Week 3 Preview: Notre Dame VS Purdue Boilermakers

The data story going into Notre Dame’s Week 3 matchup against Purdue.

Ahh here we go.

I’m feeling like the big takeaway from this season (a whopping two weeks in) is going to be that the devil is in the details. All throughout the offseason I felt like there was something off about the 2024 schedule. By all of the metrics, it was underwhelming but something still felt amiss.

That bad juju is starting to become clearer going into Notre Dame football’s Week 3 matchup against the Purdue Boilermakers. Purdue is a familiar opponent for the Irish, even though the rate t which they see each other has ticked off since the ACC arrangement took effect. The programs have played each other 85 total times and Notre Dame leads the series 57-26-2. ND has won the last eight (technically six excluding vacated games).

And there’s a lot of current weirdness lingering beneath the surface for this Boilermaker team. Some of it is similar to Northern Illinois.

But let’s dig in to the data and revisit that later.

Offensive Summary

Purdue is coming into this game 1-0, having caught a Week 2 bye. Their Week 1 win came against FCS’s Indiana State. Purdue shutout their in-state neighbor to the southwest and it really wasn’t much of a contest. Purdue recorded 583 yards of total offense, compared with 154 yards for Indiana State. Passing yards claimed the slightly larger share of the offensive pie for the Boilermakers. They recorded 335 yards through the air, compared with 248 yards on the ground.

Quarterback Hudson Card took the bulk of the team’s snaps and tallied up 273 yards, including 4 touchdowns. He was damn near perfect, completing 24 of 25 attempts. Card is a 2024 transfer from Texas who’s bringing in four years of experience.

Receiving Details

Notre Dame will be matching up against a fellow member of the tight end clan. Granted, not as much lately for ND. Tight End Max Klare led the team with 5 receptions for 71 yards. His longest reception in the season opener was for 43 yards. In general, they spread the ball around a lot through the air.

Rushing Details

Purdue had four running backs get carries in their Indiana State blowout. Devin Mockobee and Elijah Jackson bore most of the load, 11-7 in terms of carries. Mockobee ended the game with 89 yards and Jackson had 83 yards.

Scoring Details

Purdue went on a scoring frenzy in the Indiana State game. All 49 of their points came via touchdown, with the split being four passing and three rushing. The three rushing touchdowns went to three different running backs and the four passing touchdowns were spread across a tight end (Max Klare) and three wide receivers.

Their transfer skill players paid off in the game. Reggie Love, one of the running backs with a rushing touchdown is a transfer from Illinois with four seasons of experience. De’Nylon Morrissette is a transfer wide receiver from Georgia with two seasons of experience who pulled in one of the passing touchdowns.

Defensive Observations

Indiana State found most of its really limited offensive success on the ground. They had 104 rushing yards, 67.5% of the total offense. They only tallied up 50 passing yards. And Indiana State had to pay for all of that mid production on offense. Purdue’s defense had three sacks and eleven tackles for loss. Defensive end Will Heldt was a standout from the Boilermaker’s defense with seven total tackles, two sacks and three tackles for loss.

Weird Stat

Despite the fact they dominate the entire game, Purdue somehow managed to tally up 11 penalties for 110 years. I didn’t really dig into the details but that’s odd to say the least.

Final Thoughts

I think we mostly know what’s going on with Notre Dame at this point. And by that I mean none of us outside of the Gug know what adjustments are being made so I’m not really going to go deep into what to expect from Saturday. Just hoping for the best.

But it’s starting to feel like while we’re finally starting to see the major effects of CFB’s structural changes affect games and not just the media cycles. We knew it would happen eventually but for whatever reason there seems to have been (still is) an idea that the impacts would only be felt in the postseason. The new playoff format has been distracting, and rightfully so, but it looks like the regular season is determined not to play second fiddle.

We’ve experienced the effects in both of our games so far and they’re going to stick around, whether we like it or not. Fortunately, Purdue falls more into the A&M category than the Northern Illinois bucket. In my opinion. Although Purdue’s team is mostly homegrown, they’re younger, not as accomplished and the Boilermakers will still be gauging what to make of their transfer quarterback. I don’t think the jujjoo is as strong this week. But picking CFB winners (or more importantly judging outcomes) based solely of name/reputation should probably be avoided until the dust starts to settle in the sport.

Cheers and Go Irish!!