Notre Dame teetered on pass defense, dealt with a lightning delay reaching nearly 2 hours, and finally picked up its first win of the season thanks to a nearly flawless performance from the offense. If only the Irish could play Purdue every week, this whole college football fandom thing would be pretty fun. It was a much needed victory for the blue and gold as the team rests up and prepares for a first-ever trip to Arkansas on Saturday.
Here’s our review of Notre Dame’s 56-30 win over Purdue.
QUARTERBACK: A
Notre Dame didn’t ask CJ Carr to do a whole lot but when he threw the ball with precision, opening up the game with an impressive 66-yard touchdown pass. With only 12 pass attempts, Carr threw for 223 yards (18.5 yards per attempt sheesh!) and I know one of the incompletions was a throwaway. He also didn’t throw an interception for the first time in his career during a game. You might quibble with him not feeling the pressure on the sack fumble right before the weather delay but that would be a bit harsh.
Through 3 games, Carr has thrown for 737 yards on 74 attempts. That’s good stuff.
We got to see Kenny Minchey with some extensive mop-up duty, as well. He just missed on a long touchdown pass that doinked off the Purdue defender’s helmet but otherwise completed his remaining 7 passes for 58 yards. Pretty sharp and under control in his most extensive work for Notre Dame to date.
RUNNING BACK: A+
This was a game where Notre Dame was well on its way to a 300-yard rushing performance (the last time that happened was last year against…Purdue) but shut it down early, put in the backups, and Aneyas Williams and Nolan James had a little less room to run combining for 21 yards on 8 carries.
Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian looked fantastic. Adjusted for the opponent, this was still one of the better 1-2 combinations for Irish runners in recent years. I will say though, Purdue’s tackling and pursuit angles are some of the worst in college football. Even with a new coaching staff they still have so much work to do on defense.
Putting up 231 rushing yards from Love/Price and 5 touchdowns in less than 3 full quarters are video game numbers.
WIDE RECEIVER: B+
Six different pass catchers is fun, although Jaden Greathouse was back on the missing persons list with no receptions again. This was Jordan Faison’s first 100-yard game since he had a mini-breakout game back in the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl as a freshman. His connection with Carr on the sideline looked like the two were going through pre-game warmups against air. Again, Purdue is super stinky on defense.
Malachi Fields hauling in the long touchdown and finishing with 78 yards keeps him as the leading receiver among the wideouts.
If there’s a quibble, the receivers needs to work on making plays more after they catch the ball. Carr’s accuracy is moving the chains, although the ceiling of the offense is limited in explosiveness through the air on nearly everything that isn’t a deep pass. We get a little bit of this from Faison but he’s more squirrely in bursts and not a 40-yard touchdown type of slasher.
TIGHT END: B
The blocking seemed much better, caveat again Purdue. I found it funny how last week I mentioned Eli Raridon was on pace to smash the single-season record for yards at tight end prestigious Notre Dame and of course that is followed up with zero receptions against the Boilers. Ty Washington got quite a bit of playing time and found the ball in his hands 3 times to open up his account in his new home in South Bend. Not to be outdone, Jack Larsen caught a pass late too. That was his first career reception.
OFFENSIVE LINE: B+
My goodness this unit needed a game where they played really well and we got it, finally. The sack allowed by Knapp was a huge whiff and by far the worst moment for him against Purdue. Besides that, the line didn’t allow another sack which isn’t too surprising considering the offense didn’t throw the ball that much.
The run blocking was intense. Love had a success rate of 73.6% and Price was 77.7% with the latter’s only unsuccessful carries being a pair of 4-yard runs on first down. Under the old school success rate metrics that would’ve been a 100% success rate for Price.
DEFENSIVE LINE: B+
This was a lot better performance for Notre Dame up front. They still can’t get to the quarterback enough, although I thought Purdue quarterback Ryan Browne did a good job escaping pressure and making some plays. Still, the first half especially was littered with poor pressure and far too many completions as a result.
The run defense and toughness up front was an overwhelming advantage for Notre Dame on Saturday. In the game preview, I talked about Boilermaker running back Devin Mockobee having a tough year to date and that continued in South Bend. He only had 3 successful runs on the day with a measly 16 yards on 12 carries. Put another way, his 3 good runs netted 15 yards, while he had 1 yards on his other 9 carries.
LINEBACKER: B
As mentioned, the run defense was amazing. Both of the Purdue quarterbacks had a couple scrambles of 11 and 12 yards, respectively. Plus, their fake punt netted 10 yards. Other than that, Purdue got zero explosive plays from their ground game.
