Why putting a win total on 2020 may not be fair to Louisville football

Expectations are starting to soar for Louisville football.

Last week I went on the Back to the Bricks podcast with former Big Red Louie contributor Nick Conner and his co-host Justin Clemmons to discuss the offseason and what lies ahead for Louisville football in 2020 following an eight-win season in Scott Satterfield’s first season as head coach.

We’ve spent a ton of time on the Big Red Louie Podcast and here on the site talking about expectations and what all comes with having a lot of success so quickly. No one expected the Cards to be in a place to compete at the top of the ACC with the potential of winning as many as 10 games, but thanks to the incredible ability to establish a winning culture – here we are.

By now you’ve probably seen Louisville football included in a few different way too early top 25 polls for the 2020 season and/or where they were projected by the ESPN Football Power Index to finish the year at 10-2 overall and if you’re anything like me you’re probably a slight bit shocked.

In all honesty, when you look at Louisville football on paper there’s no reason why we shouldn’t let ourselves think that 10 wins could be the expectation in 2020. Satterfield and the Cards will return a pass-catchers group that combined for 136 receptions, 2,374 yards, and 27 touchdowns in their first year in what Dwayne Ledford has described as a “fairly vanilla” offense along with arguably the most explosive backfield’s and a quarterback who continues to find himself coming up in some of the most important analytics and statistics as a top performer from last year.

Sure the defense is still a work in progress and there will be depth issues for years to come thanks to the mess left behind by Bobby Petrino – but thanks to incredible coaching and dedication from the core group of holdovers, the Cards legitimately can win nine to 10 games this season.

But what if I told you that putting a number of wins associated with the expectations for Louisville football isn’t necessarily fair?

Why win totals may not tell the full story for Louisville football in 2020

When it comes to any type of sport the name of the game is always winning. No matter who you are, what sport you play, or what the circumstances are at the end of the day you judged by whether you are able to win or not. It’s that simple.

Or is it?

For Louisville football this year, I don’t believe it’s that simple. In fact, per my conversation with Nick and Justin of the Back to Bricks Podcast the number one thing that I’ll be expecting in 2020 is simply… to get better.

**inserts Captain Obvious gif**.

Last season the fact that Louisville was able to pull out eight wins after going 2-10 the year prior was nothing short of a miracle, especially considering some of the teams they beat and how they won. Riding their dynamic offense that featured one of the nation’s top running backs in Javian Hawkins and a trio of experienced receivers, Louisville was able to put up points in a hurry last season, which gave them much more wiggle room defensively.

While they struggled mightily on that side of the ball, the offense carried the team and kept them in positions to where if one stop was made on a crucial third-down or a turnover was forced late in a game, Louisville had a chance to win no matter what.

The beauty of the offense at times masked the defensive struggles and as we move into a new season there is an expectation that a group that returns 90-ish percent of their total production should be ready to take a huge step forward.

Defensive coordinator Bryan Brown told the media:

“My expectation is really, really high. We want to shut people out, we want to eliminate explosive plays and we want to give the offense the ball back as much as we can… I think we got better as the season went on. The last game was atrocious, but I think we’re going to see the defense start to moving forward, going up as opposed to going backward.”

Just how far the defense “starts to move forward” is what I think could define the season. As Dalton Pence put it, “expectations shouldn’t be a win total, but a measure of improvement,” and if the Louisville defense is able to make a giant step, even at the cost of losing a game or two more than what is being projected, it could mean expectations were met overall.

When you dig into the statistics from last season you quickly see that the defense was much better than they were previously but still towards the bottom in a ton of major categories. While they played with the “bend but don’t break” mentality at times, coming up with huge plays at key times that led to winning, they more times than not allowed too many big plays that put them far behind the eight ball.

Here’s how it played out statistically:

• Total defense: 102nd
• Scoring defense: T109th – 33.40 points per game
• Team passing efficiency defense – 94th
• Passing yards allowed per play: 74th – 7.50 yards per play
• Rushing yards allowed per play: 120th – 5.37 yards per play
• Rushing defense: 112th – 205.8 yards per game
• 3rd down defensive percentage: 52nd
• Turnovers gained: T64 – 18 total

While everyone wants to see Louisville win nine or even 10 games in the regular season (it has only happened twice since 2014) after winning eight a year ago, the expectation should be that the group as a whole gets better.

You’ve heard the saying you’re only as strong as your weakest link and if Louisville’s offense once again carries the Cards and the defense struggles mightily a lot of people are going to be looking for a person or person to place the blame on.

However, say Louisville wins seven or eight games in the regular season and drops a bowl game, putting them at or right below the same win total as last season, but is able to jump 25-30 places (if not even higher) in most defensive statistics is that not an improvement? Therefore it wouldn’t be a failure or let down of a year like some fans might tend to think.

I’m not quite ready to make a prediction for the season just yet, but the expectations I’ll be taking into the season will mostly revolve around improving key team metrics, specifically defensively, that really plagued them in 2019 even in wins.

If we’re at eight or nine wins at the end of the season and the defense is one of the biggest talking points for positive reasons, I think we can all be very happy and even more excited about the future ahead.

A big thank you to Nick and Justin for having me on to talk Louisville football. Be sure to check out their podcast Back to Bricks here!