The good, bad, and ugly from Louisville football’s loss to Boston College

The Louisville football team suffered another brutal defeat in their fourth one-score loss of the season.

In the 10th game of the season, the Louisville football team showed that they have not changed all too much from the start of this year’s campaign. The same things stand in place that doomed them from the beginning. For that, disappointment has followed them all year long.

That continued into this game against Boston College in what was another frustrating performance by the Cardinals. The team’s only complete performance from both the offensive and defensive units this season was a game against a Syracuse team that had depleted talent because of opt-outs.

In this game, the entire team’s issues showed themselves in the same ways this season and Boston College capitalized on those obvious weaknesses. The lack of any kind of consistent success can be put on coaches and players both.

While the same problems continue to rear their heads on a weekly basis, the problems are stemming from different position groups and individual players in general. There are only a handful of players delivering consistently good performances every week which is an obvious issue.

With all of this being said, let’s talk about the good, bad, and ugly from the loss to Boston College over the weekend.

The Good

Well, frankly, not much to go off of here. There were a couple of players who delivered for the team this weekend. But, to be quite honest, it wasn’t much.

Malik Cunningham

He certainly deserves some praise. He did a lot of the carrying of the offense in this game despite there being a common narrative floating about that younger players Evan Conley and Tee Webb deserve some run with the offense.

While that does make some sense and Cunningham has had his own fair share of struggles over the course of the 2020 season, calling for his job after this game does not feel deserved.

It was other players on offense coughing the ball up or leading to the downfall of the team and not so much on him or what he did to put the team in a position to win.

He made plays with his arm and legs all game long. He had a couple of extremely impressive throws in this game throwing to the sideline or with pressure in his face and he was delivering a lot of accurate footballs to his receivers.

Dez Fitzpatrick

Speaking of receivers, Fitzpatrick was by far the best of them all in the matchup against the Eagles. The redshirt senior has come alive this season and may have had the best game of his career on Saturday.

He put up 8 receptions for 182 yards and a touchdown. He was gaining consistent separation on Boston College defensive backs throughout the course of the game. Fitzpatrick usually makes his bread in the 50/50 ball game, but he was coming open on slant patterns and scored his one touchdown on a tunnel screen where he ran away from Boston College defenders up the sideline.

Yaya Diaby

I spoke about how much the Cardinals were missing Diaby when he was out for a couple of weeks (seemingly due to Covid protocols). But Diaby is Louisville’s best defensive end and he proved that once more against the Eagles.

Diaby was the only defensive player really generating pressure on BC’s quarterbacks and I thought he was a constant presence on the defensive line that Boston College had trouble dealing with. Diaby is a a well put together strong player who got some really nice push primarily on Boston College’s right tackle.

It’s been a quiet year for the defensive ends, but it was very nice to see one of them finally produce. Diaby, a first-year player in the program after transferring from Georgia Military College, is solidifying himself as a 2021 starter for the Cardinals.