With all the issues in the secondary, the linebackers don’t seem especially comfortable in coverage this year. Through 3 games, opponent’s are completing a ton of passes at the second level. Did we get confirmation on the nice pass breakup that led to the interception–was it Loghan Thomas (#10) or Madden Faraimo (#19)? The official scorebook credits the true freshman Faraimo with the PBU.
SECONDARY: D
While missing three of their best players, there may be a narrative that the secondary held its own after making adjustments for the second half. Purdue had 4 straight punts to open the 2nd half and followed it up with an interception thrown to true freshman Dallas Golden. The Boilermakers scored a ridiculous late touchdown but up until that point Purdue gained 35 yards on 19 plays in the 2nd half. Was the suspension of safety Adon Shuler in the first half really a big difference for the defense?
The first half was really, really bad though.
Before the 2nd half clampdown Browne was on pace to throw for 500 yards. As we’ve seen many times so far this year, it’s just too easy to complete passes against this secondary. Something worked in the second half and hopefully things will get better. However, you have to fear what a more talented offense with a better offensive line will do because 23 points allowed in the first half to Purdue, without turnovers creating a short fields, is alarming.
NOTES:
In this Roster Era it makes sense to bring in a veteran and proven kicker, something Notre Dame has been doing in recent times. With Noah Burnette injured we saw freshman Erik Schmidt (a late flip last cycle) who did not look comfortable at all. He kicked the opening kickoff out of bounds, looked shaky on some PAT’s, and missed his lone field goal attempt (badly) from just 31 yards. Nerves?
Notre Dame had a season-high 2 whole sacks!
Purdue threw the ball 61.5% of their snaps. Against this Irish defense I would be throwing it about 80% of the time. Especially in a game like this where they started to trail, why did they keep running the ball as much as they did?
Notre Dame had 22.2% of its offensive snaps as explosive, either a 15+ yard pass or 10+ yard run. Ridiculous. And all but one of those explosive plays (Minchey’s 26-yard completion to Micah Gilbert) came before the 3rd quarter ended with the starters on the field.
Purdue had 7 explosive pass plays go for 160 yards, yikes.
The garbage time touchdown by Jesse Watson was one of the best catches ever in Notre Dame Stadium. By a freshman no less!
I laugh so I don’t cry but Purdue’s trick play touchdown pass from Mockobee to Browne with no one in the quarterback’s zip code is one of those plays that happens, where from a different era if the Irish offense wasn’t as good (or Purdue generally not so bad), would be played endlessly in an upset win for the Boilers.
During the Freeman era, Notre Dame has gone a full game without punting 3 separate times, including the 2023 opener in Ireland against Navy, last year against Army, and this past Saturday against Purdue.
Crafty students.
Is Chris Ash in danger of being fired in the coming days? Giving up 98 points in 3 games is ridiculous. Even with a better performance in the 2nd half, the Irish defense is giving up just under 5.9 yards per play this season. With the exception of Stanford and maybe Boston College there aren’t any really poor offenses remaining on the schedule and–at this level of performance–this is on track to be the worst defense in a very long time at Notre Dame. For sure, Freeman seems entirely exacerbated and frustrated. That seems like a very good sign if there’s going to be a change. Will it come following a 26-point win, though?
I don’t think anything happens until there’s another really bad result with the Irish losing the game. I know it’s a home crowd with the NBC broadcast but they are curiously not covering Ash very much at all in a game like this where there are problems everywhere on defense. Was he on TV more than once or twice throughout the entire broadcast? It seems odd, he should be discussed constantly with how this season has gone so far. It smells of classic Notre Dame insulating someone from criticism but perhaps this is just a conspiracy theory.
I am not sure if it is all Chris Ash’s fault, but enough of the fall off is.
Thigs that are different: Watts and Shuler last year were always around the ball. This year, Shuler misses what would have been a tough INT against Purdue and then plays for a highlight against an unbelievable one hand catch. Other than that, the safeties have been more or less quiet.
Mills and Cross seem to me to be the biggest difference. They got pressure up the middle that compensated for lack of pressure from the ends. We are not seeing that much from Hinish/Onye. We saw some of it against Purdue.
I really believe there is a reason all his jobs since Rutgers were of continually less responsibilities and further from the field.
Losing Watts, Kiser, Mills and Cross are seemingly bigger losses than we thought. That said, ND pays Ash to solve that problem. If that means not running the Golden defense fine. Find one that is at least respectable.
