Notre Dame Offense Clicking

Notre Dame’s offense rolled for the second consecutive week, producing a 45-20 victory over error-plagued Purdue on Saturday.

The eighth-ranked Irish, who accumulated 650 yards the previous week against Michigan State, had Tony Brooks rush for a career-high 141 yards, including a career-best 57-yarder.

Notre Dame (3-1) gained 267 yards on the ground and 166 passing.

“I feel the line was awesome,” Brooks said. “They played a tremendous game.”

Quarterback Rick Mirer, who had missed two practices during the week with a strained muscle in his rib cage and didn’t start, ran for one touchdown, passed for two scores and completed 12 of 14 passes for 139 yards.

“We’re just playing better as a team, and when everybody does their job it just seems to benefit a lot of people,” Mirer said. “I didn’t have a lot of pressure throwing the ball. They gave us what we expected.”

Added Notre Dame Coach Lou Holtz: “I felt offensively we were very, very crisp and very sharp. I did not expect us to have the degree of success we had.”

Tight end Derek Brown caught Mirer’s two scoring passes, and fullback Jerome Bettis scored on runs of six and two yards to lead the Irish, who scored twice after recovering fumbles by Purdue (1-2) and once following a pass interception.