Michigan head coach Brady Hoke is lamenting the fact that Notre Dame is going to be ending their rivalry, and let those feelings be known when speaking to a crowd in Grand Rapids, Mich. this past weekend.

After coming to an agreement to play five ACC teams every year, Notre Dame decided to pull out of the series, with their last scheduled meeting coming in the 2014 season.

Michigan does have a winning record (23-15-1) against Notre Dame in their all-time series, which dates back to 1887. Notre Dame beat Michigan 13-6 in Ann Arbor last season.

“We are fortunate to have unbelievable rivalry games at Michigan,” said Hoke. “The Notre Dame game, that rivalry, which they’re chickening out of. They’re still going to play Michigan State, they’re going to play Purdue, but they don’t want to play Michigan. I don’t know how they made that decision.”

Below is Hoke commenting in a video made available from coachingsearch.com.

Digger Phelps has been diagnosed with bladder cancer, ESPN said Thursday. (Peter G. Aiken/Getty Images)

ESPN college basketball analyst Digger Phelps has been diagnosed with bladder cancer, the network announced Thursday night.

The network said that Phelps has undergone surgery to treat the cancer and will begin follow-up treatment next week near his home in South Bend, Ind.

Phelps said in a statement that ”he and his family appreciate your thoughts and prayers as he prepares for the 2013-2014 college basketball season,” according to ESPN.

Phelps, 71, has been a major face of college basketball for more than four decades. He coached the Notre Dame men’s basketball team from 1971-91, where he memorably led the Irish to an upset over No. 1 UCLA record 88-game winning streak. He has been an ESPN analyst since 1993.

The ACC would let Notre Dame join the league this summer. (Andy Lyons/Getty Images Sport)

If Notre Dame can leave the Big East by this summer, the ACC would allow the Fighting Irish to start play in the league next season, reports ESPN’s Brett McMurphy.

Last September, Notre Dame agreed to join the ACC in all sports but football. But the earliest Notre Dame could leave the Big East without penalty was 2015.

McMurphy reports Notre Dame planned to play in the Big East next season unless the seven Catholic schools leaving to form their own league left sooner. Those schools — Georgetown, Marquette, St. John’s, Villanova, DePaul, Seton Hall and Providence — look set to break from the league and start play next year. (The Associated Press reported Tuesday about the terms to a potential separation agreement that hasn’t yet been finalized.)

As a result, Notre Dame is expected to try to leave earlier than originally planned. The Irish would need to agree to terms with the remaining Big East members to exit this summer.

“Nobody’s going to let Notre Dame just leave,” a Big East source told McMurphy. “It needs to be negotiated.”

But the ACC’s indication that it would allow Notre Dame to join on short notice is an important step in the process if the Irish are to switch conferences in the next few months.

Ronaiah Tuiasosopo said that he fell deeply in love with Manti Te’o (J. Meric/Getty Images)

Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the man on the phone impersonating Lennay Kekua, said he fell deeply in love with Manti Te’o over the course of their relationship but maintains the widely disputed theory that Te’o was in no way involved in the hoax that was brought to light earlier in January.

According to an interview set to air on Thursday that Tuiasosopo did with Dr. Phil McGraw, better known as “Dr. Phil,” Teo and the woman he believed to be Lennay Kekua had broken up many times throughout the course of their relationship:

“There were many times when Manti and Lennay have broken up,” Tuiasosopo said, “but something would bring them back together, whether it was something going on in his life or Lennay’s life or in this case my life.”

In a January interview with Katie Couric, Te’o was asked if he is gay, to which he responded by saying, “No, far from it. Faaaaarrrr from it.” When Tuiasosopo was asked by McGraw the same question about himself in part one of the interview set to air on Thursday, Tuiasosopo gave a different answer:

“Here we have a young man that fell deeply, romantically in love,” McGraw told NBC. “I asked him straight up, ‘Was this a romantic relationship with you?’ And he says yes. I said, ‘Are you then therefore gay?’ And he said, ‘When you put it that way, yes.’ And then he caught himself and said ‘I am confused.’ “

Manti Te’o will give his first on-camera interview to Katie Couric this week. (Streeter Lecka, Getty Images)

Former Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o has agreed to be interviewed on-camera for the first time since his name has dominated headlines, according to a report from Brian Stelter at the New York Times.

Former CBS news anchor Katie Couric will conduct the interview as part of her syndicated talk show “Katie,” but portions of the interview will also be broadcast on “Good Morning America” and other ABC news programs. The interview will air on Thursday.

On Friday night Te’o gave ESPN his first interview since news that his girlfriend Lennay Kekua – who was assumed to have died halfway through this pat season – wasn’t a real person but rather part of an elaborate hoax. However, Te’o's representatives refused to let the linebacker go on-camera with ESPN’s Jeremy Schapp.

Te’o will be interviewed by Couric sitting alongside his parents, Brian and Otilla.

Couric beat out a host of other potential interviewers for the job, a group which is said to include Oprah Winfrey. However, Couric was likely aided by the fact that the Te’o family recently hired her longtime spokesman to deal with the media attention garnered by the story.

Top recruit Max Redfield decommitted from USC’s 2013 recruiting class. (Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

USC’s top-rated football recruiting class has lost a coveted commit, possibly to Notre Dame.

Mission Viejo High School’s (Calif.) Max Redfield, the No. 2 ranked athlete/safety prospect in the country, decommitted via his Facebook page after an official visit to Notre Dame.

