Ranking the 25 most important players for Louisville football in 2019

Coming off an electric, highlight-filled first season, then redshirt freshman Dez Fitzpatrick was expected to light the college football world on fire last year.

Except he didn’t, along with the entire team.

Now looking toward his junior campaign with a massive chip on his shoulder, Dez is ready to prove once again that he is one of the best WR’s in college football. Along with the linebackers, Louisville football’s wide receivers group is considered the deepest and most experienced on the team.

BRL’s Presley Meyer wrote a piece summarizing Fitzpatrick’s numbers at Louisville thus far –

"‘In a Lamar Jackson high-powered offense in 2017, Fitzpatrick recorded 45 receptions for 699 yards and 9 touchdowns. When you average over 15 yards per catch, and 20 percent of your receptions are touchdowns, you are going to get a ton of hype in the offseason. But in 2018, Fitzpatrick was limited to just 31 receptions for 422 yards and three scores. A sharp decline from the previous season. Of course, there’s horrifying coaching and an overall regression of Louisville’s offense to blame. Still, Fitzpatrick failed to make some of the plays last season that he did during his first season. He struggled to get separation, and his timing with quarterbacks Jawon Pass and Malik Cunningham was seemingly off.’"

Just to reiterate from a previous slide, I believe the overall production of Louisville’s wide receivers will increase this year.

1. Due to a run-first offense with improved line play that will..

2. give Jawon (or any QB) more time to make better decisions which will..

3. lead to better throwing opportunities and give the WR’s chances to make plays. Got it?

I expect a more mature and improved Dez Fitzpatrick to have success similar to his first season, which is something everyone should get excited about. With guys like Tutu Atwell, Hassan Hall, Seth Dawkins, and Jordan Davis drawing attention from the defense, it’ll leave Fitzpatrick to get back to dominating in man-to-man coverage.

With his route running ability, which at least point is as close to elite as elite gets, he’ll provide a reliable target in short-yardage situations and over the field as a possession receiver, allowing for Pass to not be hurried into making bad throws. He’ll combine that with great speed and the ability to scoot after the catch, and because of it, we’ll probably see several highlight plays as we did in 2017.