Everything lined up perfectly for Louisville football to continue its winning streak against FSU on Friday. How UofL let the Seminoles walk out of Cardinal Stadium with the victory.
Friday night was about as perfect of a situation as you can concoct as a Louisville football fan.
A perfect weather day, an unbelievable tailgating scene, a who’s who of Louisville Twitter folks, old buddies, and good times. I could not have felt more blessed catching up with friends on the party deck and getting rowdy with the good folks in section 215.
And Louisville was facing a big-name opponent in front of a solid crowd.
I’ve been doing this for years. Counting down the days until beers and good times in Cardinal Stadium. Losing my voice. Acting a fool and going through the rituals of a gameday as a Louisville football fan. It’s cathartic.
But Friday was a top 5 night for me. It seemed like everything aligned just perfectly.
Similarly, on the field, things felt like a confluence of everything good that could have happened for the Cards.
Florida State star defensive end Fabian Lovett was a DNP due to an injury. QB Jordan Travis, who was having a monster game, went out in the second quarter with an injury, making way for inexperienced backup Tate Rodemaker. And stud FSU linebacker Tatum Bethune and defensive end Jared Verse were out for a while with injuries.
Louisville’s crowd was lively and impacting the game. Things just felt right for the Cards to blow the doors off this team.
Yet, somehow, some way, Louisville found a way to shrivel up, play some pretty bad football, and give the game away late.
Even after FSU missed a short field goal in the fourth quarter. Even after the Seminoles made ugly plays and costly turnovers.
FSU tried to give this one away, and Louisville football just wouldn’t take it.
Let’s take a deep dive into how we got here.
Dereliction of coaching duties on offense
After a pretty damn good showing against UCF, it was back to the same old mistakes, confusing decisions, and communication issues against FSU.
Give credit where it’s due first: The offensive playcalling felt a lot more balanced on Friday.
I have been pretty tough on Satterfield over the ridiculous amounts of runs on 1st down, 2nd-and-longs, and even 3rd-and-longs.
Louisville managed to stay ahead of the chains for most of the evening, and there was a healthy balance of passing and running.
It worked, too. Louisville won the time of possession battle, often had FSU on its heels, and just looked like a much better offense at times.
With that being said. WHAT THE HELL, SCOTT?
While taking tremendous strides overall in the playcalling department, some of the situational blunders were absolute negligence on the coach’s part.
Let’s start with the fumble inside of the 10-yard-line with 10:30 left in the second quarter.
This was the 13th play of probably UofL’s best drive of the game.
The play came in late, there was confusion from the sideline, and multiple players did not know their assignments.
Call. The. Timeout.
It’s not about being perfect, it’s about getting it right. You have a chance to jump all over FSU here and you let that play keep going? Horrifying.
Moving to the end of the first half, Louisville had a drive that ended in a Jawhar Jordan fumble (BS lack of forward progress call, but I digress). Louisville had three false starts on this drive. At home! Is this a communication issue? Are we not sure what cadence or snap count we are going with here? I mean… Forget the fumble. What was happening here?
The next possession, Louisville has the ball with a second chance to drive to take a two-score lead. This is where I felt a trend started that FSU took advantage of the rest of the game.
Cunningham was not given enough opportunity to utilize his strengths when Louisville could have stepped on the throat.
Three straight plays, Cunningham was in the pocket, forced to make a play with his arm only. The result was an 8-yard completion, a sack, and an incompletion.
We will get to Cunningham’s play later but the dude ran all over these bozos all night long. You have to give your elite-level running QB a chance to get things done with his legs when it matters the most.
At the end of the half, Louisville squandered, at MINIMUM, 9 points. Realistically, they could have scored 21-24 points on their last five drives of the half.
Instead, you have a silly turnover, a punt, a touchdown, another turnover, and another 3-and-out punt.
That was the game right there.
But, it gets worse.
Because FSU kept giving Louisville opportunities to seize momentum, and the Cards kept giving it back.
Here was Louisville’s drive chart in the second half:
6 plays; Punt
3 plays; Punt
3 plays; Touchdown
5 plays; Field Goal
8 plays; Turnover on Down
7 plays; Interception
We won’t get into the nuances of the second half because there is so much to get to on the defensive end and realistically, I feel the game was lost at the end of the first half when the Cards let them stay in it.
