays staff strays from analytics and places unwavering faith in its players. Not only did proven metrics suggest that a move to the bullpen would present the greatest likelihood of success in the Game 6 situation, but Kevin Cash trusted that Anderson would escape his downward spiral of postseason woes. With the margin for error incredibly small against the most dangerous offense in baseball, Cash took to a statistically sound relief stint, however imperfect Anderson may be. And in spite of our temptations, it is completely unfair for us to criticize Cash on account of the outcome. Analytics provide suggestions, not surefire indications of what will happen under the circumstances inside the chalk. These suggestions undoubtedly fail at times–as they did all season for the Rays– and yes, the numbers do not always speak for themselves. But as staffs incorporate every available ounce of mathematical insight and human intuition into their decisions, let us not accuse baseball’s brilliant minds of neglecting what mere fans deem “logic” or “common sense.” Even with analytics, baseball is still human, and so is Cash. They deserve to be treated as such. Contact David Kramer at dkramer2@nd.edu The views expressed in this Sports Authority are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
Rays flipped script even with World Series loss Liam Coolican Sports Writer
Billy Beane once famously told “Moneyball” author Michael Lewis, “My s— doesn’t work in the playoffs. My job is to get us to the playoffs. Whatever happens after that is f—ing luck.” Beane, who is well known for both his profanity-laced diatribes and his cost-cutting, inefficiency-finding moves as the general manager of the Oakland A’s, is at least partially correct. Since 2000, the A’s have made the playoffs 11 times, yet have only made it past the division series once. Other smallmarket teams who have tried to imitate the A’s success, most notably the Tampa Bay Rays, have had a similar lack of success in the postseason. But does it come down to mere luck? The outcome of a playoff series can often be traced back to a few key moments. In the case of the one game wild card playoff, this is often just one pitch. It is impossible to analyze how players will perform at such a microscopic level. Even the best analyses can only loosely predict how a player will perform over an entire season. Despite this, 25 of the last 26 World Series champions have finished in the top half of the league in their payroll, according to USA Today. Spending money, historically, has clearly led to success. The 2019 Washington Nationals won the World Series thanks to starting pitchers Max Scherzer, who made more than $37 million in 2019, and Stephen Strasburg, who was signed to a $245 million contract extension this offseason. The three highest earners on 2018 Red Sox made more than $70 million combined. These stats can be given for nearly every champion since the start of free agency. Having money is a luxury. In a sport like baseball, where there is no salary cap, teams can spend as much as their owner is willing to pay. Of course, the luxury tax serves as a disincentive to overspend, but certain teams (*cough* Yankees) are prone to exceed the luxury threshold year after year. While the A’s have done as
well as anyone could reasonably expect, they are still, at the crux of the matter, bargain hunters. Teams like the Yankees and Dodgers don’t have to sift through piles of neglected players to find the few who rise to the top. They can simply sign the the most transcendent talents in baseball. This is not to say that the A’s don’t have top talent; players like Matt Chapman and Khris Davis are among the best in the league. But they are no Mike Trout or Gerrit Cole. This year’s World Series featured two teams that could not be put together more differently. The Dodgers have a payroll of more than $107 million, good for second in the MLB, according to Spotrac. The Rays, on the other hand, have a payroll of just over $28 million, 28th in the league. The two players who earn the most on the Dodgers make more than the Rays’ entire 28-man roster. The payrolls are much lower because of salary adjustments due to the shortertened season, so the difference is even more staggering than it appears. The Rays aren’t an exact replica of the “Moneyball” A’s, but they clearly were influenced by them. They are managed by a manager who embraces analytics in a way few others do, often defying conventional wisdom. They employ four outfielders against certain hitters, and were among the first to use the opener strategy, where the starting pitcher pitches just one or two innings. They only rarely sign players to long-term, big money contracts, instead preferring to get their production from players on pre-arbitration salaries and other teams’ castaways. This strategy has worked extremely well for getting the Rays to the postseason, but much like the A’s, they have failed to achieve consistent success. This year, however, the Rays were the top team in the American league, and gave the Dodgers all they could handle in the World Series. Even the most die-hard baseball fans didn’t recognize many players on the 2020 Rays. Yet, they not only had the best regular season record in the American League, they tore through the playoffs, defeating the
