Louisville’s schedule has been balanced this season and continues to show its balance in new ways as the season progresses. Getting a break after every four games you play is a coach’s dream. But the way that styles of play have shaped up for Louisville has been a welcome sight.
The first six games (against FBS opponents) were dominated by teams who are more known for their offensive firepower than their defenses. Clemson and WKU are the exceptions as Clemson is stupidly good at everything and WKU is stupidly bad at offense.
Here are how the offenses and defenses of Louisville’s first 6 FBS teams rate on Bill Connelly’s SP+ Efficiencies:
Notre Dame: Down from #13 to #22 on offense after getting embarrassed by Michigan/ #38 defense
WKU: #116 / #36
FSU: #46 / #73
BC: #30 / #102
Wake: #40 / #69
Clemson: #8 / #5 (stupid)
The thing that was most impressive about this stretch, particularly against FSU, BC, and Wake, is how Satterfield and his staff were able to recognize that there were going to be shootouts and that the run-first style of play they’d like to run wasn’t going to work all the time. Louisville was able turn up the offense and escape barnburners against BC and Wake, and should have escaped Tallahassee, too.
The run game was still fairly successful in all of these games, but the emergence of an explosive offense designed to bail out our thin defense, who were constantly tested by tempo for the majority of these games, was highly encouraging to see from this new staff.
It wasn’t until Clemson where Louisville got to face both a high-powered offense and a high-powered defense again. Luckily for UofL, however, this was the beginning of a new chapter where Louisville would start to see stronger defenses and weaker offenses.
The first example of this was this past weekend against Virginia. Heading into the game UVA ranked 95th and 14th in offensive and defensive efficiencies, respectively. Once again, we saw the coaching staff’s ability to adapt. Instead of airing it out all afternoon and playing for a shootout, the offense committed to a ground-and-pound attack against one of the best defenses in the country.
It worked.
While Virginia’s front seven held their own for much of the first half, Louisville was able to out-muscle UVA’s stout defense. In the end Louisville was able to average over 5 yards per carry and rush for 227 yards against a Virginia team who had only allowed one other team (Notre Dame) to rush for more than 100 yards against them (157). That doesn’t even include the 77-yard pop pass that Tutu Atwell scored on, which we all can agree is just a fancy handoff.
So all-in-all Louisville ran for an unofficial 304 yards against the 14th best defense in the country.
That’s not only absurd, but it’s wildly exciting considering what the rest of Louisville’s schedule looks like.
Miami: #71 offense / #15 defense
NCST: #90 / #41
Syracuse: #98 / #53
Kentucky: #80 / #43
Of the remaining games, Miami has by far the best offense that Louisville will face, which isn’t saying much. They will also, however, have the best defense that the Cards will face. But after the way the offense was able to take over the game with their rushing attack against Virginia, and with Javian Hawkins limited, it’s not hard to imagine Louisville continuing their success against a very formidable Miami defense.
Against FBS teams with an SP+ ranking of 41 or worse, Louisville is 4-1. Against teams ranking hire than that, UofL is 0-2. And of the four remaining games, only one team ranks higher than 41st, and that is Miami (30th).
Satterfield has preached since he arrived on campus that his teams play complimentary football. He doesn’t like having to light up the scoreboard and leave his defense out to dry. As we saw against Virginia, being able to run more and eat up the clock helped give the defense enough energy to play all four quarters. And with the style of play we should expect in our remaining games, being able to play more of the complimentary football that Satterfield wants to run should give the Cards an even better chance of winning than they did in the early season shootouts.
Louisville needs just one more win to go bowling after a 2-10 season, and has the opportunity to not only make a bowl, but a legitimate one.
This all feels eerily familiar to John L.’s and Strong’s first years after the Cooper and Kragthorpe years. And we all know where those special seasons led to.
So, no matter what happens in these next few games, enjoy every second of it because we could be in for a very special ride.
