Big yikes for Louisville football.
This is not at all how I wanted to come to you for the last time as Site Expert for bigredlouie. Unfortunately, Louisville football’s defense will be without eight contributors on Saturday against Virginia Tech, as first reported by Cam Teague of the Courier-Journal.
Louisville announces the following players are out today vs Virginia Tech:
— Cameron Teague (@cj_teague) October 31, 2020
DL Micah Bland
DL Ja’Darien Boykin
DL Malik Clark
DL Yaya Diaby
P Ryan Harwell
S Isaiah Hayes
DL Dayna Kinnaird
LB Monty Montgomery
DL Tabarius Peterson
Louisville saw marked improvement over the last two weeks on the defensive side of the ball. However, Teague announced that the Cardinals would be without eight defensive players along with punter Ryan Harwell.
“Louisville announces the following players are out today vs Virginia Tech:
DL Micah Bland
DL Ja’Darien Boykin
DL Malik Clark
DL Yaya Diaby
P Ryan Harwell
S Isaiah Hayes
DL Dayna Kinnaird
LB Monty Montgomery
DL Tabarius Peterson”
It was later reported that Louisville only saw four positive COVID tests.
Hayes left the Florida State game last week with an injury. The others, however, were reported as healthy throughout the week.
It’s safe to say that the rest of the players could be out due to contact tracing.
The biggest impact that will be felt, in my estimation, is the loss of Monty Montgomery. The junior linebacker leads Louisville football in sacks, is second in tackles for loss, and third in tackles.
The other obvious impact is going to be along the defensive line. The Cardinals have had a ton of trouble with depth along the front three already this year. Now, without 6 defensive linemen, Louisville will have to resort to moving deep into the depth chart.
Look for Jared Dawson, Robert Hicks, and Zach Edwards to be amazing the contributors for the Cardinals at defensive end.