Notre Dame drops the hammer on Purdue’s rails for 66-7 win on the road

The Shillelagh stays in South Bend

Notre Dame was vicious in its response to last week’s loss to NIU and absolutely destroyed the Purdue Boilermakers 66-7 inside Ross-Ade Stadium.

Notre Dame got off to a great start on the first drive of the game as Jeremiyah Love took a handoff 48 yards for an Irish touchdown. After forcing Purdue to punt on their first drive, three of the nest five drives for Notre Dame ended with a Riley Leonard touchdown run. The transfer quarterback played just one half of football but was 11-16 for 112 yards in the air and ran 11 times for 100 yards.

With the Irish leading 28-0 late in the first half, Boubacar Traore intercepted Hudson Card for a 34 yard interception return for a touchdown to make it 35-0. Notre Dame forced a quick 3 and out on Purdue’s next possession, but Marcus Freeman opted to not take any timeouts to save time for one last drive in the first half. As it turned out, the Irish didn’t need any time because on the 2nd play of their drive, Jadarian Price took off for a 70 yard touchdown run to make the halftime score 42-0.

At halftime, Purdue had just 72 yards of offense compared to Notre Dame’s 390.

On the first drive of the second half, Purdue went for it on 4th down while at their own 31. It didn’t go well for them, but it was awesome for Steve Angeli who found Cooper Flanagan a few plays later for a 28 yard passing touchdown — the first passing touchdown for ND on the season.

The Irish defense finally made a couple of mistakes and after a 52 yard pass play, the Boilermakers scored on a short pass from Hudson Card to De’Nylon Morrissette.

The Irish answered on the next drive with a 42 yard Mitch Jeter field goal. They also scored two more touchdowns after that — an 8 yard Angeli pass to Kevin Bauman and then a 5 yard touchdown run from Kenny Minchey.

Notre Dame even found time to get its fourth quarterback into the game as C.J. Carr took over behind center with a little over two minutes left in the game.

It was a hell of an answer to the question of how the Irish would respond after last week. It was a big enough beat down that playoff talk is seriously back on the table.

Much more to come on OFD