Notre Dame football: Kyle Hamilton puts exclamation point on Irish win
By Brad Weiss
The Notre Dame football team took care of business on Saturday inside Notre Dame Stadium, convincingly beating the Purdue Boilermakers, 27-13.
The Notre Dame football team wanted to put four good quarters of football together on Saturday, as they looked to move their record to 3-0 on the young season. The offense had been struggling to play consistently, and injuries had been mounting, putting another trip to the College Football Playoff in danger.
Going into the game at 2-0, with two nailbiters behind them, the Irish welcomed in a Purdue Boilermakers team that won their first two games as well. Purdue and Notre Dame football engaged in a slugfest in the first half, as the two teams went to the locker room with the score of 10-3, Irish.
The first half was plagued with bad throws from Jack Coan, and once again, inconsistent offense.
Notre Dame football pulls away in the second half
In the second half, Coan played much better, connecting on big throws, including a 62-yard touchdown strike to Avery Davis to give the team a 17-6 lead after a Purdue field goal narrowed the Irish’s lead to only four.
From there, the Irish looked to pull away, but Purdue orchestrated a long drive thanks to the play of Aidan O’Connell, and he kept his team in the game with a three-yard touchdown pass. That would be the last time Purdue would score, as Notre Dame football finally put a team away, scoring ten unanswered points to send the crowd home happy.
After a Johnathan Doerer field goal made the score 20-13 Irish, it was time for Kyren Williams to pull of his best run of the season. We had posted that it would be a reasonable expectation for Williams to go over 100 yards rushing in this one, and Williams responded, barely missing the mark with 91 yards on the day.
Those yards were aided in a big way by his 51-yard scamper in the fourth quarter to put the Irish up two touchdowns, as he finished with better than seven yards per carry.
Up by two scores, Purdue looked to make a run in the fourth quarter, but All-American safety Kyle Hamilton would have no part of it. Hamilton made big plays all game long, but the clincher was his interception of O’Connell in the end zone. That pick gave him three on the young season, as he continues his push to be a top-5 pick in 2022.
With the win, the Irish’s 26th straight at home, Brian Kelly is now tied with Knute Rockne in terms of wins as the head coach of this storied program. There is no doubt that Kelly is one of the greatest head coaches in the history of the school, and hopefully, he can lead the Irish to their first national title since 1988.