Louisville football: 5 final thoughts after loss to Miami
By Jacob Lane
Louisville’s defense still lacks discipline
I think every Louisville football fan thought that following what happened in last year’s game against Miami, that if one thing was going to be corrected it would be the defense giving up “the big play.”
Boy were we wrong.
It’s easy to pile on the defensive unit considering the struggles they’ve faced over the last several years and how far they’ve come since that 2018 season. However, last night was just another example of how much growth needs to happen before they can get back to the level Louisville football was at under Charlie Strong.
In total, Miami accounted for 485 total yards offensively, led by D’Eriq King’s 325 yards passing, Cam’Ron Harris’ 134 yards rushing, and Brevin Jordan’s 120 yards receiving. Simply put, the Miami offense outsmarted and out executed the Louisville defense, despite Louisville showing up strong in the run game (despite the 47 and 75 yarders they gave up).
The big play is what got Louisville in trouble all last season, and once again against Miami it bit them in the butt. It started early with the big run play by Harris in the second drive of the game that ended in the Will Mallory 17 yard touchdown.
It continued throughout the rest of the game with Louisville able to hold the Hurricanes to mostly field goals in the first half before then giving up touchdown after touchdown.
The second half was a different story. The first two drives of the half were one up, one down with Harris running for a 75-yard TD and Jaylan Knighton catching a 75-yard touchdown on the first play of each drive.
That put Louisville in a hole near impossible to climb out off, ultimately pushing the game out of reach for the offense even with big second half numbers. In just 22 plays (five scoring drives included only) Miami was able to score 27 points, exposing the outside tackling and glaring miscommunication issues taking place.
- TD (1 play)
- TD (1 play)
- Field goal (8 plays)
- Field goal (9 plays)
- TD (3 plays)
We knew in real time that the majority of big plays allowed by Louisville were the result of blown plays in the secondary, with the second being the most egregious (check out Presley Meyer’s tweet here to see what I mean), but you have to question how mistakes like these happen. It would be one thing to get beat deep or give up a big run play because a few tackles were broken (which, actually happened) but when you start and play that many upperclassmen, those plays hurt worse.
No matter how you slice it or where you place the blame, the defense’s inability to make stops and get off the field on third down’s prevented the offense from being able to get the Cards back in the game and it cost them.
Both long-term and short-term I still feel good about the defense and the chance to improve, but tonight was 100 percent a setback. To have a veteran laden group making so many mistakes, especially ones so blatantly obvious, is unfortunate – but with more time in practice and watching film I bet they’ll get it sorted out.