Hi, I'm Pizzi.

Hi, I'm Pete Sampson.

Welcome to the first episode of the Shamrock.

I'm joined by Matt Fortuna National College Football reporter for the athletic.

Just a backstory on our new podcast.

You probably notice a lot of podcasts going out in the athletic space.

This is our Notre Dame edition between the two of us, 24 years experience on Notre Dame beat.

This is my 18th year. So I'll be covering Notre Dame from South Bend. Matt's in Chicago.

Just some quick math. Over the last 18 years, I told about 22 Notre Dame games that I've covered and I've missed three.

Matt, I don't think your record is quite that sterling, which is maybe more of a compliment to you.

But welcome to the show. Thanks for doing this.

Absolutely happy to be here, Pete. This will be my 11 season covering college football,

six of which were spent following the Irish as a beat writer for ESPN.com. I know you had mentioned off-air. You missed the BC home game in 2011. I believe that's the only home game you missed. Story for another time, but I had to go to the hospital after that game. So we'll just pretend that day never happened. And we'll just keep your street going for argument's sake. But more importantly, I have a lot of in-laws who went to Notre Dame that are probably listening right now. And if I screw anything up, they will absolutely let me hear about it. So I will try to be on all my piece and cues here. Yeah, I think we're in the same boat. My wife is a Notre Dame law grad. She works in an

office with her both Notre Dame lawyers. So I hear a lot about that. So I guess in terms of like

why this podcast exists, we should probably cover that before we get to the show because there are a

million podcasts out there. As I noted earlier, the athletic is sort of pushing into the audio space with podcasts.

Notre Dame is the most followed college football team in the athletic college football space.

Got to do one, but how do we stand out from other podcasts that you're probably listening to on

Notre Dame? I think, look, I don't think this podcast is going to spend a whole lot of time

debating the merits of moving a backup safety to backup linebacker, I don't think this podcast is going to spend a whole lot of time debating the merits of moving a backup

safety to back up linebacker. I don't think that's what's the most interesting about Notre Dame.

Notre Dame is a school that everything is sort of life and death all the time. Also, I think if I had a spirit animal that was a podcast, it would be a little bit more men and blazers.

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