Louisville football: 5 most intriguing games on 2020 schedule
By Jacob Lane
No. 2 – Miami
As much as the Kentucky game tore my soul into shreds in 2019, the performance against Miami in the Orange Bowl may be the game that haunts me the most from last season.
I felt really good about that game for Louisville, considering that Miami had not beaten anyone of note to that point and had bad losses to North Carolina and Georgia Tech. There had been so much hype around the Hurricanes being “back” with Diaz as head coach as well as around the quarterback position which featured three players who were former four and five star recruits.
The Hurricanes were easily one of the most inconsistent teams in the country and even though Louisville had to travel down to Florida, I thought there was no chance they’d come home with a loss.
Boy did they. Not only did they lose, but they got the doors blasted off and the entire Big Red Louie group of writers had to hear about it for weeks from Miami native, DJ Bien-Aime.
Within minutes of that game starting it felt like it was over and before you knew it Miami was up 35-14 and Jarren Williams looked to be the second coming of Lamar Jackson. Louisville literally could not stop anyone on that rainy day in Miami, as Williams threw for six touchdowns and the offense put up over 450 yards of total offense. That combined with the three sacks and constant pass-rush made things extremely challenging and it led to a 52-27 loss.
Louisville wasn’t supposed to play Miami this year, but with the new “COVID-19” schedule, the Cards will get a team that for the second offseason in a row has been able to land one of the top quarterbacks available on the transfer market.
There’s a ton of hype around Miami (once again) with Houston quarterback D’Eriq King taking over, giving Diaz easily one of the most dynamic players in the country, behind center. As if that wasn’t enough, the rich got richer as Miami not only returned the ACC Defensive Freshman of the Year in Gregory Rousseau but added easily the top pass-rushing graduate transfer available in Temple transfer, Quincy Roche.
That means that coming off the edge each play for opposing offensive linemen will be a combined 103 tackles, 38.5 tackles for loss, and an incredible 28.5 sacks. That’s disgustingly scary for a Louisville offensive line that gave up three sacks to Miami last season, but allowed even more against pass rushes from FSU, Clemson, and Notre Dame.
Miami was an example of how far Louisville had left to go last year, even after winning far more games then they should’ve. Against a team with superior talent, Louisville majorly struggled but in 2020 they’ll get a chance to show they aren’t the same team.
If they can contain King and keep Roche and Rousseau away from Cunningham then they could pull out a big victory. If not, then don’t be surprised to see a score similar to last year’s again.