up-and-coming Toronto Blue Jays before dispatching the Yankees and Houston Astros, both in the top five in payroll. This year’s postseason was arguably even more rigorous than usual. Each team had to play three series before the World Series: a bestof-three wild card series, a best-of-five divisional series and a best-of-seven league championship series. Each of these series had no off days within the series. After dispatching the Blue Jays in back-to-back games, the Rays had to play five against the Yankees and seven against the Astros. The Rays played 12 games in just 13 days, a brutal stretch that would test even the deepest of teams. Of course, we have to question whether the 2020 postseason was an outlier. Playing just 60 regular season games undoubtedly creates a different result, even if the playoffs maintained their rigor and intensity. Playing only divisional opponents and interleague games helps some teams and hurts others, there may have been more injuries than in a typical year, and the COVID-19 outbreaks within the St. Louis Cardinals and Miami Marlins teams were significant. However, there aren’t enough differences between them to say that this Rays’ team isn’t for real. Regular season success isn’t the issue. The Rays showcased their depth in the postseason, and that same depth would have carried them for 162 games. They simply beat three great teams in the playoffs. Of course, to see if this result holds, we will have to wait and see what happens next year and beyond. But the fact that this year’s Rays team made it to the World Series and nearly won should serve as encouragement for small market teams everywhere. It is also validation for everything Billy Beane has worked for. A team in the bottom half of the league’s payroll hasn’t won the ultimate prize since the 2003 Marlins. This Rays team proves it is still possible in today’s game. 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.
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Sports
The observer | MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com
XC Continued from page 12
Sparks said. “I’m obviously disappointed to not be there.” Leading the way for the Irish was graduate student Erin Archibeck, who placed twelfth overall in a time of 20:35.5 for the 6K race. Sparks discussed how Archibeck has been the leader of the team all year. “Erin Archibeck has kind of been our captain of this team. That was on display this Friday when she stepped up and ran like the graduate student that she is,” he said. Sparks was also impressed with junior Maddy Denner, who placed seventeenth with a time of 20:37.8. “Denner hadn’t competed since that first race,” Sparks said. “She had an Achilles injury that took her out for about three weeks in September and October, so she missed a significant amount of training and wasn’t where she was a year ago. For her to get seventeenth was a bonus for us.” Sophomore Jessica Schneider, who was the frontrunner for the Irish in the previous two races, was fifth for the Irish on Friday. Sparks was impressed with her performance because of the circumstances that Schneider was in ahead of the race. “She missed ten days of training and practice leading up to the conference meet. She was cleared on Thursday afternoon, which was the first time we were able to practice with her after ten days of unknown training and no practice,” Sparks said. “For her to not be able to train with the team over ten days, that is a respectable
performance.” On the men’s side, the Irish dominated the race from start to finish and took home the team title with 40 points, finishing well ahead of NC State (54), Wake Forest (86), and Virginia (92). Head men’s coach Sean Carlson attributed the success to the confidence of his team going into the race. Carlson explained how a lot of the tension before the race was because of the COVID-19 tests that his athletes had to take the day before the race. After everyone was cleared, the Irish were confident in what they had to do in the race. “A lot of the tension was probably more around what those results were going to be. We tested before and didn’t have COVID, but with travel and everything, there was a little bit of nerves,” Carlson said. “Once we got the results back, it was a sigh of a relief and more of an opportunity to just go out and have some fun.” Carlson was happy with how the race went from start to finish. “The race played out pretty well. Our guys at the mile were in the front or towards the front. Our pack led 90% of the race throughout the race,” he said. “About halfway through the race we were sitting pretty comfortably from a points standpoint, and I was able to relax and enjoy watching the race a little bit more.” Carlson was grateful that his athletes had a chance to compete again in the middle of a pandemic. “It was really just a great opportunity to have a race again. It’s been such a long time since we have been able to race in a championship setting, and I
think the guys really appreciated that,” he said. “You have to have a purpose in whatever you are doing. The opportunity to be able to race this gave us a purpose all Fall, which is really nice to have to help build a program.” Carlson was also ecstatic for senior Yared Nuguse, who took home the individual title of the race in a blazing fast time of 23:03.6 in the 8K distance. “I was really proud of Yared and excited,” Carlson said. “It shows the incredible level of range and depth that he has an athlete. He can run under 1:48 for an 800, and he won a mile title, but then to go all the way up to 8,000m and win — not a lot of people have that range. It is a testament to who he is and his willpower.” Nuguse became the first men’s runner in program history to win the title, and Carlson recognizes the importance of this to the program as a whole. “It is his first conference title and Notre Dame’s first individual [men’s] conference title ever, so I think it had a lot of pretty cool significance within our program and for him. I think a big part too is when you have a guy like that who sets an example, it creates a confidence with all of the guys because they train with him everyday,” Carlson said. The Irish men swept the trophy table, winning the individual, team, and freshman of the year awards. The ACC Freshman runner of the Year award was won by Joshua Methner, who finished eleventh in a time of 23:30.1. The Irish men will now look to the national meet, which is tentatively scheduled for March 15. Although the meet will likely interfere with indoor
grace aubry | The Observer
A trio of Irish runners stick together near the beginning of the National Catholic Invitational at Burke Golf Course on Sept. 20, 2019.