But surmise it to say that the second half decision-making was much the same as the end of the first half.
FSU was without two of its best defensive playmakers in the second half. So, Cunningham breaking contain and getting it done with his legs on the one touchdown drive is not shocking.
Outside of that, though, Louisville once again put the ball in Cunningham’s hands from the pocket.
Cunningham’s strength, again, is running the ball and/ or rolling out and having the option to hit crossers or tuck it and find the sideline.
This notion that all of a sudden, in his fifth year, Cunningham is going to become a pocket passer is ludicrous (Luda!) and lamentable.
So, while the offensive playcalling was often much more balanced and improved from the aspect of running when they should run and throwing when they should throw, the situations the coaching staff put this offense in were not conducive to winning by playing to their strengths.
Cunningham could’ve had well over 200 yards on the ground if allowed to do so. But, instead, we are making him a pocket passer. It’s silly. It’s negligent. And it’s time to reflect very seriously on what the hell we are doing with this offense.
You have Cunningham, who had 20 passing TDs last year, with one all season. And that was a dump-off to Trevion Cooley, who did most of the work.
Marshon Ford is not involved the way he should be.
Where the hell is Ahmari Huggins-Bruce?
Your big-play weapons in Tyler Hudson and Dee Wiggins have been reduced to guys who are targeted out of desperation and not by design.
It’s time to reflect inward. Because this offense is nowhere near what it should be, given the talent and depth.
Malik Cunningham is what haters say about Lamar Jackson
Now, to the Cunningham conundrum.
The running joke is that detractors love to call Lamar Jackson a running back. And his fans will die on the hill that Jackson is a high-level passer with some questionable receivers.
The truth is, the comparisons between Cunningham and his superstar predecessor are steeped heavily in comparisons to the idea of what Jackson is rather than the players they truly are.
Here’s the reality: Cunningham is and should be a running quarterback that relies even more heavily on his legs.
Because Cunningham has played in 49 career games now, and it is incredibly apparent with each passing game who he is and who he isn’t.
When given a clean pocket but no place to take off and run, Cunningham is simply not a high-level QB.
He lets passes sail on him. He cannot make throws to the wide side, especially outside of the hashes. He underthrows. He overthrows. He throws behind open receivers- as he did three times to Hudson on Friday.
Cunningham has poor field vision. He had ample opportunities to find wide-open players whenever FSU sent the house. Instead, he had zero pocket presence, and either took a sack or threw the ball away.
The secret is out on Cunningham. Teams have more than enough tape to know that a clean pocket is not a scary place for Cunningham to be for the opponent.
I know this comes across as harsh. But I’ve sat here and watched every game of his career. And then I’ve gone back and re-watched every game of his career. Sometimes more than once.
The jig is up, bro.
Here is the good news: Cunningham is and can continue to be a damn good college quarterback in the right situations.
But it’s time to stop seeing him as this guy who is going to magically take a step forward and be this polished pocket passer who dices up defenses.
Take Rodemaker made more impressive throws as an inexperienced back-up on the road than Cunningham, who turns 24 in three weeks and has started more games than any QB in school history.
The verdict is out. It’s been out for a while.
Cunningham is electric with his legs. He is a weapon. He strikes fear into the hearts of opponents.
But, god dammit, Scott. Don’t spend another second trying to make this dude a pocket passer.
Louisville football should squeeze every ounce of potential out of Cunningham by allowing him to run, and then make the easy throws.
Let’s go back to RPOs. Let’s go back to the option plays of years before. Let’s throw more to the boundary. Get the tight ends involved.
Stop this charade. Let Malik be Malik.
I’ve seen this defense before
I’ve seen this defense before. The one we saw Friday night against Florida State.
I’ve seen it before.
And it’s the same lackadaisical, unorganized, lethargic bullshit that we have been subjected to at times for four years.
I was smitten with the defensive performance from the Cards last week against UCF.
Admittedly, in retrospect, I was probably more excited because the performance was so unexpected.
And I think it was pretty naive of me – of us all – to expect that to continue against FSU.
Louisville can’t tackle. Not well at least. And the effort, or lack thereof, from this squad in year 4 under Brown is damning.
