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That's indeed.com/bluewire. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. What's new from Apple? There's the new iPhone 16 Pro built for Apple Intelligence. And it comes with the all-new camera control, giving you an easier way to quickly access your camera tools. The new Apple Watch Series X has our biggest display and our thinnest design ever. And this? It's the sound of active noise cancellation, now available on one of two new AirPods 4 models. So quiet. Check out all of the new products and new features at Apple.com. You can even buy yourself something new. See Apple.com for product availability updates. Apple Intelligence coming this fall. I be nation. Welcome back to another edition of the Irish Breakdown podcast. It's Thursday, September 12th. That's my dude Trevor Trowbridge. That's my man Ryan Roberts. And we are ready to talk about Notre Dame Purdue last day of breaking down Notre Dame Purdue. We're going to talk about the matchup. We're going to go over our keys to victory. We all have some different ideas. I've got my ideas. These guys got some good ideas that we're going to dive into. We'll talk about the Irish offense defense after we kind of do a big picture what this team needs to do to show up and win. Then of course, we'll make our score predictions. And I'm going to give you all hint. Trevor predicts that Notre Dame is going to score 60 this weekend. So he's all fired up. He didn't really do that. I don't know if they get to 60 with all of our points combined. But we will give our score predictions. Talk about how the game is going to go. Hand out some predictions on game balls. And then of course, after the first hour, I'll be joined by Bill Bender. And we're going to preview two games this week, guys. This is an overall horrible slate of football this weekend. I would have been much more encouraged by the Kentucky Georgia game. If Kentucky just didn't get annihilated at home by South Carolina in a game where they passed for a whopping 44 yards. So if you guys think it's bad in Notre Dame, it could be worse. And certainly at Kentucky right now on offense, it is worse. But we're going to preview Texas A&M in Florida, which I think is a very fascinating game this weekend. Not necessarily two great teams, but just more of a very intriguing matchup. It's a huge game for both teams. And then we'll also preview the game for tomorrow night, which I think is the best game of the weekend is actually being played on Friday night. That's Arizona, Kansas State. Very much looking forward to that matchup as well. So Bill Bender from Sporting News and I will have that conversation at 2 o'clock. But fellas, of course, the game we are most focused on is Notre Dame against Purdue. It is going to be Saturday at 3.30. Can I tell you guys the thing that I'm most excited about for this game? Brian, you know me pretty well. What do you think it is? Games on CBS? CBS, Game of the Week. Yeah, but what comes with that? That's the CBS intro music that I come upon. It's the best. If I was Notre Dame, I would say, I would find my biggest donor and say, listen, what do we got to do to buy that theme song and have it played before? And if any, you know what I mean? And I would love that. But CBS Game, obviously 3.30 in West Lafayette, Notre Dame against Purdue, longtime rivalry. This is probably my second favorite Midwestern rivalry that Notre Dame has behind Michigan State. That's my favorite. That's the one I have the most respect for. Purdue is next and then Michigan is a very distant third. Ryan and I have had plenty of conversations about this one. But the renewal of the rivalry and Notre Dame and Purdue are going to play each other a few times now coming up these next few years. So you're going to get a lot more of this. But it is a huge, huge game for Notre Dame Fellas. 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That's code Irish on prize picks for a deposit match up to $100. Prize picks run your game. You've had Wendy's nugs dipped in sauce, but have you had them covered in sauce? Wendy's new saucy nugs takes the crispy and spicy nugs that you love and turn them up to 11. Choose between flavors like buffalo, honey barbecue, garlic parm, or if you're a real heat seeker, try spicy ghost pepper only on Wendy's signature spicy nugs. I dare you. That's seven delicious ways to try the nugs you already love. Pick a flavor, grab some extra napkins and prepare to nug like you've never nugged before. For a whole new way to nug, it's got to be Wendy's at participating US Wendy's. So Ryan, I'm going to start with you because the biggest thing about this game is it's not even that like a win over Purdue is necessarily some sort of needle mover. But Trevor and I talked about this on Tuesday. I don't know if this regime survives if they don't win this game. So I actually think this is a huge game for Notre Dame, not because they win necessarily vault students say, hey, they figured it out. Well, even when 50 to nothing, but you can't afford a loss this weekend because I think the negativity around the program would ramp up so bad you'd have back-to-back losses to teams you have no business losing to. So I actually do think that this is a very important moment for Marcus Freeman and his tenure at Notre Dame. Well, I think there's two ways that this game is going to go personally. And I don't think there's like a ton of middle ground. I mean, like anything's possible in college football. But I think there's one reality where Notre Dame plays pissed off and they've been hearing the negativity all week and they just come out and throttle Purdue. Like, I do think that's possible because they are just exceedingly more talented than Purdue is. I mean, if we're being honest with ourselves on paper. But the other way that they come out is they're defeated