nationals, Carlson explained how the tentative plan is to pursue the cross country title. “Rather than having a couple of third-place finishes, our goal is to go all in and try to win it. We are leaning towards a national cross country national meet and going all in,” Carlson said. Carlson explained how this meet gives his team a purpose going forward, which is so important in the midst of the
pandemic. “The exciting thing for us right now is that the meet is happening, and we have a purpose, and I think that goes a long way, especially right now with everybody in society,” Carlson said. “Finding a purpose allows us to keep going even though there are some difficult things going on around us.” Contact Nate Moller at nmoller2@nd.edu
M Soccer Continued from page 12
junya kanemitsu | The Observer
Former Irish defender Felicien Dumas tries to keep a defender away during Notre Dame’s 4-2 win against Seattle on Sept. 6, 2019, at home.
junya kanemitsu | The Observer
Former Irish forward Tyler Shea fights for the ball during a 4-2 Notre Dame victory over Seattle at Alumni Stadium on Sept. 6, 2019.
of a challenging regular season, where they are playing seven teams, all of which made the 2019 NCAA Tournament. The Irish are looking to finish this season with a winning record, a feat they have accomplished 38 out of 44 times dating back to 1977. Leading the way for Notre Dame is senior goalkeeper Keagan McLaughlin. He has eight career starts in an Irish uniform and has not allowed a goal in five of them, including a pair of 1-0 wins this season (over Kentucky and Syracuse). During each of those games, he notched a career-best four saves. On the offensive side, junior forward Jack Lynn has been living up to his place on the ACC Preseason Watch List; he currently leads the team with three goals on the year and 16 over his career. Those three goals have come one apiece in the last three games, including the game-winning score against Syracuse. The 1 p.m. game today will be played at Alumni Stadium and broadcast live on ACC Network.
Sports
ndsmcobserver.com | MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2020 | The Observer
Seidel Continued from page 12
Seidel talked about her first outdoor track title in 2015 in the 10,000-meter event at historic Hay ward Field in Eugene, Ore. “Coming into it as kind of a dark horse and taking the lead with a half mile to go and winning it, I think that was the moment where I realized I hit the next level —being more terrified than I ever had been in my life those last two laps but knowing that I could do it if I just held on,” Seidel said. “It was one of those moments with that before and after where it’s never going to be the same afterwards.” When asked about her performance at the Olympic Trials in Atlanta this past February, Seidel discussed how she had no expectations to make the Olympic team whatsoever, and she just wanted to get some valuable experience in her first-ever marathon. “I got out there, though, and I felt like I was in such a good mental place because I wasn’t putting any pressure on myself to hit a certain pace,” Seidel said. “I was just going out there and racing and being in the moment, and then all of a sudden I’m 19 miles in and up in second. It’s just one of those moments where you just have to not think about what you’re doing and how scary it is that you have never been in this place before.
W Soccer Continued from page 12
goals scored and a greater goal differential than North Carolina. Notre Dame fell to the Seminoles by a score of 5-0 in the first game of the season. Notre Dame had hoped to build on the momentum they had established in a 1-0 win over Louisville, who had been ranked 13th at the time, on Oct. 25. The Irish had not been ranked before the win. Notre Dame finished tied for sixth place in the ACC with Louisville and Virginia Tech, but due to tiebreakers the Irish fell to the eighth spot.
