Notre Dame Football: Fighting Irish Will Continue Flight with Win over Purdue

That deafening silence coming out of South Bend these days? It's the sign and sound of college football satisfaction creeping, slowly but surely, back into Notre Dame.

After a disappointing start to the season, the Fighting Irish are, like Stella before them, in the process of getting their groove back, with in-state rival Purdue providing the latest correctional fodder for Brian Kelly's bunch.

The trouble that began with a shocking home loss to South Florida and a disappointing road defeat to rival Michigan has since subsided, at least somewhat, in the wake of victories over a ranked Michigan State squad and at Pittsburgh.

Certainly, the Irish wouldn't mind getting credit, if they could, for a "win" over USF after the way Pitt did away with them on Thursday.

Turnovers and Tommy Rees still post concerns for Notre Dame going forward, but at least the team's managed to avert a total meltdown over the last two weeks.

The Irish have given the ball away five times in their wins combined, which doesn't seem all that encouraging when you consider that they coughed up five turnovers in each of their losses. In that sense, then, the Irish are headed in the right direction, albeit at a slower-than-satisfactory pace.

As for Rees, he's not exactly setting the world on fire statistically, but he's improving as a game manager, learning to use brains over brawn to get the job done (unlike Dayne Crist). Rees' numbers have actually gone down in his team's wins, as have those of running backs Cierre Wood and Jonas Gray.

So how, pray tell, is Notre Dame actually doing better?

Well, aside from doing a marginally better job of hanging onto the ball when they have, the Irish has stepped it up considerably on defense, limiting opponents to fewer yards on some occasions and forcing more turnovers when "bend, but don't break" becomes the team's modus operandi.

None of this progress, encouraging as it may be, suggests that Notre Dame is yet ready for prime time, even if all of their games end up on national TV one way or another. The offense needs to be more productive and (once again) more careful with the ball while the defense needs to do a better job of getting three-and-outs rather than subjecting itself to the torture of long drives.

That being said, nine wins and the spot in the BCS that come with them are anything but out of the question at this point. Notre Dame's schedule appears more and more manageable with each passing week.

In fact, the season finale at No. 6 Stanford looks like the only game on their slate for which the Irish will be double-digit dogs. The Irish should be favored against Air Force and Navy as well as in each of their three ACC showdowns (at Wake Forest, home against Maryland and Boston College).

USC, fresh off a 43-22 loss at Arizona State, has looked beatable all season, not unlike 2010, during which Notre Dame finally snapped its eight-game losing streak against the Trojans. What's more, this year's edition will be played in South Bend.

And let's not forget about the task at hand—a trip to West Lafayette to play Purdue. The Boilermakers have yet to emerge from their post-Joe Tiller malaise, a 24-22 loss to Rice serving as the most recent indication of that fact.

Notre Dame has claimed the Shillelagh Trophy from Purdue three years running and appear poised to keep it in South Bend for at least one more. With that, the Irish will move to 3-2 on the season, with six eminently winnable games to follow. As such, Notre Dame could (and, perhaps, should) go into its final game, against the Cardinal, with nine wins.

Just enough to sneak into the BCS and make the panic of the early season a long-distant memory, if not a lost remnant of Notre Dame's past entirely.

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