Notre Dame vs. Purdue: Keys To An Irish Win

Notre Dame gets the Purdue Boilermakers at home Saturday. After opening the season slow against San Diego State then coming strong on against Michigan, the Irish took a step back last week against Michigan State.

On paper, the Boilermakers shouldn’t be as stiff of a challenge.

Through three games against Northern Colorado, Oregon, and Central Michigan the Boilermakers are giving up 427 yards per game. That isn’t exactly a gauntlet of powerhouses.

In particular, Purdue is allowing 192.3 yards per game on the ground. That’s good for the bottom quarter of college football and is the definitive weakness of this football team. The defensive line is relatively big, but the linebackers are on the smaller side and both units are in the bottom half of what Notre Dame will face this season.

The pass defense, however, has been respectable. On the year, Purdue has given up only three touchdowns through the air and 234.7 yards passing per game. They have also held their opponents to only 9.8 yards per completion.

In other words, the defense hasn’t given up a lot of long pass plays.

The defense has also been fairly effective on third down, only allowing 33 percent of opponent’s tries to be successfully converted. Opposing offenses with scoring opportunities have done fairly well, scoring on 69 percent of red zone possessions. But the Boilermakers have only allowed 40 percent of the red zone trips to result in touchdowns.

On offense it is the Curtis Painter and Kory Sheets show as the duo leads a fairly balanced attack resulting in over 33 points per game. Painter is having a modest year by his own standards, averaging just over 250 yards per game passing. He has been efficient, though, completing just under 60 percent of his throws and averaging 6.6 yards per attempt.

Sheets is averaging over 20 carries and 117 yards per game, but the most impressive statistic is his 5.7 yard per carry average and long run of 80 yards.

If there is one thing Purdue's offense does well it has to be red zone efficiency. The Boilermakers enter Saturday’s contest converting 90 percent of their red zone tries into points. Two thirds of those points are touchdowns.

On any average day the Irish would beat the Boilermakers a high percentage of the time. But Notre Dame always gets their opponent’s best game, so average likely won’t cut it for the Irish. Notre Dame will need a better offensive performance to match Purdue’s scoring. Obviously that will take improved red zone efficiency and elimination of costly turnovers, but the keys to winning are far more subtle.

Coming off a disappointing loss to the Spartans, this game will likely determine the direction of the remainder of the season.

Offense

1. At every opportunity create and take advantage of mismatches. Notre Dame’s biggest advantage in this game is their talent. The offense must create one-on-one opportunities to make plays and trust that their talented skill position players will make them.

The offense can’t negate this talent advantage by giving away the play before the snap or lacking creativity in the running game. Purdue’s defense has struggled to defend the run against opponents that don’t use a conventional rushing attack, teams that run out of obvious passing formations. Spread the field and get Armando Allen the ball in space.

Get Golden Tate and David Grimes in the slot, matched up with linebackers and safeties. Spread the field and force Purdue to go five deep in the secondary. Get Michael Floyd with single coverage down the field. And set up the big play rather than taking blind stabs at it over the course of the game. The Boilermaker defense hasn't given up many big plays in the passing game, the Irish offense can't afford to force the issue and risk a turnover.

2. Run it red. The anemic running game for Notre Dame has been well documented. The Irish don’t need to run the ball for 150 yards to win this game. They do need to run the ball well inside the twenty yard line to improve their atrocious red zone efficiency. Leaving points on the field won’t cut it in this game and an ineffective rushing attack is largely responsible for a 36 percent red zone scoring efficiency.

3. Change the field position. Help the Irish defense by making Purdue work to get into the red zone, limiting their scoring opportunities. The Irish offense must minimize three-and-out’s and eliminate turnovers in their own territory. Manageable third down distances are also advantageous as Notre Dame’s 32 percent third down conversion rate is largely a result of facing third and more than five yards over three quarters of the time.

Defense

1. Less is more. To date the Irish blitzing game has recorded only one sack. The high risk, high reward scheme has worked fairly well through three games but the Boilermakers present a unique challenge. With Purdue Notre Dame will get a blend of two offenses they have already faced.

The Boilermakers passing game will be similar to San Diego State, their running game similar to Michigan. Attempting to pressure a veteran quarterback like Painter will not force the same errant throws Aztec quarterback Ryan Lindley made.

Likewise, blitzing can take players out of position and cause problems with Sheets on the ground. This happened with Sam McGuffie against Michigan, leading to multiple big runs. The Irish defense is best served keeping everything in front of them and forcing Purdue to consistently execute to move the ball down the field.

2. Keep Purdue out of the red zone. The Boilermakers are remarkably efficient inside their opponent’s twenty so Notre Dame must prevent them from getting there. Stopping the big play is a start, but-as stated above-not playing a high risk defensive scheme and getting help from the offense will also be needed.

3. Tackle better. It was on the Christmas wish list and has been true in weeks one, two, and three. Against Purdue good tackling will be needed, but for a different reason. The Purdue offense is designed to get the ball to the skill players in space. After this they rely on one-on-one matchups and poor tackling to create yardage. The Irish must take this away from them.