I had literally never run 26 miles in my life up until that race, so you kinda just go with it.” Seidel placed second in the race in a blazing fast time of 2:27.31 to qualify for the Olympics. She discussed the emotions and feelings of joy that she felt after the race. “It was such a cool day because my entire family was there, and so many of my friends were there,” she said. “They had come out expecting to watch me run my first marathon — not to make the Olympic team — so they were just losing their minds. It was one of those days that I don’t think I could have imagined it more perfect in my mind.” With the global COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Tokyo games were postponed to summer 2021. Although this has been difficult for Seidel, keeping running in perspective to the rest of the world has helped with this. “I’ve struggled with it because the Olympics are huge and this is such a sad thing, and I mourn not being able to have the Olympics this year,” she said. “But at the same time, there’s so much bigger, more important things going on in the world and so much greater suffering than that. In the grand schemes of things, the Olympics were postponed one year.” Although Seidel was not able to compete in the Olympics as planned this summer, she ran in the 2020 London Marathon,
where she placed sixth overall and ran a personal best of 2:25.13 despite having no fans to cheer her on. “London was freaking wild,” Seidel said. “It was the opposite experience from what Atlanta was. In Atlanta, there were spectators and crazy energy. For London, we were in a quarantine bubble for the week leading into it, and then 20 laps around Buckingham palace with no spectators. They at least had cardboard cutouts around it to give it a semblance of normalcy. At the same time, I really enjoyed the format. I was just so thankful to have another race and get in another marathon before the Olympics next summer.” Seidel plans to take it easy for a little bit to recover from the London marathon, and then after that, her mind will be set on the Olympic games, which are scheduled to start in under nine months. “We will get in some big training blocks, but we have no idea what racing will look like between now and the marathon in next August,” she said. “The most important part is trying to get in solid, consistent training and nothing too crazy,” she said. Although Seidel has set high goals for herself for the Olympics, she also knows to be realistic with herself as she runs against the best runners in the world. “Suddenly I am not against the best in the US, but the best in the world. I’m trying
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Observer File Photo
Former Irish runner and Olympic qualifier Molly Seidel competes in the National Catholic Invitational on Sept. 19, 2014, at home.
to approach it with humility and knowing this is going to be really tough,” Seidel said. “This is probably going to be the toughest race that I [have] ever run. … [I’m] just going
out and seeing what I can do and trying to stick my nose in it and stay competitive.” Contact Nate Moller at nmoller2@nd.edu
The win propels North Carolina to a final record of 9-0, but they will be seeded behind Florida State in the upcoming ACC Tournament. The Tar Heels will play Virginia Tech in the quarterfinals, a team they beat 1-0 back on Sept. 20. Only eight teams remain in the quest for the 2020 ACC Championship. Six of these teams, including Notre Dame, are ranked in the top 15. It’s win-or-go-home time for every team, and Notre Dame has the chance to avenge an early season loss to Florida State. The Irish have come a long way since that defeat to the Seminoles, and anything can happen in the postseason.
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erin fennessy | The Observer
Irish sophomore forward Kiki Van Zanten tries to evade a defender during Notre Dame’s 3-0 win over Syracuse on Oct. 4, 2019, at Alumni Stadium. Van Zanten leads the Irish with six goals so far this season.
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The observer | MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com
nd cross country
Seidel reflects on Men’s team wins ACC title, Nuguse takes 1st overall Olympic journey By NATE MOLLER Sports Writer
Although Molly Seidel won a plethora of titles on the track and on cross country courses during her time at Notre Dame, she has shown over the past several months that she is one of the best female marathon runners in the country. Seidel, a 2015 Notre Dame graduate, ran her first ever marathon this past February at the Olympic time trials and finished second, qualif ying for the Olympics in the process. Most recently, Seidel competed in the London Marathon, where she finished sixth amongst some of the best in the world. Seidel described the impact that Notre Dame has had on her professional running career. “Getting to not only be a student there but also an athlete, I feel like I learned so
much about myself,” Seidel said. “I think it’s really a oneof-a-kind college experience that you get.” She also attributed much of her current success to head women’s cross country and track and field coach Matt Sparks. “Sparks is the reason that I am running professionally today. He turned around my entire running career. He helped me win four national championships,” Seidel said. “More than that, he is a really incredible person, and I think he cares for you as a person first and an athlete second. He knows that if you are happy and healthy, you are going to run well. He’s still someone that I talk with every week or two, and someone who I know is always in my corner.” W hen asked about her most memorable race from college,
The men’s and women’s cross country teams competed at the ACC Championships this past Friday in Cary, North Carolina. The men took first, bringing home their second title in three years, and the women’s team tied for fifth. On the women’s side, the Irish finished with 116 points, trailing NC State (47), Georgia Tech (99), Florida State (109), Duke (114), and North Carolina (116). Although head women’s coach Matt Sparks was disappointed with the sixth place finish, the Irish were only two points off of fourth place and 17 points off of second place. “If you look at the team place, it doesn’t look good, but we were only 17 points out of second place, which is where we thought we could have been,”
see SEIDEL PAGE 11
see XC PAGE 10
By NATE MOLLER Sports Writer
Observer File Photo
Irish senior Yared Nuguse leans in to finish the Meyo Mile during the Meyo Invitational on Feb. 8 at Loftus Sports Center.
