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Stock up, stock down for Louisville football heading into FSU

By Presley Meyer

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY - SEPTEMBER 02: Tu Tu Atwell #1 of the Louisville Cardinals runs with the ball against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish on September 02, 2019 in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY - SEPTEMBER 02: Tu Tu Atwell #1 of the Louisville Cardinals runs with the ball against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish on September 02, 2019 in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /
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uofl football; louisville football; louisville football schedule 2019
SYRACUSE, NY – NOVEMBER 09: Dez Fitzpatrick #7 of the Louisville Cardinals celebrates a touchdown with Tutu Atwell #1 of the Louisville Cardinals during the second quarter against the Syracuse Orange at the Carrier Dome on November 9, 2018 in Syracuse, New York. (Photo by Brett Carlsen/Getty Images) /

Stock up: Tutu Atwell

We talked about the struggles of Louisville’s expected star wide receivers, but the third member of Louisville’s starting receiving cast shined the brightest against WKU.

Tutu Atwell only had four receptions on Saturday, but he turned it into 141 yards of offense and three touchdowns.

In an offense that has struggled to get receivers open, Atwell has been utilized in a number of unexpected ways. The offensive play-calling has allowed Atwell’s speed to operate in perfect harmony with Louisville’s running options in the backfield.

Atwell burned the Hilltoppers deep with two different quarterbacks on virtually the same play. And as defenses begin to key on him, it will open up all kinds of options for the rest of Louisville football’s offense.

Stock down: Louisville turnover margin

The most important thing for a team like Louisville, who is seriously lacking experienced depth, is to value possessions.

For the most part, the Cards don’t waste possessions. They are good about having sustained drives, limiting penalties, and not having wasted plays.

However, Louisville has been seriously lacking in turnover production, an area we figured would be a real strength under new defensive coordinator Bryan Brown.

Though Louisville forced a fumble against Notre Dame and two against WKU- one of which went for a scoop and score- that’s it so far. An average of one per game. On the other side of things, Louisville had five fumbles and three fumbles lost in its first game alone, and was responsible for an interception against EKU and another fumble at Western.

At -2, Louisville is currently tied for 95th in the country in turnover margin. You can survive games against lesser opponents this way, but we saw that being -2 in turnover margin resulted in 14 easy points for Notre Dame in game one- enough to put the game just out of reach.

As Satterfield said on Monday, Louisville has to start hauling in some interceptions, or things might not go as smoothly against conference foes.

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