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What they’re saying about Notre Dame’s 56-30 win against Purdue

Singer headshotby: Mike Singer09/21/25MikeTSinger

Notre Dame got back in the in win column on Saturday after losing three straight games dating back to the national championship game last season. The Irish knocked off Purdue 56-30 behind four touchdowns from running back Jadarian Price.

In this article, we’ll take a look around at what the media is saying about the Fighting Irish’s loss against the Aggies, including Blue & Gold’s Mike Singer giving his instant reaction to the game in a YouTube live show. You can watch the replay of the show in the video player above.

Tyler Horka, Blue & Gold: Grading Notre Dame football in 56-30 Fighting Irish win vs. Purdue

Notre Dame got in the win column for the first time this season with a 56-30 victory over Purdue. It was every bit the offensive onslaught from both sides the final scores suggests.

Here is how Blue & Gold graded the Fighting Irish in all phases for their performance.

Notre Dame Passing Offense: A+

What is as close to perfection as it gets? CJ Carr vs. Purdue. 

The redshirt freshman quarterback completed 10 of 12 passes for 223 yards with 2 touchdowns and 0 interceptions. One of those scores was the very first play of the game, a 66-yard perfectly placed heave deep downfield to graduate senior wide receiver Malachi Fields. The other was a 48-yarder to junior Jordan Faison on which Carr smartly checked into an out-and-up because the Purdue corner began to bite on the out as the game went on. When Faison went up, it was game over for the Boilermakers on that particular play. Another absolute dime from Carr. 

Outside of one lapse from sophomore left tackle Anthonie Knapp, letting a defender go right around him and sack Carr, who lost a fumble on the play, there wasn’t anything wrong with the Irish passing attack. And for as long as Carr looks the way he did, Notre Dame will keep receiving great grades for the passing offense. 

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Jack Soble, Blue & Gold: No. 24 Notre Dame runs the dang ball, defeats Purdue 56-30

Jeremiyah Love put his hands up as Jadarian Price crossed the goal line for his fourth touchdown on Saturday afternoon against Purdue. His pearly-white grin was visible from the press box.

Love did most of the work on that third-quarter drive, at which point he was jumping over and spinning past Boilermaker defenders just because he could. The two combined for 373 all-purpose yards and 6 touchdowns in Week 4, making a fairly airtight case to be the best backfield tandem in college football.

Notre Dame Stadium received three doses of lightning on Saturday afternoon. One came in the form of a weather delay lasting 1:54. The others were Love and Price, whom Purdue’s defense couldn’t stop whatsoever. Every time the Boilermakers looked like they would make the weather-extended matchup a game — scoring 23 first-half points in another alarming performance for the Irish defense — Love and Price wouldn’t let them.

No. 24 Notre Dame (1-2) beat Purdue (2-2) 56-30, improving to 1-2 and picking up its first win since the Orange Bowl on Jan. 9. Much like last week’s 41-40 loss to Texas A&M, Mike Denbrock’s offense was the star of the show.

“Funny little behind-the-scenes thing,” Price said. “So me and Jeremiyah together, we scored four [touchdowns] last week, and we’re like, ‘Okay, we gotta top it this week. We gotta score six.’ And he did that.”

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Nick Shepowski, Notre Dame on SI: Notre Dame Dominates Purdue for First Victory—What We Learned

Even a blowout win over lowly Purdue can’t be normal with Notre Dame football in 2025. Notre Dame rolled to 56-30 victory over the Boilermakers on Saturday, earning its first win of the season as the uphill climb from 0-2 to the College Football Playoff gets underway.

The blowout win, of course came with a two-hour delay due to thunderstorms in the area with 1:31 remaining in the second quarter. The 1:31 that followed before halftime was some of the strangest football you’ll ever see played in Notre Dame Stadium.

So, what went well for Notre Dame and what still needs significant work? Here are the instant takeaways from Notre Dame’s 56-30 victory.

Notre Dame Strikes First, Fast

Notre Dame was playing with a shorthanded secondary, as its starting group has struggled already this year. So, Purdue comes out and runs up the middle twice, gives Notre Dame a free 15-yards thanks to a dumb penalty, and punts. One play and CJ Carr finds Malachi Fields for a 66-yard touchdown pass. That took all of 80 seconds to lay the foundation for a game that had a similar end result in terms of Notre Dame dominating Purdue.

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Tom Noie, South Bend Tribune: Saturday at home was a long day, but was it a happy one for Notre Dame football?

SOUTH BEND ― Notre Dame football did something Saturday that it last did 254 days earlier. 

Notre Dame football did something Saturday at home that it last did 274 days earlier. 

The winless Irish went and won a football game. Finally.

It didn’t start in prime time, though that’s where it ended. It didn’t feature a ranked opponent. It wasn’t pretty, but it was a 56-30 win. 

Thank you, Purdue. 

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Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman

Opening statement from postgame press conference:

“Yeah, as I told the guys in the locker room, ‘This is why you work hard. This is why you spend a lot of hours trying to come up with a plan that you’re able to find a way to be victorious. You got to enjoy it and celebrate it. If you don’t, it’s going to be a miserable, miserable profession for coaches, but also the game for young people.’

“So I told them, ‘Let’s enjoy this thing, but it’s momentary gratification. We understand this isn’t the only reason we work for. We enjoy it in the moment, but the things that we desire are going to take delayed gratification.’

“Got to keep working and find ways to improve, areas to improve, and there are plenty of them, and get back to work for the next opponent here before we know it.

“But again, (it) wasn’t perfect. You guys saw it. I saw it. There is work to do. There is things we got to continue to try to get fixed. We got to get healthy, and we’ll come up with the right formula to give us an opportunity to be successful as we get ready for next Saturday.”

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Purdue head coach Barry Odom

Opening statement from postgame press conference:

“Thanks for sticking around. Good to see everybody. I hate that we’re in the position that we’re talking about coming up short in a loss. I would like to give Coach Freeman and his staff and their team a lot of credit. They’re talented in a lot of ways. Explosive. I think they’ve got a really good team.

“I was proud of a number of things that we did on offense tonight. I thought it continued to give us opportunities to stay in the game. There was some extra effort and toughness plays that we’ll certainly build on and stand out that I was proud of offensively.

“Defensively, we didn’t play to the standard we need to. We didn’t tackle well. We weren’t very good on the line of scrimmage. I thought Slusher and Manny and Todd, I saw them finish the way we want to finish. But we got a lot of things to fix.

“And nobody said it was going to be easy. Life is hard. You want something changed and you want to fix it, usually it’s down the work that’s called hard. And we got to find a way. I’m excited about what we can do with this team, but we can’t open up the game and give up a 65-yard touchdown. We can’t give uop a kickoff return for a touchdown. The explosive plays, we’re not going to be good enough to overcome those things.

“So we got to get it fixed, and it starts directly with the guy looking back at myself in the mirror. We got to come up with a great game plan. We got a bye week that I think happens at a perfect time for our team. We get bonus practices on Illinois, and then we’re into a seven-week stretch of conference play. We’ll get our team there. There’s a number of things to build on. There’s obviously a number of things to correct. And I’ll stop there.”

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