nd women’s soccer | north carolina 2, nd 0
nd men’s soccer
Pitt game canceled; Irish to play Hokies at home
No. 13 ND falls to top-ranked UNC
Observer Staff Report
Observer Staff Report
The Notre Dame men’s soccer team had a matchup against Pittsburgh that was scheduled for this past Friday, but it was canceled and will not be rescheduled. The next game, the second to last of the regular season, is scheduled to take place today, Nov. 2, at 1 p.m. against Virginia Tech. The game, which was rescheduled from a postponement earlier in the season, will be the 11th time the Irish (3-2, 1-1 ACC) face the Hokies (1-1-2, 1-1-2 ACC). Notre Dame has won six of the matches and tied one, and they have won three of the four that have been played at home at Alumni Stadium. The last time the two programs met was Oct. 18 of last year, when the Hokies came away with a 2-1 victory. The Irish are currently third in their region of the ACC, trailing Pitt (4-0) and Virginia (2-2-1), while Virginia Tech is in fourth and trails Notre Dame by a point. Notre Dame is nearing the end
The Notre Dame women’s soccer team fell to top-ranked North Carolina (9-0, 8-0 ACC) by a score of 2-0 on Sunday in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The Tar Heels found the back of the net once in each half to remain undefeated. North Carolina has been ranked number one in the country in every poll so far this season. Notre Dame (4-4, 4-4 ACC) did have chances throughout the contest but failed to convert. Irish goalkeeper Mattie Interian made two first half saves but conceded the first goal of the match in the 35th minute to North Carolina sophomore defender Hallie Klanke. Fellow sophomore midfielder Libby Moore was credited with the assist. The score remained 1-0 until halftime, but the Tar Heels really began to pressure the Irish in the second half. Interian made two saves early in the second half to keep Notre Dame within one goal, but in the 50th minute North Carolina struck again.
see M SOCCER PAGE 10
junya kanemitsu | The Observer
Former Irish defender Jack Casey dribbles the ball during Notre Dame’s 4-2 win over Seattle on Sept. 6, 2019, at Alumni Stadium.
Junior midfielder Brianna Pinto slotted home her fourth goal of the season off of a headed assist from sophomore forward Isabel Cox to double the Tar Heels’ lead. Interian kept the Irish in the contest by making seven saves, a career high, but Notre Dame could not find the back of the net on the offensive end. They only managed five shots in the game, two of them — by junior forward Olivia Wingate and freshman forward Ellie Ospeck — on goal. The Irish also saw their fair share of discipline, receiving three yellow cards in the second half. Despite the loss, Notre Dame, who is ranked 13th in the nation, earned a spot in the ACC Tournament. The Irish will be the eighth seed in the tournament and will play the first seed Florida State in the quarterfinals on Tuesday, Nov. 10. Florida State, who is also undefeated and ranked second in the country, earned the top seed in the ACC based on more see W SOCCER PAGE 11
Insider
Victory Continued from page 1
four minutes later, Williams barreled through the offensive line for two yards into the end zone. However, none of that would have been possible without the 15-yard facemask penalty by Georgia Tech and the 21-yard rush by Tyree that put the Irish in scoring position. “It’s hard sometimes to overcome a 97 or 93-yard return for a touchdown, but we were able to,” Kelly said of the Irish response. “… You can’t do that too many times and hope come out on the winning end of things. You just try to be positive with them. Mistakes are made, we’re not perfect. But next time in there, you’ve got to do a great job of holding on the football.” For much of the remaining of the half, both teams exchanged possession with neither able to string together more than two first downs in a drive. Ultimately, the Irish found a breakthrough at the foot of Doerer who knocked in his three points from the 32yard line to put the Irish up 17-7 at half. Returning from the locker room, Georgia Tech looked to cut into the lead, but this time
