Purdue Focusing on Attention to Detail in Preparing for Notre Dame
There's no question Ryan Walters was pleased with what he saw from Purdue in Saturday's season opener, clobbering an inferior Indiana State team 49-0. After the score went final, though, he broke out his fine-tooth comb and began jotting down notes of where the Boilermakers need to improve.
Saturday's final score indicates that things went really well for Purdue — and they did. Hudson Card completed 24-of-25 passes for 273 yards with four touchdowns, spreading the ball around to 12 different receivers.
The Boilers racked up 11 tackles for loss and three sacks, led by sophomore rush end Will Heldt, who ended the afternoon with seven stops, three tackles for loss and a pair of sacks.
"A lot of good, a lot of positives," Walters said. "There's a few things we need to clean up, especially with that second group when we started rotating guys."
One of the biggest concerns coming out of Saturday's win? Penalties.
The Boilermakers were flagged 11 times for 110 yards against Indiana State. Purdue shot itself multiple times during its final drive of the first half, whistled for two holding calls and a false start. Those miscues cost Purdue a chance to extend its 21-0 lead before heading into the locker room.
It didn't hurt the Boilers in the opener, but Purdue can't afford to be hindered by those drives when No. 5 Notre Dame comes knocking on Sept. 14.
"Definitely have to clean up the penalties," Walters said. "There are a couple that were questionable and whatever. You can learn from those, as well. To me, that was the biggest area that we need to harp on."
Outside of the penalty problem, there wasn't really much to nit-pick about Purdue's performance in the season opener. But that's an observation from someone with an untrained eye.
Like most college football coaches, Walters is meticulous in his approach. Things that the average fan — and sportswriter — don't catch on the big screen stick out like a sore thumb to Purdue's staff.
Against an extremely talented Fighting Irish team, the Boilermakers need to pursue perfection. So, with an extra week to prepare for Notre Dame, Walters is going to search high and low for those hard-to-find errors.
"The thing about ball is, there's never going to be a perfect play, you know what I mean?" Walters said. "There's a wrong step, a wrong hand placement, bad eyes, bad angle. There's a litany of things that you can correct. It's just good to correct it off a performance like that."
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