Louisville football: Lorenzo Ward gives Cards chance to salvage season

Louisville football fired Bobby Petrino after a historically bad opening 10 games. Now, interim Head Coach Lorenzo Ward has a chance to guide the Cards to a promising finish.

A new era of Louisville football begins this Saturday at Cardinal Stadium after Cards AD Vince Tyra announced that Lorenzo Ward will serve as interim coach for the last two games of the season.

The Ward-led Cards (2-8, 0-7), have a chance to end their season on a high note against a quasi-ranked NC State team and a ranked UK team at home.

The Cards are off to, if not the worst, one of the worst starts in programs history. But don’t let that be the determining factor upon which the Cards’s success hinges for the final two games. It is important to take into consideration what kind of program-defining wins either of these games would be for Louisville heading into the 2019 season.

Let’s take a closer look at why Louisville has a chance to get the ball rolling and finish 2018 on a high note.

A more balanced approach

The Cards will be headed up by Ward, who is a defensive-minded guy. He has been for his entire coaching career- most recently as the defensive coordinator at South Carolina before taking over as the secondary at Louisville this year. Bearing that in mind, Ward is likely to place the emphasis on defense.

Most notably missing in Bobby Petrino’s second stint was continuity between the offense and defense. Too many times, the Louisville defense would be on the field for a long drive only to have to trot back out after a quick drive or three and out by Petrino’s offense.

More often that not, Petrino would take a boom-or-bust approach on offense, which lead to the defense being on the field for way too long. With the Cards being depleted as it is, Ward will likely work hand-in-hand with Brian VanGorder- something that Louisville defensive coordinators have never had the opportunity to do in the past with Petrino running the show.

Offensive efficiency

With Petrino and his son- quarterbacks coach, Nick- gone, this leaves now-offensive coordinator/ receivers and quarterbacks coach Lonnie Galloway to run the show.

While players lost respect for, and ultimately gave up on Petrino, many on the team have expressed that they have a great deal of respect for Galloway and Ward. Galloway is known most notably for his ability to get receivers in space to make plays.

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Receivers Dez Fitzpartick, Jaylen Smith, Seth Dawkins, and Tutu Atwell have been greatly underutilized this season. Often times, it has seemed like Louisville’s star-studded crop of receivers and quarterback Puma Pass have not been put in the right positions to make plays. Look for Galloway to put the team in better positions to succeed. Getting receivers open is his specialty, and with the aforementioned balanced relationship between the offense and the defense, look for the Cards to make a lot of 5-7 yard receptions as they navigate down the field.

The team will have fun

The final stage of grief is acceptance. Bobby Petrino accepted his fate after the Georgia Tech beat down when he spent his entire presser the next Monday talking about getting the team to “go out there and have fun” (barf). The product on the field was anything but fun. The team wasn’t having fun by any means. The coaches, the fans, the equipment guys, the Kazito cookie lady, Micah the violin guy, Sean Moth, Gary the Red Bird, the people who just stay in the green lot and listen on the radio, nobody!

Nothing about this season, from the first Tua Tagovailoa touchdown, to almost losing to WKU, to the eleven Clemson touchdowns, to turning the ball over four times in seven plays has been fun. Bobby Petrino talking about fun at a presser is like Mike Leach going to a presser and saying “I’m here so I don’t get fined.” Okay? It’s just dumb. You play for Bobby Petrino to win, because winning is fun. When Bobby started talking about fun, it was a dead give away that he had accepted his fate.

But now, with Petrino gone, it is almost like a breath of fresh air. Things are just naturally fun because the fun-sucker is no longer reigning over the program. Don’t get it twisted, playing for Bobby Petrino was fun a lot of times over the years- because he won. But things go south really fast when someone who wouldn’t know fun if he woke up in a Dave and Buster’s is getting you steam-rolled by a pathetic Georgia Tech and a sad sack Wake Forest.

Now, it’s finally fun. Players can finally relax and be themselves. They can play loose and actually seriously have fun. Plus, they can play in front of real home crowds. A quick peek at secondary ticket markets would indicate that a lot of people are gobbling up those cheap pre-Petrino getting the ax tickets.

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There’s no telling what will come of the last two games, but the Cards have a chance to establish something much bigger than just the result on the field. There is a chance for a change in culture.

Louisville football is going to be at least bearable to watch again. That’s all we could have really asked for at this juncture.

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