and there's no answers. And they just are having that lull of I don't know if I trust what's happening in this program right now. And I don't know if I trust from what's happening from the top down. And this game is a three-point game either direction, right? Like, I even think like a three-point game for Notre Dame. Like if Notre Dame has a cow game from a couple years ago where it's like 24 to 21 Irish win, I don't think anybody feels better about that at all, dude. Like, they just don't. If they win 24, 23 gets Purdue, you're going to be like, this team stinks. Like, this is not a good football team. That's what the perception is going to be. So I think either Notre Dame is going to throttle this Purdue team or it's going to be a very close game that could go either way, trend in either direction. So yeah, I mean, it's big in the sense of if it's the latter in that conversation, there's already questions about Marcus Freeman from the national perspective and a lot of Notre Dame fans out there. If that is a decider, even if it's a three-point victory over Purdue, that murmur, those questions that creation is going to get a lot more pronounced heading out of it. Here's my only, I agree with what you're saying, my only counter would be if they win, it's going to, in an ugly game, it ramps up the criticism spot on. But he can survive that if they then start rolling in future games, right? If they lose to Purdue, I don't know that anybody cares if they win their next nine games by 40. That's my concern, 10 games by 40. That's my thing is I don't know that you survive it, but the other thing, too, is in my view, Ryan. Actually, I'll kick this to Trevor. In my view, if they don't win this weekend, it also, part of the reason I don't know that he survives this is because it will show that he had no idea, this staff had no idea of what buttons to push to get this team back on track, and it shows that there's a severe leadership problem. For a team that has as many fifth and six-year seniors as this Notre Dame team, if you don't have the leadership to bounce back in a game like this, that tells me that that leadership was not fostered, and you wasted an entire off-season of believing your own press clippings and doing all the celebrity tour stuff, but you forgot about, "Hey, we got a football team. We got a build here." That's the bigger concern for me is not only are you losing to another bad team, is you've shown that you don't know how to fix this, and that, to me, is worse than anything. To Ryan's point, an ugly win, or they just have more talent, could also mean that, but a loss, there's no coming back from it. An ugly win, you can at least, "Okay, you may be figured out against Miami, Ohio, maybe figured out against Louisville, maybe." But a loss, I don't know how you recover from that. Light it. Hey Irish Breakdown listeners, it's Urban Meyer. This fall the game changes. Join me, Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram and broadcaster Rob Stone as we bring you a new perspective on football and culture every week. We will be joined by the biggest name in sports and talk about everything inside and outside of the lines. Let us guide you through a new era of college football. Watch Triple Option on YouTube or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. Hey Irish Breakdown listeners, it's Matt Liner. I've got a podcast called Throwbacks with actor Jay Ferrer, where we'll be talking all things sports, but also so much more. We'll give you the behind-the-scenes stories from my days as the quarterback on an iconic college football team to Jerry's Days as a star on an iconic TV series. So subscribe to Throwbacks on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. I agree. A loss to Purdue for Notre Dame shows that the issues that you were aware of going into Saturday for the Northern Illinois game, you looked at that and said, "No, we don't have to fix anything. We just have to play better." You can't look at that internally like that as a coach. Some old Brian Kelly mess right there. Right. Obviously, we all know where that got everybody. I do agree with Ryan's point. I think a messy game isn't going to make anybody feel better if it's a win. I will say, I will go a step further and say the way that I look at it, if it's messy from an execution standpoint, I'm not going to love it by any means. But if it's messy from an execution standpoint, but players are playing at 100 miles an hour and they're proving that they want to be there, that to me, at least shows that this team has a little bit of fight. Right. It shows that when their backs are against the wall. Now, again, that's all stuff that we can break down in the post-game show afterwards of, "Hey, we still have to get better." Brian, you and I talked about it on Tuesday of, I mean, there's no real outcome of this game for Notre Dame where we just completely forget about the Northern Illinois game. They can win by 50 and it doesn't like, Purdue is not that team that makes you forget about Northern Illinois. But I think the overlying point of kind of like why I kind of feel that way, though, is that what is a head coach of a football team like Notre Dame? It's a symbol, right? And you want to believe in symbols. If Notre Dame comes out in throttles, Purdue and shows angst and shows a little aggression and does all those types of things against a better football team, then what they played the week prior? I can look at that and say like, maybe something got flipped there, right? Like, I can look at it and say like there might be a little bit of hope, but if it doesn't, then I look at it and even if it's a close win and I say, "I don't think there's any solutions that are being put into process here." Like, I don't, I just, there's nothing comforting about losing that close game. So while it might on paper buy you a little bit of