Louisville football: 3 bold predictions for the Cards vs. Mississippi State
By Jacob Lane
Tutu Atwell will have 150-plus yards receiving, one or more receiving touchdowns, and his first completed pass of the season
As I wrote about a few weeks ago, Mississippi State’s defense comes into the Music City Bowl after a rather lackluster season compared to year’s past.
Some of that might be due to the attrition they had from 2018 to 2019, losing multiple stars to the NFL. The other has to do with their youth and overall talent level compared to years past. Quite simply they just aren’t as strong as they’ve been under previous coaches. This season Mississippi State has been mediocre at best, and has struggled when it comes to two important things; 1) Stopping the run. 2) Stopping the big plays.
Luckily for Scott Satterfield, his team has proven time and time again this season that they are more than capable of doing two things; 1) Running the football with Javian Hawkins, Hassan Hall, and Micale Cunningham; 2) Hitting on big passing plays down the field.
This season Mississippi State allowed an average of 149 yards per game on the ground and 250 through the air, and when you take away their non-conference “buy” games, the numbers become even more telling.
In fact, against P5 teams (they played nine total this season) the Bulldogs allowed 38 passing plays for 15-plus yards and 19 plays of 15 or more yards on the ground.
They allowed teams to average 6.2 yards per play, which should bode well for the dynamic offense of Louisville which averaged over 442 yards per game and nearly seven yards per play. That was with their star cornerback Cameron Dantzler or starting safety Brian Cole on the field, a luxury they won’t have against Louisville as both sit out in preparation for the NFL Draft.
That bodes extremely well for Louisville, especially for Micale Cunningham and Tutu Atwell who connected 10 times this season for touchdown passes over 11 games, including two multi-TD games against Syracuse and Western Kentucky.
A lot will depend on the ability to handle the size, depth, and physicality of the Mississippi State team. We saw against teams like Kentucky, Florida State, Clemson, Notre Dame, and Miami how the Cards struggled to not only protect the quarterback and keep defenders from creating tackles for loss but also to get anything that qualified as a big play. They’ll have to do that without star left tackle Mekhi Becton, who decided to skip out on his final collegiate game to prepare for the NFL Draft, as sophomore Adonis Boone steps into his place.
If Cunningham has time in the pocket to throw the ball, I expect the Cards to test the short-handed secondary of Mississippi State down the field. A few big plays will lead to Atwell finishing with at least 150-plus yards and one or more touchdowns, in what I believe will be a shoot out style game.
I must also point out that bowl games are where trick plays were made to happen. Satterfield has already drawn up three plays this season that ended with someone else other than a quarterback throwing the ball. Two of those (both incomplete) were from Atwell, while the lone completion came from back-up kicker Ryan Chalifoux to Marshon Ford on a fake field goal.
It may not lead to a TD, but I have a pretty strong gut feeling that the former quarterback turned slot receiver will throw his first completion as a Cardinal.