Louisville football: Three instant takeaways from Syracuse romp
The defense dominated a bad offense
It has been a while since a Louisville defense has had a performance to this magnitude. As you read earlier, it’s been16 years since this type of performance was brought by the defensive side of the ball. The defense allowed 0 points and looked dominant all night long in their efforts.
The Cardinals held the Orange to under 100 yards before garbage time began in the fourth quarter. They were ridiculously good on all three levels for the first time this year. I have really no complaints to give about this unit.
Jared Goldwire dominated at the point of attack early while the defensive backs locked up on the back end. Yasir Abdullah may have topped his performance against Virginia in this one tallying another sack and big time plays in the run game.
There were some monstrous hits in this game by several players including Rodjay Burns and Yasir Abdullah. Those two were asserting themselves as physical presences all game. It was impressive to see this defense come full circle and put together the most complete game they have played in years.
This Syracuse offense was bad coming into the game. Louisville defenses over the past couple of years have had a habit of making bad offenses look good. Not today. The Cards made Syracuse look bad. Real bad.
Kei’Trel Clark finally came up with his interception that had been alluding him all year and there was just nothing happening for Syracuse all day. Syracuse went 1-for10 on third down in this game. They had zero third down conversions until the final play of the game. You can chalk that up as quite bad for Syracuse and quite good for the Cards.
Overall, Louisville put together their most complete game of the season tonight. It was not pretty the whole way through. But the offense easily put up 400 yards and the defense punished Syracuse’s offensive unit.
This is a game that takes Louisville’s momentum in the right direction with just two games remaining on the regular season slate.