5 players for Louisville football that you need to know

Yasir Abdullah – LB

Sophomore

We stay within the “speed” category again here with sophomore linebacker Yasir Abdullah. The former three star linebacker out of Opa Locka, FL is a playmaking, speedy linebacker who can do just about everything. Whether it’s rushing the passer as a blitzer, covering running backs and tight ends over the middle of the field, or covering the run, Abdullah’s speed is what sets him apart.

At Appalachian State, Bryan Brown (a disciple of Nate Woody) was known for his defenses playing with great speed to the ball.

“We play a couple defenses, and a couple wrinkles here and there, but the guys just love to fly around and have fun, and one thing we’re going do is chase that football.”

I don’t have to tell you this but one thing Louisville’s defense has been poor at over the last two seasons was attacking the football. Players would often times miss key angles, or lack the foot speed to get to the football, and it resulted in big plays.

That won’t be the case under Brown and co-defensive coordinator Cort Dennison. While Nate Woody, the former App State defensive coordinator obviously isn’t at Louisville, his philosophies are going to be very similar to what the Cards do this year. Woody said about his scheme,

"“One of the things I’ve tried to do is make sure we don’t have guys who eat up space. Defensively, you want to get guys with speed and quickness. Those guys are able to disrupt a play before the play can get underway.”"

When you’re talking about pursuit of the ball and versatility Yasir Abdullah should be at the top of that conversation for the Cards this season. Like Hawkins, he didn’t play much last season, but his tackling ability and speed are going to be huge helpers this season.

App State took a lot of chances with unique blitzes forcing opposing offenses to out run them. While of course Power Five teams are built to do that naturally, the way they competed against those teams in Scott Satterfield’s time as a head coach shows what he does works.

This clip above shows a seven man blitz, led by the inside linebacker, with both outside backers staying home to prevent cut backs. However, in this scenario the far outside linebacker chases the ball carrier down helping to limit what could’ve been a big time run.

“We are going to run and hit and stay on top. Match the numbers and chase the football. IT’s very simple and I think it will be a great product defensively to have here,” Satterfield said in his opening press conference, and Abdullah’s role will be to do just that, as well as using his quickness to beat offensive lineman up the middle and to the outside to rush the QB in special blitzes.