Two Louisville football players appear on prestigious award watchlist

The Louisville football program has mostly been known for its offense in recent years. With players like Lamar Jackson and Davante Parker having passed through, that's fair. But the defense gets overlooked for the amount of talent that they produce as well.

This year, there's a chance that the Cardinals have the ACC's best defensive player. In fact, the Cardinals have two players who are on the Bednarik Award watchlist. The Bednarik Award is given to the nation's best defensive player and the Cardinals have two great guys on the list.

If Louisville is going to repeat as an ACC Championship Game participant, these defensive players are going to need to be at the forefront of stopping other teams. One of these players is a great pass rusher and the other is a good player in the secondary.

Two Louisville football players are on the Bednarik Award watchlist

Ashton Giillotte is the first player on the list. The great defensive end recorded 11 sacks as a junior a year ago and is looking for even more as a senior. He is the Cardinals' best pass-rusher and is a candidate to lead the conference in total sacks this season.

Quincy Riley is the other player on the Bednarik watchlist. Riley is in his sixth year of playing college football. He's played each of the last two seasons at Louisville after playing his first three seasons at Middle Tennessee State. He's had three picks in each of the last two seasons.

These are two of the most important players that the Louisville Cardinals have on this year's team. They need both of these guys to be elite players if they want to improve on last year's ten-win season. Jeff Brohm is going to do everything possible to make sure that happens.