Looking back at last year, it seems funny. Notre Dame was coming off a loss to Northern Illinois and everyone was in the dumps. Purdue had shutout Indiana State in their opener and were coming off a week 2 bye week. Only 53 weeks ago, Vegas had the Irish as just 9.5 point favorites while visiting West Lafayette. The score ended up being…not that close.
Purdue has since cleaned house.
Purdue (+25.5) at #24 Notre Dame
Notre Dame Stadium
South Bend, IN
Date: Saturday, September 20, 2025
Time: 3:30 PM ET
TV: NBC
Now, Notre Dame comes into the matchup in the dumps, Purdue seems a little better, but the spread is massive all the same. Is this a game for Notre Dame to reset the season in a positive manner or will more dark days be ahead?
Vegas Corner
That’s a big spread, right? It originally opened at 30.5 points many weeks ago. You probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it a few weeks ago but at 0-2 concerns abound. Since becoming head coach, Marcus Freeman has beaten 13 separate teams by 27 or more points, including 8 power programs. Make it 9 if you’d like to count Oregon State back in the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl.
This week, the line has dropped one full point down to 25.5 in favor of the Fighting Irish. Some places are also now offering 24.5 points.
Weather Report
We should have some really excellent weather this weekend for our first afternoon home game. While it won’t remain as warm in South Bend as it has been throughout the week, temperatures should hold in the low 80’s and high 70’s into kickoff with a light wind coming from the southeast. It is expected to be cloudy but still a nice warm summer atmosphere on campus until later in the game when some fall temperatures could arrive. This is an elite tailgating weekend, take advantage if you’re going to the game.
Series History
Notre Dame Leads 60-26-2
Purdue has traditionally been a thorn in Notre Dame’s side, although recent matchups have favored the Irish. Going into the weekend, Notre Dame has won 9 straight in the series, the longest since the Irish won 11 straight from 1986 through 1996. Last year’s meeting was particularly ugly for the Boilermakers–the 59-point defeat being the worst in series history.
2004: Purdue’s last win in South Bend.
Charlie Weis (2007) is the last Notre Dame coach to lose to Purdue, to put some things into perspective for the dry spell from the Boilers. Once an annual rivalry game, this will be the first back-to-back matchup in a decade while Purdue is on the Notre Dame schedule through the 2028 season so there’s more to come for the next few years.
Fun Fact(s)
According to their Wikipedia page, Purdue was the first sports team ever(!?) to use black and gold for sports colors. I’m not sure how that one was researched, but okay.
Purdue Pete is not the official mascot of the school. That honor belongs to the train the Boilermaker Special. Which is why I suggest Purdue use a train logo on their helmets instead of the stylized “P” they’ve worn since 1971.
They’ve used this logo once, back in 2016. Cowards.
Notre Dame has only lost to Purdue once since 1986 when Purdue came into the game unranked by the AP Poll and also finished the year unranked–something I think it’s safe to say will happen for the Boilers this season. That lone defeat within that context was 2007, if you can believe it.
Coaching Staff
Following a winless Big Ten season, Purdue pulled the ripcord on the Ryan Walters era after just 2 seasons. Piling up 19 losses so quickly will do that to a head football coach. After cleaning house, the Boilermakers brought in 48 year old Barry Odom. A former linebacker for Missouri in the late 1990’s, Odom got the Tigers’ head coaching job after Gary Pinkel retired due to health reasons. His time fizzled out at the end of 2019 (25-25 overall record) and he was fired.
After a DC role with Arkansas for 3 seasons, Odom resurrected his head coaching career with an impressive 19-8 run at UNLV before being signed by Purdue last December 8th. The Boilermakers had to pay UNLV $3 million in a buyout after Odom had just signed a new 5 year extension in the spring of 2024.
Odom is a grizzled 48 year old.
Offensive coordinator Josh Henson was brought over from USC to run the Purdue offense. Wide receiver coach Cornell Ford and offensive line coach Vance Vice came with Odom from UNLV, while quarterbacks coach Darin Hinshaw was signed from UCF.
