Size Matters: Louisville's Defensive Woes Boil Down to One Thing
We’ve all heard the clichés about offensive lines. How they’re the “unsung heroes” and how important It is for them to win those “battles in the trenches.” But as most clichés go, they’re clichés for a reason: because they’re true. This past Saturday was a prime example of how teams win with great offensive lines. Kentucky threw the ball two times for a total of four passing yards. They also finished the day with 521 total yards. Lynn Bowden and UK’s stable of backs were fantastic, but perhaps the real heroes all along were their big, mean, and relentless offensive linemen who paved the way to a historic display of offense.
People have made all sorts of excuses for Louisville’s embarrassing loss, ranging from the weather to defensive injuries to bad coaching. But could it be as simple as Kentucky’s o-line just being enormous human beings?
Hypothesis: Louisville performs poorly against opposing o-lines who are especially enormous.
Test: Compare average margins of victory, average total yardages, average rushing yardages to the average size of each of Louisville’s opponents.
Conclusion:
After sifting through every one of Louisville’s opponents’ depth charts on the day they played the Cards and collecting data on the size of the men that make up their o-lines, the results were damning:
The huskier your o-line, the more likely you are to beat Louisville.
Here are your 2019 Meaty Boy rankings for all 12 of Louisville’s opponents:
1. Clemson – 325-pound average (Mother. Of. God.)
2. Kentucky – 316.6
3. Miami – 312.4
4. Syracuse – 310.4
5. Notre Dame – 309.8
6. Florida State – 309.4
7. N.C. State - 305
8. Boston College – 304
T9. Virginia - 302
T9. WKU - 302
11. EKU – 299.4
12. Wake Forest – 292.4(!)
The magic number this season 309 pounds. Against offensive lines weighing 309 pounds or more on average Louisville was an incredible 1-5. Louisville went undefeated (6-0) against teams with o-lines weighing less 309.
But that’s not the craziest part. Against o-lines with an average weight greater than 309lbs Louisville surrendered an average of 273.8 rushing yards and lost by an average score of 41-25. Even if you take out the absurd numbers from the Kentucky game, 309lb+ teams still averaged close to 200 yards rushing per game.
Comparatively, against teams under 309-pound benchmark, Louisville only surrendered an average of 127 yards rushing per game and won by an average score of 41-27.
Just look at the list. With the exception of Syracuse, Louisville's largest margins of defeat align perfectly with the top half of the rankings. That's hardly a coincidence.
This isn’t meant as a knock on Louisville’s front seven who have been to hell and back with four different defensive coordinators in four years, have dealt with multiple injuries, transfers, and has been forced to start walk-ons. This is meant to point to the obvious sign that Louisville’s defense can be easily overpowered with size and still has a long way to go during its rebuild.
This upcoming signing day is going to as important as ever as Louisville looks to sign anywhere between 25 and 29 recruits. I’m not going to pretend like I know where everything stands on our LB and DT recruits, as there are still things developing as you’re reading this. I’ll leave all of that to Dave Lackford to explain to y’all. But what I can tell you with certainty is that Louisville’s front seven just needs to get bigger and stronger. That can be done in the weight room, but the easiest way to do it is with recruiting.
I don’t expect this trend to change any time soon as bigger defensive players, particularly defensive linemen, take time to develop. All we can do in the meantime is hope that things go well the next couple recruiting cycles and that we face a (relatively speaking) skinny o-line in late December.