All the News That Was Fit to Print

...except we missed the deadline.

• When we last picked up the trail of Notre Dame Recruiting for 2010, the Irish were staring down a potential limbo situation with the class headliner, Chris Martin (since resolved) but also seeing a healthy influx of commitments during the dog days of summer. Since June 25th, the Irish have added (in chronological order): DE Blake Leuders, QB Andrew Hendrix, CB Lo Wood, LB/S Chris Badger, DE Justin Utupo, QB Tommy Rees, LB Kendall Moore, CB Spencer Boyd, and DE/ATH Prince Shembo.

• Meanwhile, the 'where there's smoke there's fire' crowd got an unexpected "gift" when it was announced that Nate Montana, the older son of Joe, would be leaving Notre Dame for a semester to play at Pasadena City College. Montana himself made more than one attempt to explain that the idea of the sabbatical was to gain meaningful playing time with the idea of returning to Notre Dame a better player this spring (and with Jimmy Clausen and Dayne Crist locked in to the first two depth chart positions, plus the return of Evan Sharpley for a fifth year, Montana didn't figure to get a lot of reps in practice nor games this fall, so it was a shrewd maneuver that actually will aid his development). The whispers though, about if the Montana clan had now cast a full "no-confidence" vote in Charlie Weis - remember how Montana's other son, Nick, committed to the University of Washington - just got louder. Not to mention infinitely more annoying.

• Scheduling? Sure, there was some scheduling news. Yankee Stadium, the 2010 proposed opponents, Nick Saban throwing down the gauntlet, and Jack Swarbrick saying, "Yeah, you know, playing Texas would be kinda cool".

• Then there was another Urban Meyer dust-up. Personally, I think this is a sick inside joke Meyer has going with somebody over how many times he can make the media speculate over his job status without him actually saying something. Every summer Urban owes his friend at least 12 "wild speculation blog posts" about a guy who heard from a guy who heard from a guy that Meyer might be interested in taking the Notre Dame job at some vague, undetermined future year that nobody has any clue over. If Urbie comes up short he has to do a lap around Gainesville in jorts. Now, when it came to Notre Dame, the Great Meyer Hope actually did say something. Write down the exact date and time he said it, please. I'm just saying, you never know when that kind of information might come in handy. (How quickly have we forgotten Saban's "I'm not going to be the Alabama coach". Anyone?)

• And of course, Lou Holtz was in the news. First as a coach (above photo) while leading the Notre Dame Legends team to victory in the Japan Bowl, 19-3. It may well go down as the most impressive unofficial win in football history, as Holtz steered to triumph a squad that had Ambrose Wooden (!!) at quarterback for most of the game (do not adjust your computer monitor. You're reading it correctly). Brandon Hoyte also got in some carries at tailback. Then there was a quick rumor of a run for Congress out of the state of Florida (Lou currently makes his home in Orlando). Like Meyer, Holtz quickly emerged at a golf outing to deny the veracity of the claim.

To wrap it all up, programming note: the Japan Bowl can be seen in its entirety (and really, who doesn't want to see Ambrose Wooden run the triple option?) this Monday night on CBS College Sports Network - formerly CSTV - at 9 PM ET.