It didn’t end up being close. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t ugly at times.
The warts still showed up with Notre Dame’s pass defense. That wasn’t helped by being down three starters in the secondary for half of the game, but it’s clearly more than personnel that’s the big issue.
But you don’t score 56 points and win by 26 if you don’t play well. Notre Dame’s offense dominated with little resistance. They had a 69% success rate before there was a lightning delay and they didn’t slow down after it.
Notre Dame’s run defense was outstanding. They finally created some negative plays. The defense had a havoc rate of 20.6%, which is very good.
There was too much ugly from the defense to call it a “get right” game. The Irish desperately needed a win, though, and they ended up with a convincing result.
- Outside of the strip sack on CJ Carr, the Irish were as impressive on offense as they had been last season against Purdue. The offensive line was in sync in the run game. Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price were both incredible.
They scored on seven of eight drives when Carr was in the game. He was pretty much flawless on the deep ball. He was close to flawless in every other aspect. It wasn’t surprising given that Purdue came into the game 126th in EPA per dropback, but this Purdue’s defense was at least frisky versus USC the week before.
They got red zone stops and had seven tackles for loss against the Trojans. Notre Dame was three for three in the red zone with the starters in the game and could do pretty much whatever they wanted to.
Love broke a long one. Price scored four touchdowns, including a 100-yard kickoff return. Malachi Fields got the party started with a 66-yard touchdown to start the game. It’s a performance that deserves to be celebrated.
- That’s difficult to do when the defense allows 238 yards passing in the first half. Allowing Purdue to go 75-yards on six plays in only 53 seconds without using a timeout is inexcusable to end the first half.
Notre Dame didn’t have to sweat the game because they scored at will, but in any other game they would have had to sweat. They did get to the quarterback more and generated more pressure, but that was a given. Purdue just gave up five sacks to USC and were 118th in PFF’s pass block grades.
Giving up a touchdown on an innovative trick play isn’t a big deal. The punt return team allowing Purdue to convert a fake punt isn’t on the defense.
The amount of receivers being open again and again is a very big deal. The lack of creativity when it comes to any kind of regular pressure package is a major issue. Even a great game from the defense wasn’t going to cool down the heat on defensive coordinator Chris Ash, but this game keeps did nothing to help him with that. The results are the results.
They had significantly better results with Adon Shuler in the game. The pass rush was finding a bit of a groove in the second half and they are a better defense with Leonard Moore and Devonta Smith.
It’s still so far below the standard that was set and they’ll be facing a much better offense next week and in the weeks to come.
- I thought the interior of the defensive line played really well in this game. It was a matchup they should have controlled and they did. Gabriel Rubio is playing some very good ball right now and I thought Elijah Hughes flashed a lot with how active he is on every snap.
Purdue running back Devin Mockobee had 12 carries for 16 yards. Purdue was in bad down and distance situations the whole day/night because of how the front six played against the run.
- I know there was a long break because of the lightning delay and the NBC studio crew had to kill time, but this game was a reminder of how any talk of Notre Dame running the table and whether or not they will be a College Football Playoff team is premature.
There is still a lot we have to learn about with this team and I think we’ll see a lot more growth as well. That’s inevitable as they made some different personnel decisions and we saw some good from the players who got opportunities. Even with the players who returned from last season, it’s still a relatively young team.
The offense continues to have their arrow pointing up. They have the talent to win any game.
There was some growth in this game on defense, but there needs to be a lot better going forward or they will end up playing in at least a few shootouts this season and in those types of game, anything can happen.
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