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Notre Dame dominated Purdue's offensive front on Saturday, recording 6.0 sacks and four quarterback hits.  Pro Football Focus says the Fighting Irish generated 29 pressures, with 20 hurries of quarterbacks Ryan Browne and Evans Chuba on 47 dropbacks. That's the type of effort up front the Irish needed to squash the Boilermakers' well-respected passing offense. Browne entered the contest throwing for 341.3 yards per game, which ranked second nationally. On Saturday, he completed 64% of his passes for 111 yards and 4.0 yards per attempt. More importantly, the pressure mostly came from the front four, with five different defensive linemen recording at least half a sack.  One of those led to Notre Dame's third defensive score of the season. "I knew we had to get pressure on the quarterback," Freeman said. "However many guys we had to send him, we would do, but we got good four-man pressure. The one play which was huge is I think Bryce [Young's] sacks the quarterback, Boubacar [Traore] forces a fumble. Drayk [Bowen] scoops and scores. That was a huge moment for us. It put us up 28.  "I think so. And then the offense comes back in a two-minute situation and goes scored, but that play was huge. But it was the pressure. It was the four-man pressure that we were able to get on the quarterback that really helped this defense." In the first three games, Notre Dame had limited pass rush opportunities while facing Rice's triple-option offense and two quick-passing teams in Wisconsin and Michigan State. Still, the Irish's 13.0 sacks rank on the season is tied for ninth in the FBS. That total should increase this weekend. North Carolina is allowing 2.33 sacks per game, which ranks tied for 106th out of 138 FBS teams.  Young received most of the headlines for his two-sack performance, but Traore somewhat quietly led the Fighting Irish with a career-high seven pressures on 25 pass rush opportunities. Notre Dame EDGE Boubacar Traore | Week 4 vs Purdue: ☘️ 0.5 Sacks ☘️ 7 QB Pressures ☘️ 90.0 Pass Rush Grade ☘️ 32% Win Rate@NDFootball pic.twitter.com/vpCQ9jvI5W — PFF College (@PFF_College) September 27, 2026