I think two things are simultaneously true:
(1) The offseason hype about the defense was ridiculous given what we were losing (5/6 best players on defense, if you count Morrison); and
(2) Chris Ash is a bad coach doing a bad job with what he is given nonetheless.
Plenty of evidence for both, IMO.
NBC not showing Ash but spending a whole segment on Tyler Buchner sure is interesting!
Carr looks really, really good. He’s not being asked to throw over the middle yet, but his accuracy, his arm strength, and decision making were terrific yesterday.
Minchey looked strong too. I can see why it took a while to land on a starter.
Totally, Minchey’s pocket awareness and the zip on his passes made it pretty clear that the dilemma was because both guys were very good.
There was a play where it was clear that Ash’s headset went off in the middle of a defensive series, and Freeman and others were scrambling to get him one so he could make the next playcall. Like, why fight these obvious signs from God?
Who on the broadcast is going to discuss Ash and his situation as it unfolds ? Dan Hicks and Jason Garrett? I’m sure neither of them wants to ruffle any feathers, nor would they have much more than an uninformed opinion. Their vanilla opinions would probably piss off more viewers than not.
Garrett has experience as an awful coach just waiting to get fired. He could give some great insights!
For once, he would have a special insight that other commentators would lack!
I doubt Ash is going to get publicly fired, but I’m really hoping (and think we’re getting close to) one of those back door firings, where someone else takes over the main responsibilities and he’s privately told that he needs to find himself a new job next year.
Can somebody explain why this is/might be Ash’s fault? I’m certainly one who has yelled “FIRE ASH” over the past few weeks, but in all honesty, I don’t know what the eff I’m talking about scheme-wise. I’ve never played this sport.
What struck me about this past game was that HCMF, Mickens, and Ash were all seemingly bewildered (according to Freeman). That indicates to me that it might not be Ash. Also, they flashed a graphic during the game showing that he’s running almost the same percentages of man v. zone that Golden did last year. He’s blitzing less (especially on 3rd down), but it wasn’t a huge fall off – there was something like 5% less blitzes overall than last year. So it doesn’t seem like he’s doing things all THAT differently. So, this doesn’t appear to be another BVG dropping lineman into coverage issue.
HCMF also seems like a lot less CEO type from BK; he seems way more involved. I mean, he WAS the DC. In addition, Mickens was on the cusp of becoming a DC this year and is intimately familiar with this group of defensive players (and I think Denbrock may have been a DC at GVS with BK). With that many defensive minds looking at this, it would seem to me that this might not be a defensive Ash-scheme/structure thing. It doesn’t seem like a Gerad Parker thing where HCMF was sort of just stuck with what he had in Parker.
To my untrained eyes, it looks like the D line isn’t getting home, either because they’re not that good or because the secondary isn’t covering well enough to give them time to get there. When I watched the D line closely (for whatever that’s worth), it looked like they weren’t the problem. But again, what do I know?
Lastly, assuming this IS an Ash issue, does he need to be fired, or do you just promote Mickens to DC and move Ash to something else? Can they even do that, contractually?
Again, I’m not saying Ash isn’t the issue. In fact, I’ve been yelling that he is. I just wonder, considering my caveman understanding of football strategy, if a deeper analysis of this defense’s play thus far would bear that out.
I’m not an X’s and O’s guys either. But let’s look at some key things:
1) We have key returning defensive starters at each level in Jordan Botelho, Drayk Bowen, and Leonard Moore. We did lose talent, but carry over key pieces from last years defense. We also have young talent at each level, many with playing time from last year.
2) The defensive coaching staff other than Golden, remained in place. Ash is the new face and the D.C.
3) The head coach comes from a defensive background and seems to emphasize communication among the coordinators on play calls and what they are seeing on the field. Ash has the information and is doing the play calling, (like Golden last year).
4) All of this leads to the question, if the players can play, the coaches can coach, the HC allows the Coordinators to make decisions with the best information possible, who isn’t putting the players in the positions to be an effective defense?
I don’t fault the ND defense for allowing the first TD that Purdue scored. It is all the points after that happened. I don’t fault ND defense for playing in close games against Miami and aTm. It is the inability of the defense to make a stop when needed. The seeming lack of discipline on coverage breakdowns, the flat footedness when dropping into zone. USC held purdue to 17 points. ND should have been able to match, if not best that IMHO. They didn’t and it doesn’t seem like they will this season. We can win out the rest of our games, make the playoffs and be one and done. Right now the defense can’t stop anyone that has a competent offense. And when looking at who sets the tone, makes the calls, and prepares the D, it all comes back to Ash.
