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That's indeed.com/bluewire. Terms and conditions apply. And to hire, you need Indeed. 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. Welcome everyone to a much more upbeat version of the post-game show. I am Vince De Dario. That guy is Trevor Trowbridge. That guy is Sean Davis. And that guy down there is Ryan Roberts. And we are here to break down Notre Dame's 66 to 7 victory over the Purdue Boilermakers. And gentlemen, this was, well, I'm just going to say it. The second half was boring. All right. I was bored because the game was no longer in doubt. I'm very happy that I was bored in the right way this time and not like I was last game because last game was boring. And Notre Dame obviously came out with the L. So this time, I'm okay with being bored on a 66 to 7 victory. We're going to break it all down for you guys. It was a lot of good in this game, obviously. I mean, the starters were pretty much all out by halftime for the most part. And then, I mean, I think every person that boarded the bus in South Bend down to West Lafayette got to play in this game. So, you know, again, big win for Notre Dame. Kind of a statement win in that they had a lot to speak to after last week. No doubt about that. But we're going to do it how we always do it, boys. And we are going to go round Robin on this thing. Gut reaction to Notre Dame 66 to 7 win over Purdue. We'll just go clockwise, Trevor. You are bat and lead off, my friend. What say you? Prize picks is America's number one daily fantasy sports app with over 5 million active members. Prize picks is the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports. Unlike other apps on prize picks, it's just you against the numbers. All you do is pick more or less on two to six player stat projections and watch the winnings roll in. 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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 ya. 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 gotta be Wendy's at participating U.S. Wendy's. Like I said at the start of the show, significantly happier today than I was seven weeks ago to revisit a lot of the things that we had discussed throughout the week. Some key things that we wanted to see from the team is come out, I mean quite frankly, come out upset and embarrassed at what happened last week. I was very pleased to see that from start to finish Notre Dame treated this like a business trip. Came in, knew that they had a job to get done and again, looking at this with some context and I'm still staying true to what I said last week and throughout the week. This doesn't fix every single problem that the team has in moving forward and if they want to be a playoff team. Let me say that loud and clear before this show gets taken off with how awesome today was and how great that we feel, but some of the major issues that Notre Dame needed to correct after the Northern Illinois game. You can see it on paper that they did, Northern Illinois ran all over. They held Purdue to 38 rushing yards. They couldn't run the ball against Northern Illinois. They had 362 rushing yards as a team. Guys, I'm not saying that this is a perfect finished product by any means, but if this is how you come out and respond, you scored the most points in a road game since 1973. If this is what you're going to do as a team and how you respond, it's better than what I thought. I've already seen it in the chat a couple times and Brian texted us all about it, but I should have kept with my 60-point prediction initially. Too bad I didn't, but that's okay. But initial reactions, loved what I saw, definitely areas to improve, which I know we'll dive in on, but this was the correct response for them today. Yeah, I totally agree with you, Trevor. I think what I expected for this season to be was Notre Dame building a team to be favorite fever pitch going into November and peeking in November collectively. Because for me, there was no game that was going to show me this is a playoff team. This is a champion on the regular season schedule. But there was no game that I felt like this is going to be the game that shows us. They're going to have to prove all of their stars and leaders are going to have to prove it in a playoff game that yes, we are here to elevate this team in this season. That's how it's always been for me. So today was what I expect, a very workman-like opportunity for them to go out. Even coming off of that, I think I love them the most because they played with the excitement that you expected them to play with on a consistent basis. I think that's one of the disappoint things about the loss last week. I think one of the players mentioned we're not even excited on the sideline for each other. It's like, yo, there is something wrong with the enthusiasm. And you can say who that goes to, of course, it goes directly to the head coach. But it seems like there are a lot of factors involved. And Jeremiah Love said at this week when someone asked him, you know, what do you think is wrong that correct things, he was like, I don't know, I just know we have to fix it. And that was a great answer by the young man. I will say this, first half was very workman-like, second half is definitely far more entertaining. And I think that speaks to this team and who they're going to have to be to win. They're going to have to be very workman-like. I think the coaches figured some things out offensively and defensively. Yeah, I feel bad for Purdue because the way Al Golden sounded during the week, I was like, oh boy, they only gave up 13 last week. He's acting like they gave up 40. So I felt bad. And then I just felt