Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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34 SEPT. 18, 2021 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED GAME PREVIEW: PURDUE to do to get the program going in the right direction but whether it can stay pointed upward. At the moment, Pur- due is teetering on a seesaw favoring the low end of it. Like Brohm said — his team is close, but it's just not fully there yet. It isn't at the point where it can go on the road to play a top-10 team like Notre Dame and have talking heads in the media picking an upset special. Now, if junior quarterback Jack Plum- mer plays like he did against Oregon State the rest of the year then maybe that narrative will come about when Purdue takes on No. 10 Iowa and No. 3 Ohio State in hostile environments later this season. Plummer connected on 29 of 41 throws for 313 yards with two touch- downs and zero interceptions in the opener. He certainly isn't afraid to sling the ball around a little bit; that passing total didn't come close to his career- high mark of 420 yards against Mary- land two years ago. He threw for 327 against Iowa in the very next game that year. In three games last year, Plummer threw for 367, 237 and 334 yards with eight touchdown passes and two in- terceptions. This is the first season in which Brohm has handed the keys to the Purdue offense to Plummer, and he has taken them and run with them. "I thought Jack was a great leader throughout the game, did some good things," Brohm said of Plummer's per- formance in the Oregon State game. "He was able to extend some plays with his feet, which helped us at times. He was able to buy some time to get a couple completions, and buy some time to throw the ball away and not take a sack, and those are always beneficial, and then I thought that down the stretch, he played clutch for us and delivered. "I think that was just due to the work ethic that he had and the prepa- ration he put in. So, I was proud of his performance." It's no surprise junior wide receiver David Bell was Plummer's top target. Bell had more than 1,000 receiving yards as a freshman and averaged more than 100 yards per game last season as a sophomore. Bell caught eight passes for 134 yards in Week 1. He's going to test Notre Dame cor- 2021 NOTRE DAME SCHEDULE Date Opponent (TV) Result/Time (ET) Sept. 5 at Florida State W, 41-38 (OT) Sept. 11 Toledo W, 32-29 Sept. 18 Purdue (NBC) 2:30 p.m. Sept. 25 vs. Wisconsin* (FOX) 12 p.m. Oct. 2 Cincinnati (NBC) 2:30 p.m. Oct. 9 at Virginia Tech TBA Oct. 23 USC (NBC) 7:30 p.m. Oct. 30 North Carolina (NBC) 7:30 p.m. Nov. 6 Navy (NBC) 3:30 p.m. Nov. 13 at Virginia TBA Nov. 20 Georgia Tech (NBC) 2:30 p.m. Nov. 27 at Stanford TBA * at Soldier Field in Chicago 2021 PURDUE SCHEDULE Date Opponent (TV) Result/Time (ET) Sept. 4 Oregon State W, 30-21 Sept. 11 at Connecticut W, 49-0 Sept. 18 at Notre Dame (NBC) 2:30 p.m. Sept. 25 Illinois TBA Oct. 2 Minnesota 12 p.m. Oct. 16 at Iowa 3:30 p.m. Oct. 23 Wisconsin TBA Oct. 30 at Nebraska TBA Nov. 6 Michigan State TBA Nov. 13 at Ohio State TBA Nov. 20 at Northwestern TBA Nov. 27 Indiana TBA Purdue junior quarterback Jack Plummer completed 29 of 41 passes for 313 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions in a 30-21 win over Oregon State Sept. 4. PHOTO COURTESY @KROCKPHOTO