It is finally the most wonderful time of the year, college football is back. This year, Bobby Petrino and the Louisville football program have their most daunting opener in recent memory as they take on the defending national champions, the Alabama Crimson Tide.
The recent history of opening games has revealed a lot about each team Louisville football has put out on the field. In 2015, we were introduced to a freshman Lamar Jackson running all around an elite Auburn defense. In 2017, we unfortunately learned that the defense was going to be an issue all season long against an up and coming Purdue team under newly appointed head coach, Jeff Brohm.
This year is going to be different. It will be hard to predict what kind of season Louisville will have after the season opener, and even the next two games after that against Indiana State and Western Kentucky.
Recently, Alabama has had a track record of blowing teams out of the stadium in opening season games. Their fast but fundamental defense has seemed to shut down the other teams play makers, even guys like Deiondre Francois and Sam Darnold. Recently their offense has upgraded from a simplistic but brutal between the tackles running game, to a more flamboyant air attack highlighting the ability of their talented receivers. That could only grow this season if Tua Tagovailoa is named the full time starting quarterback.
Meanwhile, Louisville is coming off a disappointing season some may say and the team this year is hungry for more. New defensive coordinator, Brian VanGorder plans to implement a style that will (hopefully) be a happy medium between the coverage based style of former defensive coordinator Peter Sirmon and the aggressive pass rush that was found with another former defensive coordinator, Todd Grantham. It will be interesting to see what the defense will do this year but for the first time in awhile, there is depth on the defensive side of the ball.
Another question mark that we will know more about on Saturday is life after Lamar Jackson. Jawon Pass will be given the keys to the offense (with Petrino as the driving instructor of course) and for the first time, we will finally see what the Pass era has in store. However, Pass is no slouch at the position. He has a 6’4″ 235+ frame and was one of Petrino’s first big commitments in his second tenure. The former all-american chose the Cards over the Tide and has shown great promise in the times he played after Jackson was finished for the night.
The question then arises, what can we learn about this team with such a tall task ahead of them on Saturday?
The first answer one might say would be that this team certainly is not afraid of the challenge. Over the past few weeks the team has been very vocal that they can not only hang with the champs, but dethrone them from the top spot.
In addition, if the team comes out and plays a competitive game and makes it interesting, that would be considered a positive takeaway from the game.
Now I know what you’re probably thinking. No moral victories, we should be above that and I would agree with you. In fact I want nothing more than a win, it would be monumental for the program and would catapult the teams confidence tremendously. The realistic side of me would argue that if the team looks good and gives their best effort against one of the greatest dynasties this sport has ever seen then I think it is safe to say that the team should be in good shape for the rest of the season.
I will use this example of one many people may remember. In 2016, Florida State looked bland to say the least. They had to rally to comeback from being down at halftime to Ole Miss only to be dealt their worst loss in school history a few weeks later to the Cards. Many had ruled Florida State out of any New Years Six bowls by the middle of the season. It was not until late in the season that they had caught fire towards the end of the season and ended up playing in an Orange Bowl against the Michigan Wolverines.
Wherever you are watching the game Saturday my advice would be to take it one game at a time for at least the first couple of weeks. We will not really know too much about the team until after the Western Kentucky game as the schedule starts to pick up again.
No matter the outcome Saturday, it is important to think big picture and as always Go Cards!