Depth a Growing Concern as Louisville Experiences 4th Quarter Woes
Tallahassee, FL – At the beginning of the fourth quarter Dez Fitzpatrick reels in a tipped ball for a 74-yard touchdown which capped off a 24-0 run after an abysmal first quarter by Louisville. However, this would be the last highlight of the game for the Cards as Florida State would take back all the momentum after Malik Cunningham threw an interception inside the FSU 30-yard-line with less than 10 minutes left in the game. Alex Hornibrook, a Wisconsin transplant, then picked apart Louisville’s defense to the tune of 7 completions on 9 attempts on the final 2 drives, which included the go-ahead touchdown and the game-sealing touchdown drive.
Louisville’s defense didn’t look tired, they looked exhausted.
Hornibrook’s go-ahead touchdown throw was on a complete bust where Anthony Johnson went after the QB on a corner blitz, which left FSU’s Tamorrion Terry streaking down field by himself while Russ Yeast and Dorian Ethridge got fooled into double covering the same receiver. Concerns about Louisville’s focus and fatigue were unfortunately realized when Louisville was penalized for roughing the kicker on the game’s most crucial drive, which all but guaranteed the win for FSU.
It’s mental lapses like these that are a growing cause for worry as Louisville will have to continue to battle depth issues, especially as we get deeper into the season.
On Monday Scott Satterfield shrugged off the idea that tiredness had anything to do with Louisville’s late game errors and attributed the errors to lack of reps. But there are plenty of signs that show that Louisville just may not be built to play a full 60 minutes this season.
In Louisville’s three games against FBS competition, they have been outscored 28-10 and outgained 311 yards to 253. While the yardage totals haven’t been terribly different, a big factor in the scoring difference has been penalties.
Against Notre Dame, WKU, and Florida State, Louisville committed 10 fourth quarter penalties to its opponents’ combined total of 3. Mistakes like these are devastating and we saw how badly they can bite you in the FSU game. They’re inexcusable and they can’t happen.
Unfortunately, I don’t think more reps in practice are going to fix these fourth quarter issues. It’s hard to really put too much blame on the coaching staff and the players because there’s just not enough players to help. When you have so few players who can compete at a high level then you don’t have a team that can play a full 60 minutes. When you don’t have that, players get understandably tired and they make mistakes which lead to disastrous results.
Louisville was able to hang in with Top 10 Notre Dame for 3 quarters until we really saw the Irish’s depth take over. In WKU’s game Louisville dominated the first half but slowly let the ‘Toppers creep back into the game by committing mistake after mistake. And against FSU we saw a team get off the mat and punch back to take the lead. But after 3 quarters of grinding It out and clawing back, the wheels came off.
It’s not a coaching problem, it’s not a culture problem, and it’s arguable that it’s not exactly a player’s problem. But until this staff gets some Power 5 level recruits in, Louisville’s going to have an uncoachable and an unfixable problem, and that problem is DEPTH.