Coolican Continued from page 1
road, by scores of 45-3 and 31-13, respectively. These score lines don’t tell the whole story of how dominant Notre Dame was on both sides of the ball in these matchups. Particularly this weekend, Notre Dame so thoroughly overpowered Georgia Tech in the trenches that it at times appeared the Yellow Jackets’ lineman were mere tackling dummies. The moment C’Bo Flemister was tackled as time expired, it was officially Clemson week, and the Irish were no longer looking ahead. The dominant storyline has been, and will continue to be, Trevor Lawrence’s absence due to COVID-19. Fans and pundits alike have been speculating non-stop on what that means for Notre Dame. This speculation is natural, as it’s arguably the biggest game of the season, and Lawrence is the most high-profile player in the country. However, Notre Dame doesn’t need to worry about any of this. All they need to do is keep playing the way they have been playing these last two weeks, and they’ll be able to compete with anybody in the country. Clark Lea and his defense should of course be prepared for the unique challenges that DJ Uiagalelei will bring, as he is a very different type of quarterback than Lawrence. But first and foremost, Notre Dame should focus on continuing to do what they do best. The offense has been as good as it has been all season these past two weeks, averaging 259 yards
ndsmcobserver.com | monday, november 2, 2020 | The Observer
it was the Notre Dame defense with the response. As defensive coordinator Clark Lea sent more pass pressure, Sims struggled to make it out of the pocket before eventually getting sacked just outside of the red zone by Hayes and fumbling the ball. “He was he was at a different level of play,” Kelly said of Hayes’ performance on Saturday. “If he can continue to play at that level with a Kyle Hamilton and the other pieces to this defense, then we’re going to get to where we want to be.” The Notre Dame offense made sure to capitalize on this turnover, moving the ball quickly downfield with the help of McKinley and his 31-yard catch. In the end, it came down to Williams with back-to-back rushes to extend the Irish lead to 17. McKinley lead all receivers with 93 yards, and Kelly said he’s proving to be a favorite target for Book in deep yardage. “This week, Javon made some big plays for us,” Kelly said. “And that’s the nature of what we’ll probably see most of the year. We’ve got two big receivers on the outside that are also very capable of catch-and-run.” Kelly said the wear-and-tear of the game started to show throughout the third quarter as
both teams struggled to move the chains and their defenses got caught committing unnecessary penalties. “We made some critical errors in the second half that we really don’t make. Too many 15-yard penalties,” he said. “…There’s some things that we’ve got to clean up going into next week against a better opponent.” However, both teams managed to get on the board one more time at the opening of the fourth quarter. This time, the Irish turned to junior running back C’Bo Flemister to wear down the defensive line. Flemister registered his second score of the season and Doerer connected on the extra point for good measure. Jeff Sims responded with a few precise throws of his own and then a series of runs by redshirt junior running back Jordan Mason to put another six points on the board for the Yellow Jackets. The Irish will return to Notre Dame stadium for the first time in three weeks for a highly-anticipated matchup against No. 1 Clemson on Nov. 8. Kelly and his staff will rely on that same versatile offense and disciplines defense to keep them competitive.