On defense, coordinator/linebacker coach Mike Scherer came with Odom from UNLV, as did special teams coach James Shibest. Defensive backs coach Charles Clay (Memphis), defensive line coach Kelvin Green (Arkansas), and defensive ends coach Jake Trump (Arkansas) were all brought in for assistant jobs.
Only running backs coach Lamar Conard was a hold over from the previous Purdue coaching staff.
Portal
To put it simply, the amount of players leaving and coming in from across the country to Purdue boggles the mind. If the bloggers and media for Purdue were tracking all of this, bless their hearts. It’s been reported that more than 50 players left and also came in to West Lafayette. Nearly every position group has been re-worked with the arrival of the new coaching staff.
Running back Malachi Thomas (Virginia Tech) is a key backup. Michael Jackson III and Nitro Tuggle both came over from Georgia and start at receiver. Chauncey Magwood (UCF) and EJ Horton (FAU) are key backup receivers. Tight ends Christian Moore (UNLV) and Rico Walker (Auburn) have picked up starts and add depth. Our old friend Joey Tanona transferred to Purdue ahead of 2024 and is now their starting left tackle. The Boilers also brought in Jalen St. John from UNLV to start at left guard.
Quarterback Ryan Browne did transfer out to North Carolina for a hot minute this spring and then came back to West Lafayette after assessing his options under Bill Belichick. Even punter Jack McCallister was wooed across the country from Washington.
The former 5-star Grimes reclassified from 2021 to 2020 and has transferred from UNC to A&M, Michigan State, UNLV, and now Purdue.
Defensively, the makeover is enormous. Up front, defensive tackle TJ Lindsey (Auburn) and edge rusher CJ Nunnally (Akron) are new. The linebacker corps has been revamped with starters Mani Powell and Charles Correa both coming from UNLV with Alex Sanford (Arkansas) and Sanders Ellis (Tennessee State) providing depth.
Purdue started over in the secondary, too. Corner Tony Grimes (UNLV) was a top transfer and Richard Turner (Boston College) with An’Darius Coffey (Memphis) are starters at nickel corner. Myles Slusher (Colorado) and Tahj Ra-El (Memphis) are new starters at safety with Richard Toney (TCU) adding depth. BYU transfer Crew Wakley is heavily involved at safety but missed last week’s game against USC with an injury.
Top Players
QB Ryan Browne
The Boilermakers had a whole host of problems at quarterback this off-season and Browne being the most experienced player on the roster makes sense for why he won this job. The redshirt sophomore made 2 starts last year and comes into this weekend with 5 total starts in his career. He’s pretty game manager-y although Purdue is trying to open things up through the air a little bit more. Last week, it didn’t go too well for Browne who was sacked 5 times and picked off 3 times, including causing a Big Man Pick Six™ to 360-pound USC defensive lineman Jamaal Jarrett.
RB Devin Mockobee
Despite the struggles within the program, Mockobee has been consistently solid for Purdue and was a surprise by some to stick around this off-season. In many of the preview magazines he was mentioned as a gem within this offense and someone to build around for Barry Odom.
Huge helmet, tiny head, and no. 45 at running back is negative aura.
He was expected to fight for Purdue’s all-time leading rushing record over Mike Alstott, although things have not been going well for Mockobee in 2025. He’s averaging under 4 yards per carry and was completely shut down by USC last week. I don’t think the Boilermakers have a very good offensive line.
WR Nitro Tuggle
The former blue-chip recruit from Goshen, Indiana left Georgia after just one season and is hoping to become one of the top playmakers for this Purdue offense. Last week, he caught 4 passes for 69 yards and a touchdown. Only a true sophomore, he’ll be a really dangerous weapon but maybe a little further down the road.
S Smiley Bradford
Purdue has some great names in their secondary including Slusher, Coffee, Ra-El, and Smiley. A true sophomore who made 4 starts last year, Bradford has been Purdue’s highest graded defender so far according to PFF. He’s already produced 3 tackles for loss and a pass break-up in 2025.
Bad Matchup
Notre Dame’s Secondary vs. Purdue’s Developing Receivers
Starting safety Adon Shuler has to sit out the first half after his targeting penalty against Texas A&M, plus nickel corner DeVonte Smith and cornerback Leonard Moore are questionable with injuries. I would think since Moore stuck out the A&M game after missing a couple snaps he’ll be ready to go but the loss of Smith again could be bad for nickel.