like I told Brian during the week, I felt like Purdue was the perfect team for them to face because I knew if Ryan Walters didn't change, Notre Dame is going to have opportunities for multiple big players. Like they would have to change who they were to really force Notre Dame to go outside of themselves. And they couldn't do it on the office side of the ball or the defensive side of the ball. So I think it was a very workman-like. Just reminded me of, you know, back in the day when we'd be watching Notre Dame games and then, you know, you didn't have the access or the TV coverage of College Football, you would just see that in the brass score pop up in the ticket. It'd be like, oh my god, 70 to 10. Like, and then you can see the Oklahoma score. It'd be like 63 to 5 or something crazy. It just felt like Notre Dame could have scored 80 today. It felt like that. Even as more 66, they showed mercy, you know, to see a performance like that. I think the most points on the road since Navy over a decade ago, impressive. He has improvement everything, but I love the way the team responded to Marcus Freeman and the Colton staff this week. I love that. I love that enthusiasm. I think it was spearheaded by the trenches, which was a problem last week, right? And both lines did their job, man. Both lines did their job. But let me tell you something. That second half, if you're a Notre Dame fan, that second half was super exciting. Dude, the future that you got home, it was like, oh, yeah, we're talking about that. Believe me. It was like, okay. Oh, and that is, you know, it's disappointing. As last week was today encapsulated everything that you need to be focused on to buy into what this program has, the potential it has. It really was. You saw everything that the now and the later and why Notre Dame can eventually win an action championship. It's a pretty good day. Hi, everybody. How's everybody tonight? I hope everybody's doing really well. My apologies for anybody that's watching on YouTube. I had to ditch the green screen and it got kind of funky there for a minute because I'm an idiot and I forgot my webcam. So yeah, it looked too great. But I think Trevor, Sean, Vince, I think you hit on something very key. And trying to know that you just hit on it very in-depth here is there's always going to still be questions even after a victory, right? There's going to be questions whether you win or you lose all the time. That's why analysts exist because not everything is going to be perfect. Every single week, we obviously know that. And we'll talk about the stuff that does still need to be fixed because there are certainly things that need to be fixed even after a 66 to 7 victory over a power 14, which is just kind of wild to say. But here's the first and foremost. I've talked about Sean this week and I know we discussed it a little bit last Saturday, me and you specifically kind of been a little bit of a back and forth, right? And I've been talking about it all week. I thought that there is an issue here of why is this team so inconsistent with showing up for games, right? It just seems like for whatever reason, some weeks, they're completely locked in, other weeks, they're completely not. And this was a week of, I mean, constant criticism, right? Like everybody in their mother is going to criticize you. It moves way past ESPN and all the national pundits. Like your own fan base is critical of you all week because of the disgusting display that you put on last Saturday against Jordan, Illinois. Everybody's critical and they should be. You lose a game like that. Everybody should be like, dude, what the heck is this? What is this product that I'm paying my hard money in either watching or going to a football game, right? Like that was a waste of a Saturday in a lot of instances. But the two things that I thought was going to happen this week and Trevor, I know we talked about this on Thursday. I mentioned this very like a lot. There was two outcomes that were going to happen tonight. Either Notre Dame was going to boat race this team and absolutely dominate them or they were going to look lethargic again. And they were going to win or lose a three point game, right? At the end of the game where you're just like, even if they lose, even if they win 24 21, you're going to come out out of it. Still not feeling good about yourself. It's like, what the heck is that? Now, 66th of seven, and I still don't feel satisfied, right? Because last week did still happen. But one thing that did happen today, which I'm very happy about is progress. Marcus Freeman got this team prepared. They were locked in. They look like they made it personal. They looked pissed off this week. They were flying around defensively offensively. You finally saw the speed like, where's Jeremiah loves speed? Where's Judeurian prices speed? Well, we saw a lot of it. And I think the offensive line really took this upon themselves, man. Like they played their best game by far as we get into this offensive breakdown soon here. So I think just overall, I'm happy that Coach Freeman got through to his team this week. And I'm happy that the players took this personally, right? Like you just got embarrassed on your home field last week. You could have easily as an 18 to 22 year old, tucked your tail between the legs and just felt sorry for yourself. Because, oh man, we're Notre Dame and we lost Northern Illinois and we stink. But they responded. So hats off to them. And every time you win a football game, it is a lot easier to find those answers during the week. It is every single time. When you lose a game like you did last week, that takes the focus off of improving one thing each