Notre Dame football: Al Golden sounds alarm on Purdue's Hudson Card
Is it finally time to move on from the loss to Northern Illinois? While that game against the Huskies is going to haunt Notre Dame football all season, there is another opponent on the schedule this Saturday.
While Purdue isn’t considered a heavy hitter in 2024, that’s no longer a reason to look past a team. The good news here is that it doesn’t appear the Fighting Irish are doing that. I’m not sure we could say that was true for the Huskies.
The coaches said all the right things, but in hindsight, you get the feeling they thought Notre Dame could just out-physical Northern Illinois enough and that a jubilant home crowd would carry them the rest of the way. That’s not the case with Notre Dame football against Purdue.
Defensive coordinator Al Golden singled out one Boilermaker in particular he’s concerned about. And interestingly enough, while he’s concerned about the quarterback, it’s not his throwing arm that has the coach most worried.
Notre Dame football defensive coordinator sounds alarm on Hudson Card
"One of the fastest quarterbacks I’ve seen since I’ve been here,” Golden said while meeting with the media on Tuesday night. “I put him in the lead with Caleb (Williams). He’s that fast. Sudden player. We have to be alert for him."
It’s an interesting comment because Card doesn’t use his legs all that much. Last year, he carried the ball 93 times for 203 yards (a 2.2 YPC average). While he did score 5 rushing touchdowns, it looks like Purdue wants Card to be more of a threat through the air.
He certainly was in the Boilermakers’ first game of the season. Granted that was against an FCS opponent.
In Purdue’s first game, a 49-0 win over Indiana State, he completed 24 of 25 passes for 273 yards and 4 TDs.
That game follows up a solid but unspectacular 2023 campaign where he completed 58.6 percent of his passes for 2,384 yards, 15 touchdowns and 8 interceptions.
One reason Golden might be especially worried about Card is that he’s never faced him before. Notre Dame football hasn’t taken on the in-state rival since 2021. When you consider that Golden and the rest of the staff want to put the bad taste of last weekend’s loss out of their mouth, stopping Card is big on the list of how to do that.