Against teams like Purdue, it's not enough for Notre Dame to win the game. It needs to blow the Boilermakers out. Luckily, that's exactly what they did on Saturday afternoon.
After a shaky start on offense, the Irish took control of the game on both sides of the ball by the middle of the first quarter and rolled to a 35-0 lead at the half. Then to open the second half, CJ Carr made some ill advised throws, including his interception of the season.
Even with Carr's mistake, Purdue showed it's simply not in the same league as Notre Dame, as it couldn't punch the ball into the end zone despite needing to move it just a little more than 30 yards. They, in fact, failed miserably on fourth-and-goal to continue the shutout.
A little later in the quarter, Purdue finally scored a field goal, but Notre Dame answered by making it clear they wanted the whole football world to see how big a blowout Saturday was. Carr threw his third touchdown pass of the game (all but one quite short) as an answer, and then it was time for the backups to come in.
Notre Dame dominates Purdue while still showing room for improvement
Of course, because Purdue is not anywhere near the same class as Notre Dame, the Irish backups didn't really miss a beat. That included backup quarterback Noah Grubbs, who threw his first career touchdown pass to Matt Jeffery who caught his first career touchdown pass.
Even with all that domination, there were things the Irish can work on this coming week in order to get even better as the schedule moves on. Chief among those was a Carr who didn't look all that sharp. Perhaps he knew that he didn't need to be at his best in order to win on Saturday..
His first interception of the season, especially was simply a bad throw that looked like he wasn't zeroed in on where the ball was going. He also missed a fairly easy pass just a play before that.
The run game too, continues to have its spurts where it looks like it might be getting going, and then reverts back to looking like every single yard will be far too tough.
As the game went on and the Boillermakers tired, the Irish were able to generate more buzz on the ground, especially true freshman Jonaz Walton, who had a 44-yard run that set Grubbs' and Jeffery's first career touchdowns. However, for the third time in four games, Notre Dame didn't have a 100-yard rusher.
Notre Dame has two more games that should get treated as a warmup before the main events that will hit later this season. The Irish face North Carolina next Saturday and then Stanford. After that, the schedule gets quite a bit tougher starting with a visit to Provo and BYU.
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