Unsurprisingly, Purdue head coach Barry Odom was not particularly happy with how his team played against Notre Dame. It’s also not particularly surprising that Odom was most frustrated with his defense. It looks like the Irish found even more ways to beat the Boilermakers as their conference schedule heats up.
In particular, Odom has seemed frustrated by the defensive calls, not just on Saturday afternoon but throughout the season. This is especially true because the Boilermakers have been quite bad on defense all season.
"It's been a lot of different calls," Odom said after the 49-10 loss to Notre Dame. "You always have to have a deep-middle run-through player. Today, on a couple of different versions of that, No. 1, the boundary safety is too wide, and there's going to be overlap there. No. 2, we didn't get enough pass rush. No. 3, we didn't re-route underneath on the seam, which you have to do, and No. 4, the deep-middle run-through player got ran by.”
Odom also seemingly regrets a special teams call. That call was a fake punt the Boilermakers ran to get something going, knowing the Fighting Irish badly overmatched them.
Notre Dame football rout deepens Barry Odom's troubles after Purdue's third straight loss
However, in the postgame press conference, rather than being that annoyed by the call, he felt it came very close to working if his players had executed just a little better.
"We knew we needed to be aggressive and try to extend the drive there," Odom said. "Knew that if we got it 4th-and-7 or less we were going to call it if it was on that side of the field. If we would have gotten our eyes outside on one of the blocks instead of inside, instead of six inches short, it would have been a first down."
However, that failed fake punt was a big blow to the team. It was the first time they really had momentum in a first half that Notre Dame otherwise dominated. Of course, if they hadn’t tried the fake punt, the Boilermakers wouldn’t have given the Irish even more momentum.
Four plays after the failed fake punt attempt, Notre Dame found the end zone to take a 7-0 lead. From there, Marcus Freeman’s squad took control of the game and went on a run that left them up 35-0 at the half.
In a make-or-break season for Barry Odom, his team has now lost three straight games to FBS opponents. What’s even scarier for the coach is that the games are getting increasingly out of control. After losing by just two points, 38-36, to Wake Forest, Purdue lost 52-38 to UCLA, then lost by 39 points to Notre Dame.
The Irish seem to be helping Odom’s squad go in the wrong direction.
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