In the Toledo postgame episode of The Athletic’s Notre Dame podcast, The Shamrock, longtime Irish reporter Pete Sampson noted that this wasn’t what he had in mind when he said the one thing he knew for sure about this season was that Notre Dame would be entertaining. We hear you, Pete. We hear you. An extra session to stymie a made-for-television comeback from Florida State and a lightning two minute drill followed by a game-icing fumble to get past Toledo are equal parts entertaining (in an objective sense, at least) and infuriating. There are some good things happening, to be sure, but there are so many question marks on both sides of the ball. What does it all mean? Will we get any more certainty this week against Purdue?

Purdue is mentioned in some corners as a traditional rival for Notre Dame, mostly because of the geographic proximity and long-running series between the teams – at 84 games, only USC and Navy (89 each) have faced the Irish more often. From the end of World War II to 1970, a period that included the Bob Griese halcyon days, it was indeed a true rivalry, with each team taking 12 games; outside of that stretch the series has been quite one-sided, with Notre Dame posting a 44-14-2 record. Since the dawn of the Charlie Weis era Notre Dame has taken nine of ten meetings, with the lone Purdue win somehow recorded during the 2007 season in which, if memory serves, Notre Dame did not field a team. Weird.

Anyway, all of that adds up to Notre Dame fans often scoffing at the notion of Purdue as a rival, looking at them perhaps the way Michigan fans looks at Michigan State. Well, be careful what you wish for folks. This Purdue edition isn’t necessarily good, but this Notre Dame edition isn’t necessarily good either and it might be a long day at the office. Or it might be an Irish blowout. At this point, given Notre Dame’s performance thus far and really what has gone on across the nation in college football, nothing would surprise us.

Notre Dame (-7) vs. Purdue

Notre Dame Stadium
South Bend, IN
Date: Saturday, September 18, 2021
Time: 2:30 PM ET
TV: NBC

Most preseason previews for Purdue centered around whether they could get to .500 and how hot Brian Brohm’s seat really was. They now sit at 2-0 after fending off a pesky Oregon State team that went 2-5 last year and wiping the floor with a UConn… team? that if we’re all being honest probably shouldn’t exist at all let alone in FBS. So what does that mean? Did they take care of business the way a decent team should? Or did a couple of weak opponents reveal nothing of interest about them? (I know, physician heal thyself.) They’re entering a five game stretch in which they play at Notre Dame, home against Minnesota, at Iowa, and home against Wisconsin. Boiler up, fellas. Gonna be a big month.

For the record, unless the wheels really come off I don’t think Brohm is going anywhere. They have a few legit top-end talents and should be able to make enough noise to keep him around.

Purdue’s Offense

The centerpiece of their offense is junior receiver and Indianapolis native David Bell, who was a borderline top 100 recruit and could start at any school in the country; in fact when he committed to Purdue he said that Rondale Moore’s performance when they drubbed Ohio State that fall influenced him away from the Buckeyes. As a true freshman Bell logged 86 receptions for 1,035 yards and 3 touchdowns. In last year’s six-game season he had 53 receptions for 625 yards and 8 touchdowns. In two games this season he has 14 catches for 255 yards and 3 touchdowns. What I’m saying is, he’s good and Purdue tries hard to get him the ball. Expect them to test Notre Dame’s corners early and often even if Bell seems to be covered, probably even if he seems to be double covered. The secondary will have to prove that they can contain Bell. Milton Wright is a big target on the outside who can cause some problems as well.

Jack Plummer, who really and truly is not Jake Plummer’s son, won a Days-of-Our-Lives-worthy quarterback competition in fall camp. Plummer started most of the 2019 season but suffered an ankle injury and yielded to Aidan O’Connell for the home stretch. O’Connell was named the starter for 2020 by virtue of being the only healthy quarterback in camp, but then he got hurt after the third game and Plummer took back over. Plummer played very well but the team went 0-3 in his starts after going 2-1 in O’Connell’s. To muddle matters slightly further, Purdue snagged grad transfer Austin Burton from UCLA and inserted him into the competition as well. Burton isn’t the passer that Plummer and O’Connell are but he’s a much better runner – Plummer is okay in that department while O’Connell is pretty immobile.

Plummer has acquitted himself fairly well against the aforementioned questionable opponents. The anemic 2020 running game is part of why Plummer went o-3 in his starts last year; they had question marks to begin with this year but were just dealt a major blow that makes things look even bleaker. Fifth year running back Zander Horvath, who last year accounted for 64% of Purdue’s carries and 75% of their rushing yards, broke his leg early against UConn and will likely miss the rest of the season. With Horvath, Purdue managed just 85 yards on 33 carries against Oregon State; without him, their job against Notre Dame’s front just got significantly harder.

One other thing to watch: During Brohm’s tenure they’ve generally been in the bottom half nationally in sacks allowed. Through two games, despite their other troubles, Notre Dame’s defense has notched 11 sacks and 19 tackles for loss. This is a potentially combustible mix, if of course the Irish can avoid the 60 yard play for the first time this season. Or even avoid multiple of them for the first time this season. Entertaining, no?

Purdue’s Defense

Brohm replaced our old buddy Bob Diaco in the offseason with Marshall defensive coordinator Brad Lambert, who I think is mostly running the defense despite sharing the “co-defensive coordinator” title with fellow offseason hires Ron English (secondary) and Mark Hagen (defensive line). Weird. Anyway, the scheme is more aggressive, guys will attack more, have fun, etc. etc. The usual. They gave up 5.8 yards per play to Oregon State, which is fairly middle of the road nationally; they did better against UConn, but… it was UConn. So we don’t really know much about them yet.