Good Matchup
Everything Against Purdue’s Offensive Line
For how badly things have gone so far, if Notre Dame can’t assert itself on this Purdue offensive line the decay on defense may be worse than any of us thought imaginable. The rush defense has been decent enough, but if they can’t pressure Browne and he gets time to throw against a possibly depleted Irish secondary the game is going to be close, I fear.
Special Teams
As mentioned, Purdue snagged punter Jack McCallister from Washington and sophomore kicker Spencer Porath has hit all 4 field goals this year after making 7 out of 11 attempts last year.
Georgia transfer wideout Jackson III has been the primary kick returner and punt returner so far in 2025. He’s also leading the team with 14 catches so he’s a weapon to watch.
Prediction
I have 3 questions for this part of the article as we prepare the game prediction. Does Notre Dame have some irreparable problems, how much better is Purdue, and depending on the answers to the first two queries can the Irish do something terrible and lose at home to a program that itself has lost its last 11 games to power programs?
The Boilermakers quite literally had nowhere to go but up from last year. They were 135th in SP+ for 2024 (something that doesn’t even seem possible for a power program but they pulled it off!) and come into the weekend up to 78th, an improvement of 57 spots! They’re currently ahead of the likes of Oklahoma State, Northwestern, Virginia Tech, UCLA, and Stanford. I’ve poked around some other previews of the game and the message has been the same from Purdue’s side of things: The Boilermakers aren’t that much more talented but they’re moving in the right direction with better coaching.
Browne had a dalliance with the Tar Heels but is back in West Lafayette.
Does Notre Dame have some serious problems? Or, against a weaker opponent will the team be able to clean things up and resemble the pre-season top 10 team again? I said resemble!
This week, Freeman was sort of noncommittal but also sort of committed to taking a bigger hand in the defense. That’s potentially good news for Notre Dame and of course bad news long-term for coordinator Chris Ash. I have to think some tweaks are coming and things will look better against Purdue.
Offensively, I’m looking for more development from CJ Carr and less reliance on Jeremiyah Love to try and do everything–or at least I’m looking for a calmer Love who fits better into the offense.
I’m confident in a solid Notre Dame victory, although it may be of the “Wow, Purdue is still really bad” variety or it could be more frustrating with the Irish inevitably pulling away in the 2nd half.
I look for Love and Price to be featured and CJ Carr hitting some deep balls due to it. The Oline needs to be better again and should be against Purdue’s front. Things will be easier down the road if the oline can find it’s mojo in the run game.
38-17 is an acceptable score if it’s 31-7 after the 3rd.
On the other side of the ball is the huge potential concern. Yeah, Eric, you nailed it. If our d-line can’t get pressure against this O-line, we have terrible trouble. The II guys were saying that Joey Tanona may be miscast as a tackle. Guess we’ll see!
They held USC to 33, despite a pick-6 and two other INTs. Their defense may be better than we want.
I dont think anybody thought of Tanona as a tackle, let alone a LT during his time at ND. I could be wrong though. I would hope Boubacar beats him up all day. Or, perhaps it is the first sighting of Young in a game. I know we don’t paint the helmets anymore, but I am hoping there is a lot of game-applied gold to Mr. Broome’s jersey.
Amazing that you could have 50 go and 50 come, and people say the talent is about the same. Better coach though.
More than anything this team, and the fan base need some confidence. A stop and a score on the first two appearances by the D and O, respectively would help settle people in. As much as I want to see Carr light up Purdue, I think the first drive needs to be a ‘who wants it more’ type of drive and just push them down the field. I want the O-Line to tell the D-line where they are going to run, and then run there anyway, successfully. No 3rd and 9 conversions (although better than not converting). Establish a tone.
We need Moore and Smith to start, but if we have to go the back-ups with a lead, so be it.
I want to win, win big and win early. I want to see Minchey play the 4th quarter.
I don’t typically care if we cover the spread as long as we win, but I think we need to cover the spread and not just win the rest of the way.
I for one am glad Notre Dame is playing a normal game when the sun is out
Dating back to the CFP last year ND had played 6 straight ranked teams after saturday
Yeesh