time in the process, I don't think as Notre Dame fans in that perspective, I don't think anybody feels like, "Oh, it's okay. They'll be fine. They'll be fine." But if they do come out and they throttle, I'm like, let's say they somehow win like 44 to 10. Let's say they win Ryan, like we thought they would have won two weeks ago before they, you know, played Northern. Exactly. If they win like by four touchdowns on Saturday, you look at that and you say like, "Okay, maybe there's something here. Maybe there was an answer, whether it was, it maybe it should have gotten to that point sooner, but like either way, maybe there was something that was found that could be a little bit of a saving grace for this program. But if there isn't anything like that, then as a Notre Dame fan, nothing is calming my nerves and I'm put into pure like, siren mode. Like again, and I will talk about this on the post game show, right? Like winning is everything. The only thing that matters, blah, blah, blah, true. But if Notre Dame wins 20 to 17 on Saturday, I'm going to talk about like, "Hey guys, I'm still worried about this program. Like I'm still massively worried. There's no doubt about that." It's funny, Ryan. I'm giving two predictions today and it's going to kind of be tied into that. But here's the deal. If they, here's what I do think a blot win would do. It doesn't do anything to erase what happened last weekend, nothing. But what I do think it would do, and I'm curious to hear from the chat about this. What I do think it would do is saying, "Okay, they fixed whatever happened last week, but more importantly, what they've done is they haven't regressed as a team." And here's what I mean by that. Marcus Freeman is still the same Marcus Freeman who was last year. If they go out and blow out Purdue, it's okay, this is just who Marcus Freeman has been. It's this, right? But it's not a systemic, the problem that I would have from a loss and also to a certain degree from an ugly win is, okay, there's a flaw here that goes much deeper than you didn't lock in for Northern Illinois, right? There's a real problem here that needs to get addressed and it's not. If they blow Northern Illinois out or Purdue out or win where they're very clearly the best team, even if it's a 17 to 20-point win, it'll be a, okay, they're who they were last year. And I think that removed some of the angst about the 2016 conversation or are they going to lose four or five games and that kind of stuff because, okay, they're going to show up most weeks, but just prepare yourself. There's going to be two more Saturdays doing here in the end of the season where they decide they don't want to play that day because that's been his MO so far as head coach, right? Like, it's not losing. They lost Ohio State and USC. That team came to play both days in 2022. Like they battled against USC. They just were short handed and they didn't have the firepower to hang with that USC team. They battled their butts off against Ohio State. I'm referring to the Marshall game. I'm referring to a degree the cow game. I'm referring to Stanford. UNLV to a degree. Navy second half is more about adjustments. I don't think it was about not coming to play. You're going to get at least three games a year. Last year, it was, it was in my opinion, it was Duke. It was Louisville and it was Clemson where that team just didn't want to be there that day. And that's, that at least make you feel better about, okay, they're still going to go out and win nine or 10 games at least, but this is who they are. And that's a problem, but it's not, it's going to alleviate some of the, this is about to be a 2016 caliber train wreck, which is what I think would be the legitimate fear if they dropped this game or, or even when it liked Duke last year, where that team out played you for 60 minutes, you just have better athletes than they have and your athletes made plays in the fourth quarter. Can we all admit that that's what Duke was last year? Yeah, it was just Audrick Estimae and, and Mitchell Levens and a couple guys Xavier Watts were just better than anything that, that Duke had outside of Riley Leonard. That's basically what came game, the game came down to. So that's really what's at stake. I wanted to kind of have a conversation about that as we, as we get into our keys to victory guys, because at the end of the day, Trevor, you nailed it. Ryan, you've talked about it. The biggest key to victory in this game, and this is a big picture of victory is this needs to be a Notre Dame team that comes in a little pissed off and, and not at us. Right? Like, this is the concern I have. You got players making comments about like, we know what the media is saying about Riley Leonard. Why? Why do you care? Why do you care? Howard Cross talking about, you know, we heard the booze, like, that's, I'm not going to go off on this again because it did it yesterday, but that can't be your motivation for getting this thing turned around because that will be short lived. Once you have great success again, then that goes away because like, Oh, now you love us again. No, your motivation should be guys, we just got embarrassed on national TV by a Mac team. You know what? They should have booed us. That's what a real captain would have said that. You know what? They should have booed us because we play with no heart. We play with no fire. We did not protect our home field. We played like a bunch of, I'm not going to say it, but it's a, it's, it's not good. And that needs to be your motivation, not the median fans. Right. So this team needs to come in with the proper motivation. The wounded pride pride wounded pride can be a good thing guys. It really can. And you know, people keep talking about in the show, the chat, you know, a Brady Quinn comment, like, listen, this is what was what I loved about some of Brian Kelly's