Note: Keith Arnold was more than happy to discuss this story with me, but our schedules did not coincide today. If we can reach him for a follow-up later, we will add it.

Keith Arnold, a Notre Dame alumnus who played hockey baseball for the Irish, writes the “Inside the Irish” football column for NBCSports.com. On Thursday morning Arnold sent out this tweet: “I expect Everett Golson to be named Notre Dame’s starting quarterback today.”

Seven hours later Irish coach Brian Kelly, at his post-practice press conference, confirmed Arnold’s expectation.

Three days earlier it was Arnold who, on Twitter, broke the news of starting cornerback Lo Wood’s injury: “No word back from Notre Dame, but sources tell me cornerback Lo Wood suffered an achilles injury today at practice.”

Wood did in fact suffer that injury and is out for the season.

It’s been a good, intrepid week of reporting for Arnold, and it is here that we should mention that he lives in Los Angeles. And, that as far as we know, he has not stepped foot on campus at his alma mater this month.

Then again, Arnold has landed the two biggest scoops of the week out of Notre Dame, which will only endear him further to the dozen or so embedded reporters who either live in South Bend or commute there from Chicago or Fort Wayne. When one reporter, Brian Hamilton of the Chicago Tribune, tweeted the Wood scoop and credited Pete Sampson, a South Bend-based writer for Irish Illustrated, Arnold gently chided, “You must’ve unfollowed me, Brian.”

Hamilton replied that he had come across Sampson’s tweet first, and that the oversight wasn’t intentional.

It is worth noting that Arnold broke both pieces of news on Twitter (as Cleveland Browns coach Pat Shurmur said about his own team issue yesterday, “If you want the details, you’ll have to go on Twitter”).

Everett Golson will start versus Navy

Arnold, whose day job is in the film industry, lives a short bike ride away from USC coach Lane Kiffin in Manhattan Beach. But because he has a source or mole (the term depends on your perspective) at Notre Dame, most likely inside the Guglielmo Athletic Complex, he has beaten the competition on the two most important stories out of South Bend this week.

It’s a fascinating dynamic. Arnold works for NBC, which is technically a partner of Notre Dame (full disclosure: I, too, once worked this same beat for the Peacock). If coach Brian Kelly is none too pleased that Arnold stole his thunder about the Golson announcement, it’ll be interesting to imagine the phone calls taking place higher up the chain of command.

For now, though, Notre Dame football beat reporting is a little like the U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan. Sure, there are boots on the ground, but the most effective strikes are from drones that are operated from thousands of miles away.