One thing we do know is that he focal point of the defense is junior defensive end and West Lafayette native George Karlaftis, who may be the best end Notre Dame faces this season (with all due respect to Cincinnati’s Myjai Sanders and USC’s Drake Jackson). Karlaftis was slowed by injury and COVID last year, but as a true freshman in 2019 he registered 7.5 sacks and 17.0 tackles for loss. In an alternate timeline he would be lining up in the blue and gold opposite Isaiah Foskey, believe it or not. Karlaftis came to the 2018 Irish Invasion camp and had, by all accounts, a terrible showing that left him very down on himself; the Irish staff wanted to continue recruiting him but he insisted they move on because he didn’t think he could compete at the appropriate level. He ended up as the #59 overall recruit in the 2019 cycle. Oh well. (Tangent: Did Purdue get insanely lucky that Indiana had two top 100 kids in the same cycle and both fell into their laps? Yes, yes they did.)

Notre Dame has many issues to address at the moment, but my biggest concern in this game by far is the matchup between Karlaftis and [insert name here]. Whether it’s a gimpy Michael Carmody or a raw Tosh Baker or, at the rate we’re going, the waterboy, Karlaftis is going to have a mismatch. How the staff chooses to mitigate that and how effective the mitigation efforts are will likely go a long way in determining how well the Irish can move the ball. There will be opportunities elsewhere on the field, but if Jack Coan has 1.5 seconds to release the ball they won’t matter. The loss of war daddy Lorenzo Neal to the NFL will perhaps make it easier to double Karlaftis, so there’s that.

The loss of leading tackler Derrick Barnes, probably also the best guy on the field for them last year, is a hit at the second level. Second leading tackler Jaylan Alexander returns and junior Jalen Graham has moved down from safety and has some potential, but the very significant question of whether a bad unit from last year can lose its best player and still improve looms very large.

The secondary boasts a lot of experience, with Cory Trice and Cam Allen entering their third year as starters and fifth year senior Dedrick Mackey starting after an injury-pocked, up and down career. They’re not bad, but I’m not sold that they’re anything special or that experience in and of itself means much. From 2018-20 they ranked 84th, 81st, and 93rd in passer rating allowed. They intercepted three passes in six games last year (two by Allen, one by Barnes). They haven’t been great against the run over that stretch either, but I do think that they’re more vulnerable to the pass. If you can keep your quarterback upright.

UPDATE: News just broke that Cory Trice broke his ankle in practice this week and is out 4-6 weeks. It’s a big blow to a secondary that could ill afford to lose anyone. Really tough development, hopefully he makes a quick and complete recovery.

Prediction

So can Purdue give Notre Dame more trouble than we expected preseason? At this point I think the answer has to be “yes” for every opponent on the schedule until results prove otherwise, but that has more to do with the Irish than their opponents.

Key questions:

1) Can the Irish offense find a way to neutralize Karlaftis? Whether it’s by double teaming or chipping him, scheming away from him, throwing quick hitters, whatever, Notre Dame can’t allow Karlaftis to be a game wrecker. If he eats anyway, it’s likely going to be a long day. Did I mention yet that I’m worried about Karlaftis? Stupid Irish Invasion…

2) Can the Irish defense contain David Bell? There are other guys, but similar to 2019 USC and Michael Pittman, if you stop him you’re very likely going to stop their offense. This matchup will be the Notre Dame secondary’s biggest test yet and perhaps a preview of how ready they are for USC’s Drake London and North Carolina’s Josh Downs. I think the secondary is capable of containing him; whether they will is a separate question.

3) Can Notre Dame find some room in the running game? We finally saw things open up a bit with Tyler Buchner under center last week, which provided as stark an illustration as I’ve ever seen of how much it helps to have a true running threat at quarterback. That’s a great tool to have in your back pocket but it can’t be the only way the Irish have to run the ball effectively. It’s a tall order when the offensive line, which was already struggling with inexperience and chemistry, will likely start its third left tackle in three weeks, but it’s also getting perilously close to put up or shut up time.

4) Can we please stop giving up huge plays? Another thing Sampson pointed out is that Marcus Freeman has given up more 60+ yard plays in two games (four) than Clark Lea did in three years (three). Given the sample size I don’t think that’s reason in and of itself to hit the panic button yet – for example, Freeman is switching systems while Lea ran the same system as the guy before him – but it’s also clearly something that needs to get fixed. Irish Illustrated’s Tim O’Malley noted that 35% of the total yards the defense has surrendered came on four plays, with the remaining 65% coming on 133 plays. Over those 133 plays the defense has allowed an average of 3.9 yards per play, which over a full season would’ve led the nation in any of the last eight seasons. Freeman needs to get John Wilkes Booth out of the damn theater already.

I laughed at how narrowly Notre Dame was favored by Vegas against Florida State (7.5 points) and by SP+ against Toledo (8.3 points). I laugh no more, my friends. Vegas and SP+ roughly agree on this game, and I’m going to go ahead and side with the smart mathy people on it. Preseason, I would’ve said this should be a three score win. Now? I think that potential is there but I have much less confidence that the Irish will get there. I suspect that they’ll be able to move the ball reasonably well and for the most part contain Purdue’s offense, but I can’t predict that the defense will be bust-free and that raises the outcome variance here substantially. At the end of the day though, Purdue is overmatched and I do think Notre Dame will pull it out in effective if uninspiring fashion. I welcome them to pleasantly surprise me.

Notre Dame 34

Purdue 27