Well, I thought about stretching this thing out until after the national title game, but considering how the Fiesta Bowl ended, it seemed like this would be a more fitting end to HLS.

Shane & I hold one last therapy session in talking about what went wrong during the Fiesta Bowl and what hopes we have for the future.

Be sure to stay around post-credits for Eddie and I to pick the national championship and send off the HLS podcast in quite literally the most fitting way possible.

Enjoy our final show!

The HLS Sim was born from my desire to do something different. In the vast sea of Notre Dame podcasts, I wanted to do more than stand out. I wanted to do something fun but also avoid our show being seen as a parroting of more popular Irish podcasts.

So I sent a message with a wild idea to Shane: let's go on Twitch and stream a CPU vs CPU matchup of the week's Notre Dame game using a decade-plus old video game as our "preview". To my knowledge, no one was doing this (at best, they were playing NCAA '14 themselves) so I figured it was worth a season to experiment.

The next thing I knew, the sim created a string of running inside jokes and we had people that legitimately made the sim appointment live viewing. Even though there were days I came to the stream completely exhausted and/or fighting a severe bout of depression, the sim always kicked me out of it. Something unbelievably stupid and hilarious would happen without fail--multiple times.

Whether you watched live, on demand, or listened to the podcast, I can't thank you enough for making this a thing. The joy and laughter you heard was always geniune...as was my utter disgust when virtual Notre Dame lost.

The Fiesta Bowl sim was a perfect send off. I couldn't have asked for anything better. I hope you enjoy the final entry as well.

Five Wide. DRINK!

After this episode, there will be only one more game to pick with Eddie: the 2021 National Championship. It's hard to believe this crazy picks journey is coming to an end--even crazier, we are still doing a damn good job.

Despite opt-outs and COVID cancellations, Eddie and I went 7-2 last week, bringing our bowl totals to 13-10 and 12-11 as I keep my one game edge. Overall, we are 112-80-4.

Yes, this means that we've hit the point in which we couldn't even screw up going over .500 if we tried!

But like Notre Dame getting a good draw with Oklahoma State in the Fiesta Bowl, it'd be silly for us to lose a bunch now. So come enjoy your last large batch of winners!

#HAILGAMBLOR

The only thing rougher than week one of bowl picks was whatever in the hell happened to me and my family before recording this show. There...was a lot.

However, the show must go on despite my lack of research. With that in mind I came up with some, uh, "creative" methods to pick these games. I'm particularly proud of what I came up with for the multiple bowl games in baseball stadiums, personally.

Oh, and we have some fun with bowl sponsors too, including me trying to chat with a bot during the show as pictured below:

#HAILGAMBLOR

It's the most wonderful time of the year: bowl season. After a ridiculously incredible regular season, Eddie and I are ready to ruin it all by throwing darts at bowl season.

As we won't be recording until next Thursday, we have 14 bowl games to pick. More importantly, Eddie also has a list of bowl gifts ready to go. Even more importantly, we visit some of the websites to figure out what some of this stuff is and do we ever make some discoveries.

Oh, and hang on past the closing song because you will hear Eddie and I try to figure out some confusing reference material only to find out...well, you will have to listen for yourself.

#HAILGAMBLOR

Yeah, yeah, Eddie won the $200 Extra Life bet. I will pay up once I finish the FFXIV: Endwalker main story/marathon on Friday (I hope!). Make sure to join that on my personal twitch channel.

Thankfully, I realized that I run this show. I changed some rules. Gotta keep this interesting. After all, this isn't about the money now. It's about walking off this thing with a W.

After taking some liberties with the Army/Navy pick, I go over this year's tiebreaker: our 2021 futures. Spoiler alert: they were real bad!

#HAILGAMBLOR

College football's playoff and NY6 Selection Sunday came and went mostly as expected. Notre Dame has landed in the Fiesta Bowl and will face Oklahoma State.

Shane and I do discuss our initial thoughts on this game, which has never happened before; however, the beginning of the podcast focuses on the wonder that is Marcus Freeman. Shane gives his thoughts on the hire for the first time on the digital airwaves.

We are both very excited for the beginning of a new era for Notre Dame, even though we won't be here to cover it in the uh...unique...way that we do. It's great to see the Irish face turn and we are ready for it to start with a victory in 2022.

Eddie and I were, understandably a little distracted by other things in this episode. We were ready to rant a lot about Brian Kelly abandoning the Irish, but we were blessed with news that was well with Marcus Freeman taking over the helm, along with several other assistants.

Enjoy the picks, as well as me breaking in continuously to list of yet another assistant staying on board and not fleeing to Baton Rouge. I'm still three games behind Eddie in our annual Extra Life bet and I need to make up at least two here to make the Army/Navy game worth something.

It all comes down to this. I'm not sure if I made the right picks, but I know I'll be able to sleep at night.

#HAILGAMBLOR

Yep. Title says it all. Shane and I work through the most shocking news of college football in...well, forever.

I'm not worried about SEO. This is all the description you are getting.

Another week, another victory recap episode in which there is very little to complain about for the Irish. The performance, especially in the first half, was as dominating as you will see in college football.

Sadly, the no touchdown November streak died, Jack Coan had a bad interception, and the turf monster probably robbed us of a long TD or two. Despite all that, Notre Dame did what they needed to do to make their case to the playoff committee.

Shane and I spend the second segment of the episode talking about the playoff picture, what we think needs to happen in order for the Irish to find themselves at the #4 slot (as well as what absolutely doesn't need to happen), and how we feel about this 11-1 effort by ND.

It's hard to believe we've come to the end of regular season recaps, but we have at least one more to do!

It's hard to believe this day has arrived, but this our final regular season sim in HLS history. Thankfully we have (at least) one more sim to go, but Shane and I put a bow on the 2021 Sim Notre Dame Season with a visit to Stanford.

All I will say is that the sim (hopefully) managed to be the most accurate thing ever--all the way down to David Shaw doing some bullshit.

Oh, and I hope you weren't expecting serious play-by-play the whole way through in this one because you won't get it. The second half contains many an exquisite detour and Irish Elvis provides multiple sim updates from around the nation from the HLS studios (via Twitch chat).