Notre Dame Cruises Past Purdue, Wins Third Straight
Brian Spurlock, US Presswire
The Irish finally put together a complete 60 minutes of football in their 38-10 rout over Purdue on Saturday evening. Quietly, the Irish have won three straight games with a three-game homestand beginning next week.
For the first time all year long, Notre Dame played turnover-free football. The lone fumble for the Irish came on a handoff exchange between Tommy Rees and Jonas Gray, but Rees was easily able to recover it before the Purdue defensive line could react.
Notre Dame was also able to cut down on the braindead mistakes that have cost them dearly in their two losses this season. Yes, they did have eight penalties, but none of them really hurt the Irish. The only bad one on the night was Jordan Cowart’s personal foul penalty, which resulted in a great comment from Brian Kelly when he spoke to an ESPN reporter at halftime.
The offense was good once again with a balanced attack. The Irish were able to throw for 269 yards in the air and ran for 281 yards on the ground, their highest total so far this season.
Rees put together his best game of the season up to date. For the first time all season long, the sophomore quarterback didn’t put the ball on the grass or threw a pass to an opposing defender. Rees completed 61 percent of his passes for three touchdowns and at least for one night, quieted his critics.
Just like he is every week, Michael Floyd was Rees’ favorite target. The senior receiver had 12 catches for 136 yards and a touchdown; the first TD of the game for the road team. Through five games, Floyd has an eye-catching 47 catches so far this season.
Rees did a nice job of spreading the ball around as well and not just targeting his star receiver. TJ Jones had five grabs and a touchdown and Tyler Eifert picked up right where he left off last week with four catches and a score of his own. Four other Irish receivers had at least one catch on the night.
ND’s run game continued its dominance. Purdue was unable to stop either Cierre Wood or Gray throughout all four quarters. Wood finished with just under 200 rush yards and a touchdown. Gray had 87 yards on 10 touches and surely would have surpassed the century mark if he would gotten more carries in the fourth quarter. If he would have done so, it would have been the first time that occurred for Notre Dame since late in the 2002 season.
Like they have done all season long, the Irish defense was dominant as well.
The unit did give up 270 total yards to Purdue, but several of those came in garbage time late in the fourth quarter. What was most impressive out of everything was that ND did it without Ethan Johnson, who got injured early in the game, and Stephon Tuitt, who didn’t travel with the team due to breaking team rules.
The ND D left both Purdue quarterbacks confused throughout the night. The Boilermakers were also unable to run the football with only 83 yards on the ground on 27 carries. This was the same Purdue team that had great success running the football before night, but Notre Dame was able to stuff them like have done with most of their opponents so far in 2011.
After their third straight win, the Irish will head home to South Bend for next week’s game to face a Air Force team that is coming off of a huge victory over Navy at home today. The Irish D better be ready for the Falcons run-first offense.
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