The video below will follow Kenderick Duncan for the rest of his career.
If Duncan plays at the next level, and I think he has a good shot of doing so, he is going to sit down in meetings with NFL scouts and they are going to break out a laptop and immediately put on this tape. And ask what in the sam hell this effort is.
Monty Montgomery- You too, brother.
This is the style of play that loses you games.
And rather than sit here and go through each drive as we did with the offense, I’ll just say this:
This Louisville football defense- and the team as a whole- will accomplish nothing until the effort and energy levels are fixed.
Yasir Abdullah, Yaya Diaby, and Nicario Harper: Hats off to these men for a tremendous game.
Everyone else. Look inward. Self-reflect on the effort and energy in that second half on Friday. Because, at times, you were about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.
Schematically, yeah there are things that you could change or tweak.
But, overall, I will continue to be the lone wolf leading the charge that this is not exclusively a defense issue with this team.
I thought Louisville came with a nice game plan early. The Cards stacked the box, as I implored coach Brown to do in our game preview. They trusted Tre Clark, Jarvis Brownlee, and Quincy Riley to do their jobs in man situations.
Jordan Travis simply made great throws early and often. Yes, the secondary got burned a few times but there were a lot of great plays from the defense mixed in as well.
10 tackles for loss. 4 sacks. 2 interceptions and a third that was overturned. Those are really solid numbers against a good FSU offensive line.
And that has been typical of this Louisville defense. The Cards can make impressive plays. They can flash signs of brilliance.
Then, in the same game, they can miss assignments, look completely lost, and show horrifying effort.
Does that part fall on the coaches? Certainly. But the players have to show up for a full game, too. And I think it’s okay to point that out.
We saw what the defense is capable of against UCF. We saw glimpses of what the defense could offer on Friday.
But it’s those plays in between. Where you get a sack and then give up a 60-yard bomb. Where you have multiple guys running like someone unplugged their Xbox controller.
That is maddening. That is what’s inexcusable. And that is part of what cost Louisville the game.
No more excuses for Satt
I have been a Satterfield backer from day one.
I stood up for this staff through the entire debacle of a COVID season. I defended him and desperately wanted him to stay after another blowout loss to Kentucky. I trusted his leadership through a lot of trying times. So let me say this, and truly mean it.
Scott, you’re 19-21 now, bro.
Louisville football is by no means a juggernaut program. But we expect better than sub-.500 football around here.
And the thing that has started to sink in – after Friday against FSU, after the shocking blowout to Syracuse, after getting shredded by Air Force, after getting embarrassed by Kentucky – is that this is more than just a trend. This is your identity now.
You find new ways to let games slip away. You get blown out by teams that are more physical.
You have had ample opportunities to seize momentum. After everything, the fans showed out Friday and you just gave them another dose of disappointment.
Even then, the worst thing to me is the pressers.
The lack of explanations. The excuses. The lack of fire. The awe-shucks routine.
Satt, you’re a nice guy. Truly, you seem like a really genuine dude. But this is past being old now, bro.
You’ve established your identity as a coach. Your teams lack discipline. They are soft. They can be easily pushed around- Even by other undisciplined teams like Florida State.
Yeah, when your teams are clicking, they are fun to watch. We have seen that time and again against lesser opponents.
But, back to the wall, having to make a play and be the aggressor, your teams most often are not ready for the moment.
That isn’t a talent thing. That isn’t a scheme thing. That’s an identity thing.
And no amount of high four-star and five-star players are going to make up for that.
To me, this is a relationship on the rocks approaching unsalvageable territory.
And I have no idea how it gets better.
I’m going to show up on Saturday. Rain or shine. I’m going to have my cathartic moments, take in the football, hang with my buds, and have a great time. Louisville is probably going to win. And, like Friday, the result on the field won’t impact my decision to return. I’ll always be there.
But, Satt, respectfully, I’m not sure you’ll always be gracing those sidelines.
That has much more to do with the identity you’ve established than anything else.
You’ve shown us who you are. And I am going to be inclined to believe you going forward.
Why did the stadium empty at halftime? Thats what I am trying to figure out. The fan’s in Louisville are the worst in the country.