Opponent View/Scouting Notre Dame

Purdue (2-1 overall; 0-1 Big Ten) and No. 24 Notre Dame (0-2) will battle for the Shillelagh–but a whole lot more will be on the line this Saturday when they kick off at 3:30 p.m. ET on NBC.

The Boilermakers are looking for a signature win under first-year coach Barry Odom as he seeks to rebrand a broken program. Notre Dame’s stakes are higher, as it looks to stay in the College Football Playoff chase. Already saddled with two defeats, the Fighting Irish can’t afford another loss.

GoldandBlack.com talked to Notre Dame play-by-play man Tony Simeone to learn more about the Fighting Irish.

GoldandBlack.com: What can we expect from the Irish offense?

Simeone: When it comes to the offense, that’s not been the issue for Notre Dame so far this year. There were a ton of questions coming in to this season off of last year’s run to the title game. Of course, who would be the quarterback? There was a great battle in fall camp between CJ Carr, who’s a second year player, and Kenny Minchey, who’s a year ahead of him. But Carr, maybe a little bit more highly touted as a recruit, won the job. And there were still maybe questions going into the opener at Miami as to how he would look. He looked great, all things considered. Really nice. And then this past week against Texas A&M in what was obviously a really disappointing loss for Notre Dame, he really moved the offense. Carr may be the most skilled quarterback they’ve had at Notre Dame in quite some time.

Jeremyiah Love and Jadarian Price are probably two of the best backs in the country, and they’ve run it really well so far this year. Love had a season-high in carries (23) this past game against Texas A&M. I’m not sure they want him to run it that much in any given week. I think there’ll be probably a more even split. But the fact of the matter is with them at 0-2, who knows?

It’s going to be win-this-game-by-whatever-means-necessary. So, between quarterback and the two running backs, those are the guys that’ll probably pop off the screen the most, and if those three are playing well, I think they probably feel like they have a good chance to win.

GoldandBlack.com: What can we expect from the Notre Dame defense?

Simeone: Defense is where the focus has been the few days since the loss on Saturday night. And it’s really twofold.

One, giving up 41 points at home, you never want to do that in any capacity. Last season, when they went to the title game, this is a team allowed about 12 points per game through the regular season.

Former defensive coordinator Al Golden, who’s now in in the NFL, had this defense humming where it was certainly one of the five best in the country last year. It’s possible we’ll look back at Miami and Texas A&M and say, “Hey, you played two offenses that are maybe top 20 offenses in the country.” But giving up 27 and 41 points just is not the standard that’s been set here.

Marcus Freeman is a defensive player and former defensive coordinator. If nothing else, this probably is really frustrating because they want to be a really stout defensive team. It’s been a nice run the last decade of really strong defenses.

As far as what it’s going to look like on the headsets, I’m not privy to that, and I think that they’re probably more focused on how they can tighten things up, regardless of how the plays get called.

They gave up way too many explosive plays against Texas A&M. Six plays accounted for over 200 yards. They gave up explosives left and right. Receivers were beating them on the outside in a way that we just have not seen around here. The defensive backs that are here, they’re back, and they’re a year better, and we’re seeing them running behind and chasing defenders in a way we didn’t see before. So, they’re trying to get it figured out.

I think in his press conference, I believe what Coach even said, don’t quote me verbatim, but he said something along the lines of, “We know what the problem is. We know how to fix it,” or “We have a plan to fix it. Now we have to go do it.” So, he at least seems confident that they have sorted through whatever they have to.

The schedule going forward, in theory, the opponents should get a little bit easier, so maybe the defense will look better. But if they don’t get the defense figured out. Even if they were to win this game in a high, high scoring shootout, it’s not going to put a lot of Notre Dame fans at ease. I think there will be still a lot of cause for concern if the defense doesn’t look good this weekend against Purdue.

GoldandBlack.com: How do you see this game unfolding?

Simeone: I think back to last year’s game at Purdue. And if, if you recall, Notre Dame was coming off that surprising loss to Northern Illinois. And, at that time–it seems funny now, considering the score was I think 66-7–Notre Dame fans were looking around saying, “Anything could happen.” It feels somewhat similar to that, just in the sense that anything could happen, I think specifically. on the defensive side of the ball.

I think the nice thing for this team is they can kind of try to adopt that mindset from last year: “Hey, let’s just stop talking about the playoff, let’s try to just win this game against Purdue and then win the next one.”

If I had to bet, I’d like to think they can get it done at home against Purdue, knowing there’s a sense of urgency you really can’t afford to lose now.

They’re still ranked 24th in the country, and they haven’t won a game yet. That tells you at least how people view their two losses by a combined four points. Certainly a couple of plays here, there, we could be talking about a 2-0 team.

I like their chances playing a Purdue team that I think at least this weekend they’re catching at a bad time again, coming off of a couple of frustrating losses. I think they’re gonna be looking to take it out on Purdue. So, I like the Irish, but I will offer the caveat that nothing would surprise me on Saturday.