and every day. We're improving 1% each and every day. And I do believe that Notre Dame took a good step today. It's not out of the woods. Your back is still against the wall because there is no margin for error for the rest of the season. But overall, they responded to Coach Freeman, which is one thing that I was curious to see this week because I honestly did question that if this team was going to quit a little bit, right? Like you know, reading the press clipings all the way until last weekend, everyone's picking you to go to the playoffs. Everybody's picking you to be the five seed. Everybody's picking you as a dark horse to be a national title contender after your win against Texas A&M and you lost. And you lost in pathetic fashion. So hats off to the team, hats off to the coaching staff, for today, they responded in a best possible way, winning 66 to 7 against again, a not bad football team. It really isn't. I guarantee it. We'll talk about this in the offensive breakdown. I think that that Purdue defense is going to end up being a pretty dang good defense this year as far as like rankings in the big 10. And you made them look like they sucked. Like you made them look like they were an FCS team a lot of the day. You did. So progress, progress. Next week has to continue that the week after the week after that. That's how you continually build the program. The problem with Coach Freeman's teams up until this point has been these peaks and valleys, right? You take two steps forward. Someone asked him about it this week. You take three steps forward. Why do you keep taking one or two steps back after taking those steps forward? You have to continuously improve incrementally throughout a season and in throughout a tenure as a coach. This was a good step. Now can you follow up next week and the week after that and the week after that? That's what we call progress. 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 Rever You Get Podcasts. Hey Irish Breakdown listeners, it's Matt Liner. I've got a podcast called Throwbacks with actor Jay Farrar, 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. You guys hit the nail in the head all the way around. I'm just going to mention something that I don't know that anybody else mentioned yet. And we'll dive into it more specifically. But one of the things that needed to be seen in this game was adjustments from the coaching staff, like philosophy changes, play calling changes. We talked all week about how you got to let Rylie Leonard be Rylie Leonard. If you are going to keep him as your starting quarterback, and honestly, there were a lot of people out there that wanted to bench him. But if you want to keep Rylie Leonard as your quarterback, you have to call plays and you have to have a philosophy offensively that is going to allow Rylie Leonard to be Rylie Leonard. Right? First drive of the game, he runs the ball on designed runs, I think five times. It was like, okay, here we go. They're going to let Rylie be Rylie, right? And he was able to, look, there's still plenty of room for improvement for Rylie Leonard. And I don't think any one of the four of us or even Brian is going to say that he played the perfect game as a quarterback, no way. But he was able to play to his strengths. He was able to run the football. He was able to force the defense to try to account for him in the run game, which opened up some things in the past game. He still needs to be able to hit some guys downfield. He missed some of those throws. There's no doubt about it. He needs to keep his eyes downfield. Okay, great. I get it. But he still had a hundred yards rushing on 11 carries for three touchdowns in the first half. And Mike Dembrock called a game that allowed Rylie Leonard to be that guy. We haven't seen that. We saw it a little bit in the Texas A&M game, specifically on the final drive of the game. That's why they were able to drive the ball down the field, right? Because Rylie was running the ball, was able to make some throws based on the way he was running the ball, things like that, allows him to get into a rhythm. He was able to do those things today. For whatever reason, they didn't have him doing it last week. And it showed offense wasn't any good, period, right? So I like what I saw in that regard defensively. I like what Al Golden. I mean, look, it was a very typical Al Golden called game, in my opinion. He just kept the pressure on and, you know, allowed his guys to make plays. But you needed it. You needed it because that was the part of the game that went under the, it went under the surface last week, because of how poor the offense played, that the defense was lethargic too last week, right? Absolutely. So like, it was great to see. They played with the energy. Like, I don't think, I don't think Al Golden called a game any differently than he really has over the last, you know, year and a half, right? But the players responded to the way he was calling the game. And they were enthusiastic and they were, you know, making plays. And I mean, it started off with Jack Kaiser doing his thing and getting in the back. I mean, they were just bringing pressure and when all the backups got in, he didn't call the game any differently, by the way, but he was still bringing pressure because Purdue, for whatever reason, I guess, Walter's making a statement or whatever, but they never took anybody out of the game, which was an interesting statement to make when you're down by almost 60 points. But, you know, he just kept bringing the pressures like, okay, cool, if you're going to keep your starters in, I'm going to keep bringing pressure, no matter who's in the ballgame. And so, I think it