“Going back on my word is something I never imagined doing and it hurts me to do it but in the end I feel is necessary to do in order to decide what college I want to go to and in the end what path I want to take in life. For many different reasons I am choosing to decommit from USC and re-open recruiting. I am sorry to the people I might let down or hurt in this decision but it is a decision that is crucial for my future athletically, academically, and spiritually.”

Redfield attended USC’s loss to Oregon Saturday, and is scheduled to take an official visit to Washington on Nov. 9 and is expected to visit Oregon before the season ends.

Mike Brey’s Notre Dame team may join ACC earlier than expected. (Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

Notre Dame has discussed an early move of its non-football sports from the Big East to the ACC, according to a report by the Chicago Tribune. It’s been speculated that Notre Dame plans to join the ACC for the 2013-14 seasons.

Big East commissioner Mike Aresco told the Tribune on Thursday that talks with Notre Dame are “very preliminary” and not to be confused with negotiations that will spur the school’s jump to the ACC. There isn’t total clarity anyway, after a month, about when the school wants to make that jump.

“Notre Dame has expressed interest in at least discussing leaving early,” Aresco told the Tribune. “We’ll have a discussion about it. (Athletic director) Jack (Swarbrick) wasn’t sure what they were going to do at this point.

Notre Dame’s Sept. 12 announcement of its ACC agreement caused Big East officials to fall back on the 27-month wait period mandated by its conference bylaws, though they appeared open to negotiating the Fighting Irish’s exit.

Swarbrick appeared ready to reduce that wait period during the ACC news conference saying, “it’s in everybody’s interests to try to move it along.”

UPDATE (2:14 EDT): Bryan Fischer of CBS Sports tweets that Allen Pinkett will not participate in the Notre Dame-Navy broadcast, but has not been sent home.

IMG says Allen Pinkett will not broadcast the ND game in Ireland this weekend. He is in Dublin however, after traveling with team today.—
Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) August 30, 2012

We wouldn’t have believed it if we didn’t hear the actual audio (available here), but in a radio interview with 670 The Score in Chicago on Wednesday, former Notre Dame running back — and current Irish radio analyst — Allen Pinkett said that his alma mater needs to have some “criminals” on its roster in order to succeed.

Here are some choice tidbits:

“I’ve always felt like, to have a successful team, you gotta have a few bad citizens on the team. I mean, that’s how Ohio State used to win all the time. They would have two or three guys that were criminals. That just adds to the chemistry of the team. I think Notre Dame is growing because maybe they have some guys that are doing something worthy of a suspension, which creates edge on the football team. You can’t have a football team full of choir boys. You get your butt kicked if you have a team full of choir boys. You gotta have a little bit of edge, but the coach has to be the dictator and ultimate ruler.”

And:

“I don’t want any mass murders or rapists. I want guys that maybe get caught drinking that are underage, or guys that maybe got arrested because they got in a fight at a bar, or guys that are willing to cuss in public and don’t mind the repercussions of it. That’s the type of criminal I’m talking about.”

And:

“Chemistry is so important on a football team. You have to have a couple of bad guys that sort of teeter on that edge to add to the flavor of the guys that are going to always do right. … You look at the teams that have one in the past. They always have a couple of criminals.”

Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick issued a terse response to Pinkett’s comments: “Allen Pinkett’s suggestion that Notre Dame needs more ‘bad guys’ on its football team is nonsense. Of course, Allen does not speak for the University, but we could not disagree more with this observation.”

UPDATE: Sounds as if Pinkett might be suspended from his radio job. Here’s a statement from Notre Dame IMG College Sports Network, courtesy Eric Hansen of the South Bend Tribune:

"The Notre Dame IMG Network is extremely disappointed in the comments made by Allen Pinkett in his radio interview. …—
Eric Hansen (@hansenNDInsider) August 30, 2012

"We completely disagree with those comments. As his employer, we will be determining disciplinary action to be taken."—
Eric Hansen (@hansenNDInsider) August 30, 2012

And an apology from Pinkett:

And this from Pinkett himself: ""In reviewing my remarks from a radio interview Wednesday, it's clear that I chose my words poorly …—
Eric Hansen (@hansenNDInsider) August 30, 2012

… and that an apology is in order for these inappropriate comments. My words do not reflect the strong pride and passion …—
Eric Hansen (@hansenNDInsider) August 30, 2012

… I have for the Notre Dame football program. … "I understand that there may be consequences to my actions …—
Eric Hansen (@hansenNDInsider) August 30, 2012

and accept whatever discipline is imposed."
Again statement from #NotreDame radio analyst Allen Pinkett.—
Eric Hansen (@hansenNDInsider) August 30, 2012

Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly on Thursday named redshirt freshman Everett Golson the starting QB for the Irish’s season opener, on Sept. 1 against Navy in Dublin.

“Everett is the starter. If things go the way were planning it, he’d play the whole game,” Kelly said. “I don’t think you go in any year and think, Boy, I want to make a change at halftime. You want to be able to stick with a guy and build continuity.”

Golson beat out junior incumbent Tommy Rees (16 career starts) and sophomore Andrew Hendrix (five career appearances). A South Carolina native who originally committed to North Carolina, Golson is the best combination of run and pass among the three. As Brian Hamilton of the Chicago Tribune writes: “His big arm and nimble feet make him the ideal candidate to run and maximize Kelly’s spread offense.”

Golson had a stellar spring game, completing 11 of 15 passes for 120 yards and two touchdowns.