teams. Because even if Brian Kelly wasn't doing the things he needed to do to get the team ready to go, the leaders did. Well, no matter what Brian Kelly did Monday to Friday, Quentin Nelson and Drew Tranquil, we're going to make sure that football team in 2017, we're ready to play in 2018. We're ready to play. Right. I mean, think about the Drew Tranquil comments post game of 2017 after Georgia. Think of Houston Griffith after Stanford in 2022 talking about like, like how embarrassed he was that they didn't protect their house. Contrast that with what we've heard this last week from the Notre Dame players. And it's troubling. But words to the media don't always equal. That's what's being said in the locker room. So the biggest thing for me is there needs to be a bit of a gut check. And this team is you come out with some fire. Because if they don't, Ryan, you and I, and all three of us have watched a lot of film a Purdue. This is this is a a solid big 10 football team that I think is a bowl caliber team schedules a little tough. But you know, this is a six win-ish, you know, maybe one less, maybe one more because of the schedule team that that is going to battle. They're going to play hard, but they're not a team that should hang with Notre Dame. But Notre Dame will unless Notre Dame lets them hang with them. And that's the big thing. That's the biggest key above all other things. Because if Notre Dame comes out and plays hard and they're focused and they're locked in, even if to Trevor's point, even if the execution is not great, Ryan, they're still going to win because they have way better players than what Purdue has in most instances. Well, I would say this is that's been my biggest frustration with coach Freeman. Like we could talk about several parts of the conversation of offensive offensive philosophy and all that type of stuff. For a guy that is so young and vibrant and has so much energy, why does the team not carry that over consistently on Saturdays? It just has been a talking point that I have found very interesting because he seems like a guy that would be an ultimate motivator. He seems like a guy that people would want to really, you know, like they would run through a wall for like he seems like that kind of guy. And for whatever reason Notre Dame football has not been like that consistently over the last two plus a couple games into the into his career. So I need to see that this week because I'll even take it a step further. I'll be a little bit more hyperbolic with it. If Notre Dame plays, you know what to the wall and every snap and is playing hard and aggressive and physical, even if they're even if they're even if their technique at times is out of whack and even if they're making some mental mistakes at times, they will beat this team convincingly, not by a touchdown. Like it's not going to be a 21 14 game and Notre Dame played ugly but like they were just playing incredibly hard. If they play incredibly hard, they're going to win by two plus touchdowns in this game, I think if they just do that. Now if they do that and they don't make a bunch of the stupid errors, the mental mistakes, then they'll win by a lot potentially in this football game. But I have nothing to stand on and say, I feel confident that that's going to happen this weekend. I have nothing to look at and say, you know what, I feel great about Notre Dame's effort this weekend. I feel great about them, you know, gutting through and taking this game personal. Like I have no idea if that's going to happen. But if they do, which is a major key obviously football game, Notre Dame will win this football game. I'll go as far as to say that they will win this football game if they play with that type of burn and fire. But I'm not sure if that's necessarily what we're going to get on Saturday. Because it goes down to what we had talked about all week, right? This team doesn't have an identity, which is a really scary thing to face when you go into, you know, enemy territory and you're playing in a way game and a team that smells blood in the water, insert whatever saying you want to put here. But the teams that we saw, the team that we saw against Texas A&M and the team that we saw against Northern Illinois are completely different teams. And we can all agree on that. I think that's a common ground. And to your point, Ryan, the most frustrating thing is you would think that a coach like Marcus Freeman, everybody would want to rise up for. And I'm all on board with that. To me, I'll even go a step further from there. Ryan, to your point, one of the more frustrating things for me is, is hearing that there, it almost sounds like the team's motivation to play well is external, not internal. It's like we need to show the fans that we're back. And it's like, how about you need to show yourself that you're back respectfully, right? Like, it's you don't have to prove anything to us. We're diehard Notre Dame fans. We're going to tune in. I was watching every game in 2016 and 2007. Just like I watched every game in 2018 and 2012. You don't have to prove that to us, right? But for you to start formulating an identity as a team, you need to go out and prove that to yourselves, to your point, Ryan, don't talk about how you hear the booze. I mean, you can if you want to, if that means we were embarrassed by it, we know why that had happened. But don't put this Notre Dame against the world thing when we win, you know, we everyone loves us when we lose everybody hates us. It's not that at all. But to me, coming out against Purdue and being flat is just such a scary, daunting thought. And what makes it even weirder for me is I don't know what team will be out there Saturday. That that's the thing that unsettles me the most. Well, we're going to find out very soon, fellas very soon. 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