It's here. Louisville plays football tonight.
We are just under seven hours away from Louisville's 2021 season getting underway, and here's everything you need to know about tonight's Chick-fil-A Kickoff game between the Cardinals and the Rebels:
Kickoff Information:
Time: 8 PM
Location: Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Atlanta, Georgia)
TV: ESPN (Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit, Molly McGrath)
Spread: Ole Miss -10
Series History: No previous meetings
2020 Statistics:
Louisville's keys to victory:
1. Protect the football
Limiting turnovers is a key to winning any football game, but it's especially important in tonight's matchup. If you're Louisville, you can't give Matt Corral and the Ole Miss offense any extra possessions. Louisville almost has to win the turnover battle in this one to knock off the Rebels.
2. Pressure the quarterback
Matt Corral is really good, but he's even better with a clean pocket. Bryan Brown has to dial up some blitzes that get home to Corral. I would imagine that Louisville will bring Monty Montgomery a ton with his speed and his ability to rush the quarterback. YaYa Diaby has generated a lot of buzz throughout fall camp, and Louisville will need him tonight to disrupt the Ole Miss passing attack.
3. Win the one-on-one matchups
Louisville's wide receivers are going to see a lot of press coverage tonight. Malik Cunningham talked about it this week when he spoke to the media. The Ole Miss defensive backs are going to play close to the line of scrimmage, and they're going to force Louisville's wideouts to prove they can beat them off of the ball.
Prediction:
This game is extremely hard to predict. I could see a number of different things happening, and nothing would really surprise me. With that said, I think Ole Miss wins due to their explosive, hard-to-prepare-for offense.
Ole Miss 41, Louisville 35.
