Louisville football: Grading the Cardinals’ performance against Virginia

Defensive Line

There is not much to this one. The defensive line was just fine on Saturday. They did not get after the passer Brennan Armstrong at all. But, they were fairly stout against the run and that is still important to note.

The biggest problem for the line is that they would lack depth even if every player was healthy on the line. But, the team was missing Yaya Diaby and Tabarius Peterson for the second straight game on Saturday.

Those proved to be big blows to the pass rush. The down linemen generated very little pressure all game long and there was very little pocket push to make Armstrong’s life difficult and that was a frustrating development for Cards fans to see.

However, it is hard to judge them too hard as a couple of former walk-ons are forced into plahing time. Of those two, Dayna Kinnaird did register a sack and and Ramon Puryear generated one pressure. Other than that, it was very lacking in the passing game.

I continue to be impressed with these nose tackles in senior Jared Goldwire and freshman Dezmond Tell. Tell is the future at nose guard and he is a solid player right now. I am very excited to see his development.

Tell did suffer an injury in the second half of the game so let’s hope that he is able to come back to the lineup sooner rather than later.

Overall, the line just did not generate enough pressure and that, despite having a good game against the run, was not good enough for today

Grade: C+