allowed the defense from top to bottom to play with their hair on fire, to play the way I think this defense was put together to play. That's the way they're the best, right? So, long story short, my gut reaction is, I was happy with the way they approached this game from a coaching standpoint. And, of course, if we're going to blame Marcus Freeman for the way they approached it last week, then I got to give him credit for the way they approached it this week. He allowed Mike Denmark to call the offense the way the offense needed to be called, right? It wasn't a, hey, play within, you know, the confines of the offense and do all these different things. It was like, okay, hey, you know, you were the best offense in the country for a reason, I'm going to let you do your thing. And then we saw it. So, you know, big props to the coaching staff today. Let's see if it continues week to week to week because there are bigger opponents on the schedule. And I think that is what everybody is sitting back and waiting to see, okay? So, like, I realized Florida State is 0 and 3, but Florida State coming to Notre Dame is still a big game. It's still, it's still a big game. I don't care what the record is, still a big game, Louisville, still a big game, USC, still a big game, right? So, what is it going to look like when Notre Dame goes into those games? If it is like it was today with play, I'm not saying 66 to 7, but I'm talking about play calling and allowing your guys to do what they do and all of those different things. If they do that week in, week out for the rest of the season, then we know that this coaching staff has turned the corner. And that's what I need to see. Go ahead, Ryan. I think that you need to stack games, right? Absolutely. You need to stack days. The only way for Notre Dame fans to buy in even slightly, because again, like, people are still going to be pessimistic after this game. They're going to say, maybe produce things, right? Like, we have a very small sample size. We have literally Purdue against Notre Dame, and we have Purdue against Indiana States. Like, that is not a, that's not a great data set of like, just how good a football team is. After watching the film this week, I do think Purdue was a lot better than what they showed today. So I don't think that this was a bet. I mean, I think this was a very quality win, in my opinion. But ultimately, Notre Dame fans are only going to buy in if you start showing this every week, right? Like, not again, not 66 to seven, but like the same effort, the same physicality, the same temperament. Like, you need that, ultimately, if Coach Freeman does want this to be a line driven team on both sides and runs the football, fine. I'll accept it. I don't love it, but I'll accept it. But ultimately, if you're going to be that team, act like that team. Be bullies, right? Like, be physical. Don't back down. Be the team that you were today. So if they start stacking days, it starts making you feel a little bit better. This is a step. Now, a step doesn't matter if you don't continuously make steps. Like, you're not going to get to the top of the, top of the staircase if you take one step and then you just stop moving ultimately, right? So I think that this is a stepping stone, hopefully, but we've been down this road before with Marcus Freeman. That's why the question came up again of three steps forward a step or two back this week because we have seen positivity, but it hasn't been followed up with continuous action, right? So I need this team to be locked in like this every single week. They're going to make mistakes. They made mistakes today, but ultimately they won today because they're really talented and they played hard. Like, that's a step. You need to be able to do that. Now we can clean up the other stuff, but hopefully this is a stepping stone, but I mean, naturally, as an early event, I am pessimistic about them making another solid step next week, but you can utilize this. It's now about stacking games, stacking days. I mean, Marcus Freeman touched on it when he, it was early in the game and the sideline reporter was talking about what he talked to Riley Leonard about. And honestly, it was a little bit of a different theme than what it was last week instead of talking about limiting him, talked a lot about his mentality and his mindset going into this game, which I really liked. And I hope that this is going to be the mantra for the team moving forward, but he talked about how you have to tune out the praise and the criticism if you want to continue to get better, which I really, really like. So with Notre Dame being talked about all week about how they can't handle success and, and they got caught up with all the playoff talk, I hope that they are able to tune out some of the praise of there's going to be a lot of people that talk about how Notre Dame's back and they're, you know, now they're fighting for a home playoff game again instead of being on the outside looking in. And so I really hope that the mentality of this team is going from somewhere in the gray, celebrate the win, you just beat a team on the road by 59 points, celebrate the win, right? But you also have to live in the gray of, yes, this game was awesome, short, you know, short memory mentality almost, and you're back to work tomorrow because this week and the Miami of Ohio game is honestly going to show me, I would say at a bare minimum, the same that this week showed me to make sure the team can handle success. And that consistency button that we've been hitting so hard is going to start to come to fruition. Really excited to see what that's about. Sean? Yeah, I think it's kind of just echo the