Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM SEPT. 27, 2025 27 CJ CARR SETS JORDAN FAISON UP FOR SUCCESS If there was any doubt about the meaning of the hand signal Notre Dame quarterback CJ Carr made before throwing a 48-yard touchdown pass to junior wide receiver Jordan Faison on Saturday, Faison removed it. "CJ had some visions out there," Fai- son said after Notre Dame's 56-30 vic- tory over Purdue. "I'm looking into him. He gave me a little check, a little stutter, so, I made it happen. The DB fell for it, because we kept running them out routes and hit it for a deep one." Carr, a redshirt freshman who just finished his third career start, shrugged with a smile when it was his turn to talk to reporters about the play. "Now we got to change the signal, you know what I mean?" Carr said of the signal he made before the snap. Carr gave Faison, a junior who fin- ished with a team-high 5 catches for 105 yards, the green light to run an out-and-up route to take advantage of cornerback Hudauri Hines' aggressive coverage. Carr started to pull the trig- ger on the deep ball to Faison almost immediately after Faison straightened his route downfield and created all kinds of separation from the defender. He hit Faison in stride to catch the ball inside the 15-yard line and finish a race through the goal line. "A few plays earlier we'd seen the cor- ner not jump, but he was squatting on one of those outs," Carr said. "And so, I thought it was a good time to get out there and get a little double move on him. It ended up working." Pretty much everything worked for Carr in his first win as a starter. He fin- ished 10-of-12 passing for 223 yards with 2 touchdowns. His biggest blem- ish came on a strip sack fumble before the end of the first half. The No. 24 Irish (1-2) didn't need to rely heavily on the passing game while running backs Jeremiyah Love (19 car- ries for 157 yards and 2 touchdowns) and Jadarian Price (9 carries for 74 yards and 3 touchdowns) provided plenty of offense. But Carr and his receivers re- mained ready when it was time to let it rip. "Whenever the ball's in the air, it's our job to go and get it," Faison said. "That's what we're going to do. "If we've got to run the ball 60 times a game, we're going to go out there and block our asses off for the — I don't know if I'm allowed to curse, my bad — block our butts off for the running backs and kind of make this thing go. That's what we're gonna do every day." A week after Notre Dame's offense accounted for 33 points in a 41-40 loss to Texas A&M, the unit left zero doubt that Purdue (2-2) would be able to keep pace with the Irish scoring. A good per- formance in a winning effort feels so much better than in a losing one. "It feels great," Faison said. "Losing these close games like we have the past two weeks, it hurts. Obviously, all the work you put in to end in a failure. "But I think it's allowed us to play with a chip on our shoulder and come out and kind of still see the good in ev- erything and use that as fuel to go out and perform like we did tonight." — Tyler James DALLAS GOLDEN SHOWS GROWING PAINS, THEN GAINS IN EMERGENCY START Dallas Golden never played a snap as a nickel back, covering slot receivers in high school, and only really started practicing being one in earnest at the college level this past week. And at times that newness showed during a 65-snap college football de- but for the Notre Dame freshman cor- nerback in an emergency start. And at times during the Fighting Irish's 56-30 subduing of Purdue at Notre Dame Sta- dium, he showed breathtaking glimpses of what he could become. That includes his first career inter- ception on a day when three Irish de- fenders made their first college starts in the same game, something that hadn't happened since 1972. And all of them in the defensive backfield, with fellow freshman cornerback Mark Zackery IV and redshirt freshman safety Tae John- son joining him. "Well, I think Dallas is a guy that, since PURDUE GAME NOTES BY TYLER JAMES AND ERIC HANSEN Redshirt freshman CJ Carr gave a hand signal — a green light to run an out-and-up route — to junior wide receiver Jordan Faison at the line of scrimmage and then proceeded to hit him in stride for a 48-yard touchdown pass. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER