Louisville football: 3 takeaways from the loss to Boston College

The Louisville football team dropped another game to conference foe Boston College.

In a season full of disappointment, there was plenty more to go around in this game as the Louisville football team dropped to 3-7 with a 34-27 loss to Boston College.

The Cardinals continued to shoot themselves in the foot with mind-numbing turnovers and a lot of mental lapses on defense.

Despite huge performances from Malik Cunningham and Dez Fitzpatrick, the team sputtered once again.

It was a disastrous performance on both sides of the ball that really emphasized this team’s weaknesses this year.

After an impressive performance against Syracuse that seemed to have built momentum with the team, they took a monstrous step back to their bad habits in this game.

It has really been a throwaway year for the team with a lot of odd circumstances occurring within the team and the world. But this one was a frustrating defeat and the repeated mistakes are starting to pile up into ridiculousness for the Cardinals.

Louisville did a lot of things to lose this game that are similar to weeks past in 2020.

Let’s look at three takeaways from the disappointing loss to Boston College.

Turnovers continue to be a problem

Louisville turned the ball over three times in this game. A pair of fumbles from Tutu Atwell and Hassan Hall were backbreaking mistakes on two of the offense’s first three drives of the game. Then, in a spirited comeback attempt, Malik Cunningham had an unfortunate interception that ultimately shut the lights out for the Cards.

Atwell’s fumble happened when the junior star receiver tried to switch hands with the ball on a catch and run. The ball slipped through his arms and onto the turf. The play had a chance to go for six had he not simply dropped it.

Hall’s fumble was a bit careless as he also seemed to fumble his handle on it during an attempted rush.

Cunningham’s interception occurred when the offensive line was pushed into the backfield causing Boston College defenders to bat the ball down. Unfortunately for Cunningham and Louisville, the ball landed directly in a Boston College defender’s hands.

Those turnovers led to 10 Boston College points and the opportunity for BC to kneel the ball out.

The turnover that Louisville created led to no points as a fumble of Boston College quarterback Phil Jurkovec occurred deep in Cardinals territory and Louisville gave the ball right back.

No matter who you chalk the fault to for Louisville’s turnovers, that’s three more today. It’s been a disturbing trend all year that Louisville fans are all well aware of.

The team allows the ball to fall into harm’s way far too often and it is absolutely crippling game in and game out.

Louisville had 493 yards today. It didn’t matter because turnovers derailed three promising drives. 493 yards was only equivalent to 27 points on the day.

It’s a shame that a career day of 182 yards receiving on 8 receptions for Dez Fitzpatrick is overshadowed by defeat. He had a fantastic effort.

When you out-gain opponents in eight out of ten games, you would normally expect six wins or so. They’re 3-7. This is some unprecedented stuff that Louisville is putting forth. It’s not good at all and it is teetering on embarrassing.

Louisville now leads the country in fumbles lost this season. You may know that is a stat you would ideally not like to lead the country in. But here we are.