same thing that's going to say it. They're going to prove a lot week to week, right? Because, as I said before, I expected this to be the workman-like season. This is what I expected. You workman-like week after week. And then eventually by November, this team peaks and it's ready to go into the playoffs and make a move. And I think in saying that, one of the things you talk about with this coaching staff that they still have to answer is they have to answer whether or not they can take that next step and be a championship team because you go back and you can look at some of the best college football teams ever. They all have that one or two game that they put up a stinker, but they found a way to win. That's what championship games teams do. All talented teams can win the majority of the time. The really good teams, when they put up a stinker and they're not at their best, they still find a way to win. And that's when your star players, usually your leaders have to step up the most. Let's be honest, as bad as they played with five minutes left, they had the ball at the 50-yard line with a chance to. They could have won by eight points playing horribly and the narrative would have been totally different and they could have come out with Purdue still with a lot to prove to themselves. Like, dude, we stunk it up. Yes, we won. We stunk it up. We need to go roll Purdue. They could have done the exact same thing by getting over the hump and winning a game when they played it back. For me, I know they could be working in life. I've seen that. I've seen that. Can you win when you don't play your best? You have to prove that as a championship program. They have not that know that hurdle yet. And that needs to be proven. I think they probably still have one more game, like Northern Illinois was like, "Okay, things aren't going our way. The ball isn't bouncing our way, but yet still, here we are in the fourth quarter. Either we need to go score or the defense needs to make a stop." Can you win those games? Because you're going to have one or two of those every year if you consider yourself a championship program. And that is one of the biggest hurdles that I think is still facing Market Street, right? They had opportunities to go ahead and win that Marshall game. They had opportunities to beat Ohio State late. So this is what it is, man. When you're not at your best, can you find a way to win games? That still has to be answered. And I think they're probably going to get another opportunity as the season goes on. Sure. Yep. No doubt about it. And, you know, they face a lot of adversity coming into this game, right? A lot of talk going on based on what happened last game. A lot of adversity on off the field, the whole deal, right? And I think today, they at least answered in the immediate, they answered the bell, right? I mean, they did put up 66 points. You had to pick six. Yeah. I mean, you name, we're going to get into the details here in a second. But overall, look, this team, they could not have played really a better game as a whole, as a team, as a coaching staff today. That's the thing that I think we need to take away. So like in a nutshell, this is a great game. They answered a lot of questions that everybody had at the end of the day, of course, to Sean's point. This is one game. They need to stack games, right? I think that's what Ryan said. They need to stack games. We all agree with that. We said it, you know, both Jesse Sean and myself, we said it in the pre-game show, like, I'm taking this team week to week, right? People are talking about, you know, can they still make the playoffs if they run the table? You know, cue the cue the playoffs. Like, we're not, we're not talking playoffs, right? We're talking one game at a time. And in this particular game, they kick butt and they did exactly what they needed to do. It was fantastic. It was awesome. I mean, how many times you broke up on my end. Can you do that one more time? Just hit the rewind button. That's okay. But look, guys, they put up 66. They got all four quarterbacks in the game. Like I said, everybody that got a seat on the bus got to play. You know what I mean? So this is a big day for Notre Dame. It was great. It was a big day. Enjoy it. That three hour bus ride home is going to be fantastic. They're going to eat like kings. They're going to enjoy the bus ride. And then tomorrow they get back to work and they have to go do this again, right? And they need to do it in front of the home crowd. So today is a good day. And we'll focus on what today is. And sorry, Brian, two and a half, two hours, my bad. I just assume Purdue is about three hours away. I haven't made that trip in a while. So, so yeah, two and a half. Okay, my bad. Buses go slower than cars though. I will just say that I've written a lot of buses. They go a lot slower than cars. But anyway, today they need to celebrate. It was a good win. A lot of things went right for Notre Dame. They answered the bell. They did a great job. And I think that's what we need to focus on, obviously, as a as a entire fan base, right? And we'll break it. We'll bring it. We're going to break down everything, offense, defense, etc. And I'm even going to talk about how bad the punter was. But we're going to get to all of it. All right, we're going to get to all of it. So in the meantime, make sure you hit that like button, that subscribe button, that notification bell, share it to family and friends, all the fun stuff. We'd really appreciate it. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] At King Super's Pharmacy, Care is making it easy to get vaccinated. 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