Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM SEPT. 14, 2024 37 GAME PREVIEW: PURDUE both phases of its offense. Freshman quarterback Elijah Owens was 5-of-10 passing for 50 yards. Six different Syca- mores, including Owens, combined to rush 43 times for 104 yards, yielding an average of 2.4 yards per carry. And that's with a 20-yard scramble from Owens. Without that, it'd have been an even longer day for the boys in blue. "We just stuck to the basics, did what we needed to do," sophomore defensive back Dillon Thieneman said. This is a Purdue defense that was once led by the matchup nightmare of a defensive end that Notre Dame had to face in Week 1 — 2023 Big Ten sacks leader Nic Scourton, who's finishing his college career at Texas A&M. And yet, somehow there's a sense of optimism in the room that oozes with "we're all we got, we're all we need." The Boilermakers finished dead last in Big Ten scoring defense in 2023 even with Scourton. They scored their first shutout since blanking the same Syca- mores 56-0 in 2022, a season in which they won twice as many games, eight, as they did last year. Are they all they got? Absolutely. Ev- erybody is at this stage, including Notre Dame. There is no trade deadline in colle- giate sports. Are they all they need? They'll find out when they host the Fighting Irish for the first time in more than 10 years. "As long as we play our game of foot- ball, we trust each other, we're all on the same page, we can definitely com- pete with anyone out there," Thieneman said. ✦ 2024 NOTRE DAME SCHEDULE Date Opponent (TV) Result/Time (ET) Aug. 31 at Texas A&M W, 23-13 Sept. 7 Northern Illinois L, 16-14 Sept. 14 at Purdue (CBS) 3:30 p.m. Sept. 21 Miami (Ohio) (NBC) 3:30 p.m. Sept. 28 Louisville (Peacock) 3:30 p.m. Oct. 12 Stanford (NBC) 3:30 p.m. Oct. 19 vs. Georgia Tech# TBA Oct. 26 vs. Navy^ (ABC/ESPN) 12 p.m. Nov. 9 Florida State (NBC) 7:30 p.m. Nov. 16 Virginia (NBC) 3:30 p.m. Nov. 23 vs. Army* (NBC) 7 p.m. Nov. 30 at USC TBA # at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta; ^ at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.; * Shamrock Series at Yankee Stadium in The Bronx, N.Y. ; Games on NBC are also televised by Peacock Defensive end Will Heldt opened his sophomore season with a bang, notching 3 tackles for loss and 2 sacks among 7 total stops as part of a defense that blanked Indiana State. PHOTO COURTESY PURDUE 2024 PURDUE SCHEDULE Date Opponent (TV) Result/Time (ET) Aug. 31 Indiana State W, 49-0 Sept. 14 Notre Dame (CBS) 3:30 p.m. Sept. 21 at Oregon State (CW) 8:30 p.m. Sept. 28 Nebraska 12 p.m. Oct. 5 at Wisconsin TBA Oct. 12 at Illinois TBA Oct. 18 Oregon (FOX) 8 p.m. Nov. 2 Northwestern TBA Nov. 9 at Ohio State TBA Nov. 16 Penn State TBA Nov. 22 at Michigan State (FOX) 8 p.m. Nov. 30 at Indiana TBA