In the most annoying blowout in Notre Dame football history, the Irish looked like the team we were promised all offseason Saturday, blasting a Purdue team that frankly looked like they were done about seven minutes into the game by a 66-7 margin.

With every touchdown, the Irish’s utter no-show against Northern Illinois looked more and more annoying. A tenth of the focus and mindset that ND brought into today’s game would’ve resulted in a victory last Saturday, and a 3-0 Irish team would be sitting about as pretty as possible right now in the postseason picture.

As it was, there was a lot to enjoy, as you’d expect, even amid the constant wonderings of “What if they just showed up last week?”

Riley Leonard was Riley Leonard, for (mostly) better and worse

Leonard came to Notre Dame as a QB still in progress but an athletic marvel. He was both of those things Saturday, running impressively even as he missed opportunities to stretch the field.

By halftime, Leonard had gone over 100 yards both through the air and on the ground, running for three TDs, including a remarkable TD run along the sidelines…

and the Irish had a 42-0 lead. The second half was the very definition of ‘extended garbage time,’ giving us a long look at Steve Angeli. Angeli, incidentally, showed all the skills that made ND fans want to start him this week, and a couple of more besides. (His 20-plus yard QB draw was an eye-opener.)

Honestly, it’s still not entirely clear what ND’s coaches saw in the QB room to make them think Leonard was the missing piece – ND would’ve blown out the Boilers today with anybody taking the snaps – but it was nice to see the Duke transfer looking healthy and displaying the traits that make him difficult to defend. He’ll need to be for the Irish to add more wins to the ledger.

The offensive line’s depth will be tested

As one of our writers said after both Ashton Craig and Billy Schrauth left the game with injuries, “So it’s Pat Coogan and Rocco Spindler, just like everyone predicted.”

Not quite the route ND expected to take to get there. Both starting linemen were rolled up on during the game and were ruled out for the contest very quickly, which does not bode well. Coogan took over at center and Spindler at right guard.

Against Purdue, both were quite good. Then again, the Boilers had pretty much quit by then, so we’ll see how ND handles things up front against better opponents. With such an inexperienced line, expect fits and starts. Today was very much a step forward, as the Irish gave enough room for Jeremiyah Love (who can never touch the football enough for my taste) and Jadarian Price to make a lot of cool things happen and protected their quarterbacks.

Also on the injury front, Jordan Botelho is probably gone for the year (my guess, no official word yet) after a non-contact knee injury today. Team-wise, the silver lining is that blue-chip freshman Bryce Young will get a ton of valuable reps the rest of the season, but I doubt that will make Botelho feel much better. Your heart has to ache for the fifth-year senior, who was just starting to blossom after years of occasional flashes of his drool-worthy talent.

Like everyone else, the defense showed up in a way they didn’t 7 days ago

The ND rush was relentless on Purdue QB Hudson Card, who inexplicably played every offensive down of the game. Card was under near-constant duress from many different players, and the Irish pretty much stonewalled the running game as well. All this despite often being held and the officials deciding to start calling it after ND went ahead by 50 points.

Purdue’s only score came as a result of a long pass that only happened because two backup defensive backs ran into each other. If Al Golden just wrote “10/10, no notes” on his evaluation of Saturday’s defensive performance, you’d have a hard time disagreeing.

Big picture?

As I alluded to at the top, it’s really hard to know what to make of this dominant performance after last week. The Irish flushed a lot of faith from their fans down the toilet last week, and while today’s game was fully and completely enjoyable, it also created a ton of questions. Coach Marcus Freeman has, time and again, shown the ability to get his team playing its best for a big-time opponent and the ability to respond well when it seems like things are circling the drain. It’s the stuff in between that he hasn’t remotely shown he’s gotten better at yet. It seemed like after last season, when ND crushed every truly inferior team it faced, was a step to figuring that out, but in a way it’s like we’re at square one again.

The problem Freeman faces now is that no ND fan is going to have any idea what Irish team will emerge from the tunnel next week for another MAC team, Miami (OH), until the game starts to unfold. That’s the part where he’ll just have to show us.

(By the way, I absolutely hate that no one has any idea how to talk about college football anymore without referencing the playoff and this ND team doesn’t deserve such conversation. At the same time, I noticed that Texas A&M whooped it up in Gainesville today. Hi, it’s me, I’m the problem.)