Rakes Report #238: Hear the locomotive charging through the prairie, drowning out my worries and woes (The Purdue Review)
The path to redemption begins by delivering the Boilermakers the worst loss in program history.
~optional musical accompaniment~
1) When Notre Dame fans would express doubt and/or concern about the Purdue game during the week leading up to it, I was not going to step up and declare confidently all would be well as I was still quite morose following the season’s first loss and did not feel that way. But I did have something rattling around in the back of my mind: At the beginning of Marcus Freeman’s first season, his team responded to a home loss to Marshall and an almost-home loss to Cal by going down to Chapel Hill and enabling Drew Pyne to outduel Drake Maye. If they could pull that off, winning at Purdue shouldn’t have been too tall of a task.
This was a big game for the Boilermakers, as they were coming off a bye (really, an entire offseason, as they opened against FCS Indiana State) with CBS in town and hosting Notre Dame for the first time in more than a decade. What followed was a first half where they had 72 yards, four first downs and zero points followed by a final score that was the most lopsided defeat in the history of Purdue football. Notre Dame averaged nearly ten yards per snap in the first half and their opponent couldn't manage three. The Irish could have felt sorry for themselves after last week but they came out motivated to begin their redemption tour. This was a total annihilation.
The bad news for Freeman and Notre Dame is that even reaching 88 points wouldn’t have allowed them to go back in time and reverse last week’s result. The good news is if they play like this for the next nine contests — no problem, should be simple — they’ll achieve their goal of hosting a playoff game. The season is already a quarter over! Buckle up and embrace it.
2) This is the level of havoc we wanted from the defense. Four sacks, way more pressures, two picks, four pass breakups. The Boilermakers converted a single third down all day and it came on a play where a freshman safety (Kennedy Urlacher, who was sensational otherwise in his relief work) crashed into a teammate. It’s crazy how Boubacar Traore and Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa are already this good, and it’s been fun to see Jason Onye and Donovan Hinish emerging on the interior. After a nondescript start to his time in blue and gold, R.J. Oben had more of an impact this time around (in only 16 snaps). Speaking of transfers, Jordan Clark very good again. It turns out this Al Golden defense is still death against teams on third and long, you just have to get them into third and long.
In the first half, Notre Dame forced four three-and-outs, had a pick six and allowed a long drive of five plays/24 yards. To be fancier: EPA is an advanced stat that stands for Expected Points Added and is an attempt to define how each offensive snap affects a team’s chances to score. On Saturday afternoon, Purdue had an EPA per snap of -0.45, meaning every time they ran a play they watched nearly half a point erode and would have been better off punting on first down. This EPA per snap was good for the 1st percentile out of all of college football. That seems bad because it is but it was actually better than their offensive success rate, which was good for the elusive 0th percentile.
Jordan Botelho’s injury sours the experience. The veteran had been the best and most consistent defensive lineman to start the season. He may be ready to move on with his life, but if he wants another master’s degree, he’d be eligible for a sixth year in 2025.
Why did Ryan Walters keep Hudson Card in until the very end? What sort of demented lesson was he trying to teach his starter? They’re lucky Card made it out in one piece. Purdue travels to Oregon State this weekend, a long flight after a beatdown like that.
3) Confusion abounded regarding the state of the quarterback room coming into this game, spurred on by news Riley Leonard had injured his non-throwing shoulder against Northern Illinois and a late move in the betting line toward Purdue that potentially signified…something. There were reports that Leonard had taken his normal number of starter’s reps and conflicting information that Steve Angeli was taking the lion’s share. In the end, Leonard started and ran the ball without limitations, totaling 100 yards and three touchdowns on the ground.
He wasn’t the only one successful rushing the ball, as Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price again ripped off long touchdowns. (Price springing a 70-yard score when Notre Dame was content to run out the clock was peak “This is why you’re Purdue.”) When assessing Leonard’s play, it’s crucial to remember how much his ability to serve as a threat carrying the ball helps the tailbacks by keeping the defense honest. It’s a thing we’ve referenced a lot but think back to the 2021 season and how putting in Tyler Buchner helped spark the ground game versus when the opposition knew Jack Coan wasn’t going to be keeping any zone reads and scooting. Taking out sack yardage, the Irish would have been brushing their head against 400 yards rushing. Dominant effort.
Billy Scrauth and Ashton Craig — the two offensive linemen we were most confident about coming into this season — going down is not ideal. At least Pat Coogan and Rocco Spindler got a bunch of snaps last year so there was veteran depth but with Charles Jagusah also getting hurt during camp Joe Rudolph is running out of bodies and it’s only the middle of September.
Passing game wasn’t nearly as dominant but it was nice to see Mitchell Evans continue to look healthy while Eli Raridon and Jayden Thomas became more involved. There are legitimate concerns about Leonard but he completed third-down throws to Evans (twice) and Thomas, plus ran for another (which counts). Purdue is a heavy man team and seemingly threw more zone at Leonard than the staff expected. The surprise factor shouldn’t be a problem going forward as they should prepare for a ton of zone until the Irish passing offense proves it can overcome it, but progress is possible. For all the worries about the starting offense, Notre Dame scored touchdowns on four of its first six drives and converted five of its seven third down attempts in the first half (the two failed third downs were on Leonard runs after passing plays didn’t materialize, which was frustrating).
Will talk Steve Angeli more below but scoring the most points against an opponent as a visitor in the history of their program, which Notre Dame did in West Lafayette on Saturday, is good. A nice bounceback from Mike Denbrock after a disappointing performance last week. Also important to note that Leonard has won two road games and hasn’t had a turnover or allowed a sack in either.