I think part of it too is HOW we are sucking on defense. We are letting up huge plays constantly. Some of them have been spectacular individual efforts by our opponents, some have been our guys flat getting beat, but so many of them are simply wide open WRs.
When the breakdown is a result of players not being covered seemingly at all that points more to scheme and coaching. A step back was reasonable, between regression and the players lost, but we often look truly pathetic.
My guess is that it’s not so much man vs zone, but the deeper concepts within those. Passing off in zones is a good way to leave players wide open, so could be as simple as people don’t know their assignments, which Watts wouldn’t have allowed last year, but that still falls on coaching when it is this bad with 3 returning starters in the secondary.
The extreme lack of pressure doesn’t help.
I can’t argue with you that having your defense completely fall apart ultimately is the coaching staff’s fault. But that would seem to be on the whole staff, not just Ash. Especially with the talent they have. The halftime analysts for the Purdue game, for what it’s worth, seemed to be saying the opposite – that the loss of watts, kiser, mills, cross, etc. were just way more than people were giving credit for. None of them seemed to be blaming Ash. I try not to put much stock in what the talking heads say, but they certainly know more than I do.
Again, I don’t like Ash. Mostly because of his face. But what is getting me is that it’s not like he installed some new scheme in secret this spring/summer. This is HCMF’s team, and defense is HIS thing. How could it be that Ash came in, made a mess structurally (or installed some scheme that didn’t match up with the types of players he had), and nobody noticed until the first quarter against Miami? Freeman knows D. Mickens knows D. Wouldn’t they have had some say in how the defense was structured? Wouldn’t they have seen this coming? I could see it on the offensive side, but this is Freeman’s thing.
Or is that not how it works? (Asking honestly). Is it more reasonable than I’m making it sound for a DC to come into a defensive minded HC’s coaching staff and completely screw up the D without it being evident to anyone until the first few games? Seems crazy to me, but that doesn’t mean much.
In my defense, this sounds like a coach completely baffled by what he’s seeing from his players, not a coach who thinks his coordinators/assistants have let him down:
That drive, I don’t think there was anything that we could — we tried cover one, cover two, cover three, cover four. What happens is you start to panic. Okay, this coverage isn’t working. Let’s try this. This isn’t working. Let’s try this.
It is definitely not 100% Ash’s fault. I don’t think there is a single unit that is performing at or above expectations in the passing game. But Ash is at the top, so he is ultimately responsible and takes the fall first. He is also the only new coach. It comes back to him as it seems to be a failure at basically every level, when the rest of the staff has done fairly well in past years.
When none of your coverages are working that means you either have no talent or bad coaching.
Our talent might not be what is was last year, without Watts/Cross/Mills/Kiser, but the talent is still quite good and experienced at every level other than DT.
Mickens should/could be second to blame as the passing game coordinator, but has a long enough track record of being successful that he gets the benefit of the doubt from me, even if he clearly isn’t doing his absolute best work.
I’d say second most concerning to me, behind Ash, is Washington. The DL should have enough talent and experience to get after the QB. Scheme shouldn’t impact their performance as much as coordinating in the back end.
Also, could be something higher up that really does fall on MF. Like the fact we don’t have specific S vs CB coaches. I think that’s been the case a couple years now, but when you have Watts, Morrison, and Moore, might not have mattered.
Was going to include this in the prior post, but I think it deserves its own.
I think Ash gets more blame because of how excruciatingly bad we have been, especially compared to recent history. It isn’t like we only had a good defense for 1-2 years due to generationally great players (none were even first round picks, although Watts should have been IMO). We haven’t looked this bad since BVG (sadly a comparison Ash has already earned, see below). Even when we weren’t great the first half of MF’s first season, or did awful in the red zone in Golden’s first year, we weren’t letting up 23 points to Purdue in a half and even more so not at home.
Times we have let up 30 points since MF became DC in ’21:
2021: @FSU (38 in OT, not a great FSU team), UNC (34), OkSU (37 woof)
2022: @UNC (32), Navy (32), @USC (38), USeC (38)
2023: @Louisville (33), @Clemson (31)
2024: @USC (35, but the D netted 21), tOSU (34)
2025: Hey, at least we held Miami to 27.