passing and 171 yards rushing. The defense has also been outstanding the last three weeks. Since the win over Florida State, the Irish have allowed less than 250 yards per contest. It would be naive for me to suggest that Notre Dame doesn’t have to change anything to beat Clemson. The Tigers’ lineman won’t be as easy to push around as Georgia Tech’s were, and even without Lawrence, their offense is a force of nature. The Irish also made a few mistakes, especially on Saturday, that could prove costly against a better opponent. Despite that, these past two weeks have been some of the best performances we’ve seen the Irish turn in against Power 5 opponents in quite a while. They’re beating inferior opponents convincingly, which is something that used to be sorely lacking. The energy that the Irish have brought to these wins was electric. Watching the sidelines, the entire team was fired up for one another. Notre Dame surely will not have a problem keeping that same energy for Clemson, as it is a once in a lifetime opportunity to host a top-four showdown. If the Irish have learned one lesson from these past two games, it’s this: effective offensive play calling. Tommy Rees has been playing to Ian Book’s strength so well, that while it might be premature to say this, it seems he has finally unlocked the passing game. Rees hasn’t called for Ian Book to take as many shots down the field as he used to, perhaps finally realizing that Javon McKinley is no Chase Claypool. Rees has called
for more short and medium range passes, and Book has responded with back-to-back great games. The effectiveness of the aerial attack allows for run plays and play action to be much more effective than they otherwise would have been in the relatively one-dimensional offense that the Irish had at the beginning of the season. It would have been tough to imagine the run game getting better than it was at the beginning of the year, but it has. The Irish don’t need big plays to have an effective offense. It might not make the highlights, but it works. Gaining 4-5 yards on every play, with the occasional longer gain thrown in there, taking huge chunks of time off the clock, is how Notre Dame is winning football games this year. They can’t shy away from it now. Obviously, gaining those yards will be tougher against Clemson than it was against Georgia Tech, but the Irish need to stick to their gameplan. If these past two performances are an indication of how Notre Dame plays when they’re looking ahead, then they should just start preparing for Boston College now. In all seriousness, though, Notre Dame shouldn’t change much in their approach this week. Their formula has been effective, and Brian Kelly needs to have the courage to stick with it. In simpler terms: Just keep winning.
Scoring Summary 1
2nd
3rd
4th
Total
7
10
7
7
31
0
7
0
6
13
notre dame 7, georgia tech 0
Joe Wilkins Jr. 8-yard pass from Ian Book (Jonathan Doerer kick)
6:16
remaining Drive: 15 plays, 81 yards, 8:44 elapsed
2
NOTRE DAME 7, georgia tech 7
Zamari Walton 93-yard fumble return (Jude Kelley kick)
14:42
remaining Drive: Eight plays, 58 yards, 3:53 elapsed
notre dame 14, georgia tech 7
Kyren Williams 2-yard run (Doerer kick)
10:47
remaining Drive: Seven plays, 75 yards, 3:55 elapsed
Notre dame 17, georgia tech 7 Doerer 32-yard field goal
1:49
remaining Drive: Eight plays, 35 yards, 2:10 elapsed
3
Notre dame 24, georgia tech 7
Williams 4-yard touchdown run (Doerer kick)
10:43
Contact Charlotte Edmonds at cedmond3@nd.edu
Contact Liam Coolican at lcoolica@nd.edu The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
1st
remaining Drive: Six plays, 65 yards, 2:56 elapsed
4
Notre dame 31, georgia tech 7
C’Bo Flemister 3-yard run (Doerer kick)
12:59
remaining Drive: Nine plays, 74 yards, 4:32 elapsed
Notre dame 31, georgia tech 13
Jordan Mason 1-yard run (two-point conversion failed)
7:15
remaining Drive: Eight plays, 69 yards, 2:42 elapsed
statistics RUSHING yards 227 88
PASSING yards 199 150
total yards 426 238
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The observer | monday, november 2, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com
HYOSUB SHIN | Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Irish senior wide receiver Avery Davis is tackled by a group of Yellow Jackets defenders during the 31-13 Notre Dame win over Georgia Tech on Saturday at Bobby Dodd Stadium. Davis had four receptions for 29 yards during the game. He has been a versatile player during his Irish career, also serving as a running back, cornerback and quarterback.
Getting READY for clemson
During the first drive, the Notre Dame offense worked its way down the field to score a touchdown and cap off a nearly nineminute drive. Georgia Tech threatened to take the momentum with a 93-yard scoop-and-score early in the second quarter, but the defense kept them mostly out of the red zone, and the offense contributed a balanced attack to give a 31-13 win.
HYOSUB SHIN | Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Irish graduate student cornerback Nick McCloud tries to tackle Yellow Jackets Jordan Mason.
HYOSUB SHIN | Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Irish sophomore safety Kyle Hamilton breaks up a pass during the second half of Notre Dame’s 31-13 win over Georgia Tech on Saturday.
HYOSUB SHIN | Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Irish sophomore defensive lineman Isaiah Foskey tackles the quarterback during the Notre Dame win.
HYOSUB SHIN | Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Irish graduate student quarterback Ian Book prepares to hand the ball off to junior running back C’Bo Flemister during the 31-13 Notre Dame victory against Georgia Tech on Saturday in Atlanta.