Your eyes have not deceived you in the last month. This is indeed a new website. It still has the same Notre Dame focus and still offers the same look inside the Irish, and in fact, that “Inside the Irish” moniker still dictates some back-end things.
But yes, that’s a new URL — it was probably always a mistake that “Notre Dame” was not in the old one — and the site itself is far sleeker.
This could be where some analogy is made to Notre Dame’s offense, presumably sleeker this year, now led by one of the best quarterbacks in the country and an offensive line that should earn some postseason accolades. But that would be forcing the content when the real elephant in the room is …
No, there is no longer a comment section. That is true across a broader swath of sites than only this Notre Dame page. Knowing how many unique readers there are on a daily basis compared to how many unique commenters there were, the stresses of the comment sections outweighed the uses. Plenty of comments had to be monitored; at least one Saturday night per season around here would devolve into the comment section becoming an outright problem.
And with Twitter still afloat, there are other ways to interact.
Let’s knock that out real quick: The @NDonNBC Twitter account pushes out links to every article published in this space. Follow the personal account, @D_Farmer, and most of those links churn out during the season, as well as more real-time thoughts and interactions. Or the insidetheirish@gmail.com account still buzzes this phone.
This acknowledgment of the new site was kept in the back pocket for a month to have a better understanding of its perks. It is cleaner. That is undeniable. Bookmark nbcsports.com/notre-dame and every article should show up rather easily on that home page.
Seems I'm working with a new url as of today
— Douglas Farmer (@D_Farmer) June 26, 2023
nbcsports dot com /notre-dame
as in https://t.co/4QeF1RH2AM
I'm still getting up to speed on this transition.
Personally, no longer having access to daily metrics has been an immediate boon for mental health. Despite never feeling any outside pressure to meet certain thresholds — that’s a credit to NBC — the natural inclination to judge self-worth based on them was nothing but wasted energy and consternation. Some combination of that and a fresh look on the back end made writing genuinely easier in the last month.
Unfortunately, moving 13 years of content into a new content management system undoubtedly ruined a few URLs, some articles lost to the ethers of the internet. Some early July vacation time was devoted to making sure a few dozen pertinent articles were all intact. And since that search, no other absences have been noticed thus far. Fingers crossed.
But otherwise, nothing has changed here. Just like the Irish will still wear gold helmets this year, “Inside the Irish” will publish nearly every day now that the season is bearing down upon us. And it’ll do so on a cleaner site with a streamlined publishing mechanism.
26 days until Dublin.
Day 1 in the books#GoIrish☘️ pic.twitter.com/4WhcqVN6t9
— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) July 27, 2023
INSIDE THE IRISH READING
— Surprise strength coach resignation overshadows Notre Dame’s preseason debut
— Four-star Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa seeks Notre Dame LB development pipeline
— Needed third receiver joins Notre Dame class of 2024, de-committing from Oregon State
— No. 10 Sam Hartman, Wake Forest graduate transfer quarterback, QB1
— No. 7 Audric Estimé, junior running back, bellcow, workhorse
Clark Lea: I was waiting for the Tommy Rees question. When he was the quarterbacks coach (at Notre Dame) I had him in my office all the time.
— Collin Wilson (@_Collin1) July 18, 2023
OUTSIDE READING
— Behind the scenes Marcus Freeman is living his ‘Question Everything’ mantra
— Johnny Lujack, 1947 Heisman winner who led Notre Dame to 3 national titles, dies at the age of 98
— History of regilding Notre Dame’s Main Building
— Vanderbilt extends head coach Clark Lea
— Shifting package of ACC football, basketball games to The CW a win for fans
— Peacock to hike prises for first time since streamer’s launch
— Raiders sign Isaac Rochell
— Jacksonville Jaguars strength coach Kevin Maxen comes out in the NFL, a first in major US men’s pro sports
Had two things this summer I considered MUSTs.
— Douglas Farmer (@D_Farmer) July 26, 2023
1) Finish yet another rendition of "Notre Dame 99-to-0" and with today's publication of No. 0 Deion Colzie, that is indeed done: https://t.co/Ddr6QT5dPm
2) Bike across Minnesota.
Check back in tomorrow night. Don't check the weather.