Other than teams with the acronyms USC, UNC, and OSU, that is only 4 times in 4 years! And while that is kind of a joke, the point is we basically only let up 30 to good offenses on the road (Golden’s first Navy game being a huge exception, that was not one of the good Navy teams).
Ash is already responsible for the most points let up in any game since Oct 26, 2019 and the most allowed in ND stadium since BVG graced the sidelines in 2014 (also UNC, they have done offensive damage).
He’s putting players in positions to fail. True freshmen left in single against #1 receivers is happening way too often.
Al Washington does need to go though. The D Line is atrocious, and he continues to fail to develop an actual real threat off the edge.
Since Eric has kicked off the discussion on Ash on this thread (and I’m sure there’s gonna be tons more talk), my first reaction to all your exchanges is that Tim Prister has it about right. Three COAs:
1, Firing Ash right now would be a very bad move, for several very cogent reasons, well laid out by Tim. And it won’t happen, certainly not now, as our AD and the HC are intelligent men and will get those reasons.
2, Leaving him more or less in charge (even with increased involvement of MF) looks like it would become HCMF’s BK/BVG moment, and do all sorts of damage to the program (and HCMF).
3, Setting up kind of a genuine managerial and leadership menage a trois. (Sorry, I’ve gone native to some extent.) Elevate Mickens to defacto co-coordinator, maybe the playcaller (with MF involvement; bring in somebody (like Biagio?) to help with the secondary; plus a changed role for Ash — to be defined, taking advantage of his strengths such as they must/may be. Some of this COA would be low profile.
I favor COA 3.
If Mickens wasn’t ready to call plays back when Ash was hired, why would he be ready now?
(Note that my initial reaction to anything Prister says is to believe the opposite because he’s wrong so often, so I may be rushing to react negatively here)
Well, partially touche I guess. Especially your point about Coach Mickens, see below.
(NB: I actually met Prister back in the beginnings of my pursuit of a louder crowd, working with Coach Holtz — he struck me then as he is even more now, pretty much full of himself. (But he does have a bit of humility, enough to admit he was wrong, occasionally). Interestingly, I gravitated immediately to his then colleague, Lou Somogyi, rest his soul, and we became friends, like he was with so many. But even after his own heart attack, Tim is still there, and really does have a feel about ND over the long haul. Here’s what he said on firing Ash (given, his condescension to us the “throng” is annoying to say the least), at least, in paraphrase:
— ND cannot afford to fire Ash and remove him from the equation at this time. The gap left by the removal of the defensive coordinator only creates a shortage of defensive know-how. There is a way to use Ash’s defensive background to create a solution.
— doing so at the end of the season, yes, but three games into the season is not a real-world solution, but there are some alterations within the current framework of the operation to be considered.
As it happens, looks to me like HCMF gave us a hint of what’s going on when he pretty much said he’ll be taking a more active role himself in defensive playcalling.
What really fascinates me are these hints that something occurred at the end of summer camp that really messed up the defense. Could it be some bad blood between the DC and the assistants? I have no idea, but all that confusion we’ve been witnessing allegedly wasn’t there in August? Or could it have been masked by all the focus on the CJ-Kenny duel?
Whatever — this is a huge moment for Marcus Freeman. We can see he knows it, and he’s super motivated. But can he fix it?
Well Noise as this looks to be a bad hire, it’s Freeman’s mess so he’d better be all over fixing it. I don’t think he can be a part-time play caller. He needs to be all in to do his best job…IMO.
On TP, I think he’s on the back nine as a reporter. Granted he’s an alum but, these days he often sounds like he works for the school rather than as a reporter. I’ve been reading and listening to him since about 82′.
It’s late here, but…
— Agree, all in, but that depends on what all in entails. Per MF’s passionate press conference, he’s going to be trying to make Ash a better playcaller at the same time get the coaches to do a better job of coaching.
— This is based on his assessment that play calling itself is not the source of the woes.
— We’re going to find out very soon.
Listening to Flammang who is level headed (IMO) and knows some about football, he thinks ND & Ash have been coming out aggressive and when they aren’t getting pressure early they are falling back into a more conservative approach. This has been non-productive and has the players wondering why they are changing their modus operandi. Last game they blitzed 6 times and most were early. You can’t stop good QBs in CFB these days without getting pressure. With the athletes ND has on the second level, find a way to get to the QB..Getting healthy on the backend would help too. Maybe if they don’t get healthy, pressure is even more necessary. The defense has to create more havoc than they are.
True that those pressures were not getting home. Question there is why? Players? Designs?