Louisville will beat Florida State
Louisville has played arguably two of their best games in each of the last two seasons against Florida State. Unfortunately for the Cardinals, neither of those solid efforts have yielded a win. In fact, both of them saw the Cards make crucial errors late in the fourth quarter that led to the Seminoles regaining the lead as the clocked ticked to zero.
Jawon Pass didn’t get the chance to redeem himself against Florida State in 2019 due to injury following his last-second interception in 2018 on a play call that Bobby Petrino ultimately accepted responsibility for publicly, but destroyed his team for behind closed doors. While there’s no telling whether he’ll be apart of the quarterback plans during the 2020 season (as of now he has not announced any intent to transfer but it would make sense if he did) what we do know is that Micale Cunningham will likely get that chance next year.
In what I believe to be the half of football that turned his season and career around, Cunningham was electric against the Seminoles doing everything in his power to help the Cards bounce back from the 21-0 hole they found themselves in during the first half last year. After a half that led many fans to take to social media asking for Cunningham to be benched due to his inability to get the ball down the field, the redshirt sophomore came back throwing the ball like never before in the second half. The 4th quarter interception ultimately gave Florida State the chance to win the game as Alex Hornibrook drove the Seminoles for two late scores that gave them the win.
We obviously know how the rest of the season went on for Cunningham, and now he’ll get his chance to pull off what could have been Louisville’s fifth win in a row against the Seminoles.
It was an interesting offseason for both teams as Louisville put together arguably one of its best classes in recent memory in the second recruiting cycle for Scott Satterfield, while Florida State fired Willie Taggart after his second season and hired Memphis coach Mike Norvell.
Norvell proceeded to steal star quarterback and the highlight of the 2020 class Chubba Purdy from Louisville, while also landing a commitment from then-Louisville defensive end Josh Griffis and former defensive end Jarrett Jackson via transfer.
https://twitter.com/chubbapurdy/status/1207386353677193216
Louisville will undoubtedly want revenge and I think they’ll get it. The Seminoles and Norvell will still have plenty of questions they’ll have to answer about their quarterback situation, the lack of power five caliber offensive linemen, and a defense that has lost a lot of talent each of the last few years.
Behind a motivated Cunningham and year two of the explosive offense we saw from Louisville, look for the Cards to take down Florida State in a game that will feel personal.