Saturday afternoon, Notre Dame and Purdue will meet on the football field for the 88th time. Only USC and Navy have opposed the Irish on more occasions than the Boilermakers, who trail the all-time series 57-26 with two ties. Notre Dame has dominated the oldest and youngest sections of the in-state rivalry, carrying a six-game win streak against Purdue into this week’s game. Before the Irish and Boilermakers collide at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, here’s a look back at the evolution of the series.
What they play for
While Notre Dame and Purdue first met in 1896, they didn’t begin playing for a physical prize until their 29th matchup in 1957. That year, merchant seaman and Notre Dame supporter Joe McLaughlin donated and presented a shillelagh which he had transported from Ireland. The object became known as the Shillelagh Trophy, which the Irish currently own by way of their 2021 defeat of Purdue.
The early years
The rivalry opened with the Irish and Boilermakers meeting 17 times between 1896 and 1939. Most of those matchups took place in West Lafayette, but the first contest played out in South Bend. In that game, Purdue scored a 28-22 win en route to claiming three of the series’ first four wins. After back-to-back Boilermaker shutout wins in 1904 and 1905, the Irish turned the series around with a 2-0 victory in 1906. A year later, they would tie the series at 3-3-2, marking the most recent point of equality in the matchup’s history.
When the series picked back up in 1918, Notre Dame’s first year under Knute Rockne, the Irish really started to dominate. They won all six matchups — played in six consecutive years between 1918 and 1923 — of Rockne’s tenure. Purdue pulled a win back after a 10-year hiatus in 1933, but by the time World War II rolled around, the Irish had won 10 of the last 11 meetings.
Purdue swings momentum as yearly series begins
After the war, in 1946, the Notre Dame-Purdue matchup became a yearly fixture. It would remain so for 78 years. With Frank Leahy at the helm, the Irish extended their dominance in the postwar era, winning seven of the first eight matchups, including one in the 1949 national championship season. The lone Purdue victory in 1950 snapped an overall Irish unbeaten streak of 39 games.
Once Leahy moved on and Jack Mollenkopf took over at Purdue in the mid-1950s, the rivalry began to turn. Between 1954 and 1969, the Boilermakers enjoyed their most prosperous stretch in series history, claiming 11 of 16 matchups. Notre Dame, however, won the first Shillelagh Trophy game in 1957 and got back on track with Ara Parseghian’s arrival. In 1966, the Terry Hanratty-quarterbacked and national championship-bound Irish defeated Purdue, a Rose Bowl qualifier later that season. Two years later, the only No. 1 vs No. 2 matchup in the series’ history took place, with top-ranked Purdue downing Notre Dame by a 37-22 score.
Irish in control after 1970
Over the last 54 years, Notre Dame officially holds a 34-10 advantage on Purdue, excluding the vacated victories of 2012 and 2013. Quarterback Joe Theismann and the Irish broke out in 1970, stomping Purdue to the tune of a 48-0 shutout. From there, Notre Dame lost only seven games to the Boilermakers for the remainder of the 20th century.
The 1977 game served as a major step in Notre Dame’s run to another national title. Purdue led the Irish, who had just lost a game to Ole Miss, by a 24-14 score in the fourth quarter. Into the game went quarterback Joe Montana, who completed a comeback and secured the starting role for a championship push.
Purdue found some success during Notre Dame’s Gerry Faust years in the early 1980s, claiming three of five contests. However, with Lou Holtz’s 1986 arrival in South Bend came a return to the driver’s seat from the Irish. In that 1986 season, Holtz notched his first Notre Dame victory before blowing out the Boilermakers again in the championship season of 1988. During his Irish tenure, Holtz never lost to Purdue, going 11-0.
As soon as Holtz left Notre Dame, Purdue snapped its losing streak and continued its success into the early 2000s. In the eight matchups between 1997 and 2004, Purdue outscored the Irish by 38 points. The 2004 win marked Purdue’s first Notre Dame Stadium in 30 years, while the 2007 victory is the most recent Boilermaker triumph in the series.
Yearly streak ends during Brian Kelly years
Like Lout Holtz, former Irish head coach Brian Kelly earned his first Notre Dame win against Purdue in 2010. He would add another by a 28-point margin a year later in his first trip to West Lafayette. Then came the vacated Irish wins of 2012 and 2013, the latter existing as Notre Dame’s last outing at Ross-Ade Stadium. In 2014, the annual series concluded with Notre Dame defeating Purdue by a 30-14 score at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
The Irish and Boilermakers have met one time since then with a September 2021 matchup in South Bend. A big day from soon-to-be NFL starting running back Kyren Williams paced a 27-13 Notre Dame victory, keeping the Shillelagh Trophy with the Irish.
Looking ahead, Purdue and Notre Dame will meet during each season between 2024 and at least 2028, renewing their annual rivalry to a lesser degree.