4) Should walk-on Max Hurleman be the full-time punt returner? Jaden Greathouse does not seem comfortable back there and while Freeman said Jordan Faison would be back on Saturday that was not the case. Still waiting for the James Rendell highlight kick. After getting blocked twice last week, Mitch Jeter hit his lone field goal attempt and didn’t miss on any of the many, many extra points with which he was tasked.
I have a soft spot for Brad Nessler and Gary Danielson, and much like the Sun Bowl it’s easier for me to overlook them getting a lot of details wrong over the course of the game — truly, so many, from what people were named to who won a bowl MVP award to down-and-distance — because it was not competitive and it felt like relaxing with your slightly inebriated uncles. I commend their efforts to fill an entire half of garbage time and loved them bringing in Gene Steratore for a chat just to mix things up a little bit.
Final note on how dominant this was: Purdue came into this game ranked 58th in SP+, 61st on offense and 54th on defense. After it they fell to 89th overall, and 82nd/87th respectively. Cataclysmic.
5) Winning Is Hard Round-Up: Purdue wasn’t the only team with a spotlight to fall flat. “College GameDay” was in South Carolina and the Gamecocks blew a 17-0 lead. Shane Beamer perfectly executed the “Not press enough on offense at the end of the game and leave a long attempt for your kicker and then hope people don’t notice your cowardice if it is missed.” Wisconsin had all the focus of Fox and got crushed by Alabama, which will happen when you lose your starting quarterback to a serious injury in the early going. Luke Fickell is probably going to make a bowl but it will require pulling an upset or taking care of business on the road.
Mark Stoops had a despicable game management performance against Georgia, squandering an upset opportunity by kicking four field goals and punting from midfield with three minutes left. Congrats on the moral victory and cover. Colorado State doesn’t get many network TV primetime games and they also flopped, putting in a poor effort against Colorado. Memphis never trailed in Tallahassee and Florida State is now 0-3 and remain winless since Ron DeSantis threatened to sue the playoff.
In good news for Notre Dame, Texas A&M walloped Florida in The Swamp despite Conner Weigman missing the game with an injury. West Virginia had a 10-point lead late in the Backyard Brawl but Pat Narduzzi pulled off a second straight miracle comeback, doing so despite mishandling his timeouts late. Washington lost the Apple Cup to Wazzu after absconding to the Big Ten. Undefeated Vanderbilt fell to Georgia State. Mississippi State got blown out at home by Toledo.
No. 6 Missouri struggled mightily for a while with Boston College but were able to put them away. Oklahoma had to sweat a little against Tulane. Kansas lost at home to UNLV while Arizona got blown out at Kansas State. TCU blew a late lead to Central Florida. Utah and Arkansas struggled with Utah State and UAB, respectively. Duke had to come back late against UConn. Virginia frittered away a halftime lead to Maryland in Charlottesville, failing to score after the break.
6) I’m going to be very grumpy to close, for which I apologize while also crossing my heart and promising not to do so after the next 50-point margin of victory. I don’t know who specifically decided not to run Leonard in the second half against Northern Illinois with his injured shoulder and also not play Angeli, but everything goes to the top so I’m marking it down as a major error by Freeman. Leonard is a good quarterback because of his elite rushing ability and when you take that away he is far more limited. I understand college football staffs don’t deliberately troll their fans but having Angeli come into the game and almost immediately throw a play-action pass for a touchdown (reminder: Notre Dame used play-action a single time against NIU) is as close as you can get after last week, and to add insult to injury they kept Love in on a second-half third down and threw to him, something that apparently isn’t possible during competitive portions of the game.
Quarterback depth only works if you use it, and I think Freeman blinked last week against the Huskies in not putting in Angeli. He gambled that an injured, one-dimensional Leonard would be good enough to survive and he lost that bet. We can absolutely debate whether Angeli could have gone into College Station and won, but he has more than proven that he could have scored ten points in a half of football against a MAC team. The throw to Jayden Harrison up the sideline was gorgeous and he showed great patience and poise on Kevin Bauman’s first career touchdown catch. For a negative, he did hang in the pocket too long and take some sacks, but also busted out a 29-yard run.
I don’t know if Freeman was worried about sparking a controversy or locker room dissent or just truly believed Leonard was the right guy in that situation despite his medical limitations, but when your results are that bad (losing as a 28-point home favorite) I don’t really care about the intricacies of the process. However, as we stated in the intro, there’s no way to amend last week’s result and the best we can hope for is that the team learns from it because it’s a roster that is still very much capable of winning every game remaining on the schedule.
I think Leonard should still start, they should run him as much as necessary to win and if he can’t do that to the fullest go to the back-up (by which I mean Angeli, but Kenny Minchey looked solid as well, although Purdue had given up long before he entered the game). Why I’m lingering on this is a worry that if Notre Dame is stuck in the muck in a future game, Freeman won’t mix it up with Angeli and potentially cost his team another game and the playoff spot.
Two tests remain before the bye. The first comes in the form of Chuck Martin’s Miami (Ohio) RedHawks, who have been woeful on offense and solid on defense in two defeats to blah power conference teams (Northwestern and Cincinnati). You just lost at home to a salty MAC team and now you have an immediate chance at redemption against the same archetype. Can this Notre Dame squad handle a modicum of success and continue to build momentum, or are we indeed time looping? Keep stacking up blowout wins for the next two-and-a-half months and you will get to host a playoff game.
Much to play for and much to learn in the coming weeks. We know this team can be fun and this was a very nice response after a horrific loss but absolution is going to take far more victories. Excited to see if they can pull it off. Until next week, take care of yourselves and each other.