Notre Dame wins, but does not impress

By Justin Albers
basketballss132002@yahoo.com
INDIANAPOLIS- The Fighting Irish of Notre Dame are now 4-1, and still have their BCS hopes alive after a 35-21 win over Purdue. Notre Dame's offense looked pretty good, but the defense was absolutely unacceptable. They cannot expect to win many games playing like that.
The Irish scored on their opening drive of the game. They established the run on that drive, involving RB Darius Walker on all put one of the plays. WR George West scored his first touchdown of the season on a reverse to give ND a 7-0 early lead. Purdue would answer late in the first quarter on a 7 yard Kory Sheets TD run. Notre Dame came right back just before the end of the quarter with a 13 yard Darius Walker run to give the Irish a 14-7 lead after the opening quarter.
The Notre Dame defense held Purdue on the next drive, and the offense was able to punch it in again. This time it was a 5 yard pass from Brady Quinn the Rhema McKnight to give the Irish some breathing room with 8:50 to go in the first half. The defense continued to hold later in the second, giving Notre Dame the ball back right before the half. The Irish marched the ball all the way down the field, but then brought on the field goal unit on 4th down from the 6 yard line. Jeff Samardzija faked the field goal and took it in for a Notre Dame touchdown with 1:22 to go in the half. It looked like the Irish were going to go into the locker room with a nice 21 point lead at the half, but not so. The defense gave up an 88 yard touchdown pass from Curtis Painter to Selwyn Lymon to cut the lead to 14.
The third quarter was quiet, the only score being a 12 yard touchdown pass from Brady Quinn the Rhema McKnight. Purdue would add a touchdown with 7:16 to go in the game, but they would not make the game interesting at the end. The Irish were on top of a 35-21 final score.
Despite the win, I am still very nervous about the Notre Dame team, and I really don't see them in a BCS bowl at this point. There is no way to beat a team like USC when your defense is giving up almost 500 yards to a team like Purdue. This was a game where the Irish secondary needed to prove that they were not going to hold the team down, and they were just unable to do that. The secondary was burnt on multiple plays, mainly the 88 yard pass to end the half. A win is a win, but the Irish do not impress me right now.

Key Players:
Notre Dame:
Brady Quinn 29/38 318 yards 2 TD 0 INT
Darius Walker 31 carries 144 yards 1 TD, 9 rec 74 yards
Rhema McKnight 10 rec 120 yards 2 TD

Purdue:
Curtis Painter 23/46 399 yards 2 TD 0 INT
Kory Sheets 7 carries 46 yards 1 TD
Selwyn Lymon 8 rec 238 yards 2 TD

Total Yards: Purdue 492 Notre Dame 456

Attendance: 80,795

The rest of the top 25.....
#1 Ohio State 38 #13 Iowa 17 #14 Oregon 48 ASU 13
#2 Auburn 24 South Carolina 17 #15 Tennesee 41 Memphis 7
#3 USC 28 Washington St. 22 #17 TCU 17 BYU 31
#5 Florida 28 Alabama 13 #18 Clemson 51 LT 0
#6 Michigan 28 Minnesota 14 #20 Cal 41 OSU 13
#7 Texas 56 SHSU 3 #21 Nebraska 39 KU 32 OT
\#9 LSU 48 Miss St. 17 #22 Boise State 36 Utah 3
#10 Georiga 14 Miss. 9 #23 Rutgers 22 South Florida 20
#11 Virginia Tech 27 #24 GT 38 #25 Missouri 28 Colorado 13