as the season progresses, but we still have some glaring weaknesses. Namely, our safeties are a step slow, our LBs (although not lacking speed) still struggle at times picking up coverage responsibilities, we still struggle to generate a pass rush from our dline. and I'm not sure how we can adequately handle a physical offensive front and running game.
We committed a safety into the box often last Saturday to take away the run, but was exploited often in the flats (due to soft safety coverage in man) and downfield when assignment coverage mistakes were made. Pitt will challenge up front Saturday, and I'm sure we'll have to crowd the box again defensively to keep them from shoving it down our throat, but not sure if their QB will be able to exploit us like King did.
For those that stated their frustrations here and openly criticized our defenses' pathetic performance against Miami on Saturday, I understand. I felt awful during game and after as well, but altered my thoughts in a positive way after reviewing the DVR.
For those calling out the DC, and arguing the poor performance was a direct result of poor coaching....I have trouble subscribing to that point of view. We still have considerable shortcomings, but improvement is noticeable if you look closely.
Here is a summary of my thoughts on our defense and our defensive performance vs Miami:
We committed a safety into the box often last Saturday to take away the run, but was exploited often in the flats (due to soft safety coverage in man) and downfield when assignment coverage mistakes were made. Pitt will challenge up front Saturday, and I'm sure we'll have to crowd the box again defensively to keep them from shoving it down our throat, but not sure if their QB will be able to exploit us like King did.
For those that stated their frustrations here and openly criticized our defenses' pathetic performance against Miami on Saturday, I understand. I felt awful during game and after as well, but altered my thoughts in a positive way after reviewing the DVR.
For those calling out the DC, and arguing the poor performance was a direct result of poor coaching....I have trouble subscribing to that point of view. We still have considerable shortcomings, but improvement is noticeable if you look closely.
Here is a summary of my thoughts on our defense and our defensive performance vs Miami:
- Our defense in BP's last season (2018) was so bad, it may have been the worst defense Louisville has put on the field in 30 years. It was a product of lack of talent, lack of depth, and coaching insubordination. It would take most years to fix, especially at a school like Louisville.
- The defense in 2019 was improved. The 2018 defense was so bad that it would have been difficult not to show some level of improvement with any semblance of adequate coaching, which I think we received. We showed flashes, at times, of adequacy, against challenged offenses, but also showed plenty of evidence of lack of talent, depth, size & strength against offenses that were above average or received above-average play from its QB. The defensive performance in the bowl game was the best of the season, and that should've been expected "if" you feel our coaching was adequate enough that we were clearly moving in the right direction.
- The 2020 defense was expected to continue it's improvement as depth & experience improved and the guys got a "partial" spring and fall camp in under the same system & staff. The WKU performance suggested this to be true, especially the run defense, but the Miami performance, at first glance, cast serious doubt.
- Upon further review, I believe the Miami fiasco was mostly due to 3 plays where critical mistakes made by one or more players led to catastrophic failure when Miami fully exploited those mistakes and converted them into 197 yards and 21 points...and a dagger to the hopes of any Cardinal comeback attempt. Besides those three fateful plays, the Cardinal defense actually performed fairly admirably despite any obvious talent discrepancy trying to defend the supremely athletic Canes' TE/slot position with our safeties/LBs and a QB who played very well while successfully exploiting it.
- The three plays are well known. The first was a 75-yard run, their first play of the 2nd half. Even if the RB was able to get the edge there, he still should have been tackled by whomever had weakside safety responsibility no more than 5-10 yards downfield. If you substitute that 75-yard run with a big play 10-yard run, then our defense still held a Canes team who ran for a boatload against UAB the week before to 95 yards on 29 carries (roughly 3 yds per carry). Louisville ran for over 200 yards on 49 carries (over 4 yds a carry). That is a very respectable run-defense performance against an upper tier ACC school with a strong running threat QB.
- The other two plays (one their 2nd offensive play of the half, and a 4th quarter play) were both pass plays where receiver targets were completely unguarded and no free safety existed. As Coach Satt said, doesn't take much talent at all to score TDs on those plays. That's how bad those mistakes were. Besides those three plays, Miami ran 57 plays for 288 yards (5 yards/play), and scored 26 points. (Louisville ran 85 plays for over 500 yards and averaged over 6 yards per play).
- Generally speaking, an offense runs a successful play when they gain 4 or more yards (three of these >10 yards) , score a TD, or gain a first down. Miami's offense succeeded at this on 25 of the 60 plays from scrimmage (42%), meaning the UofL "defense" won 58% of the time. In comparison, the Cards offense succeeded on 47 of its 85 plays (55%), with the Cane "D" winning only 45% of the plays. Obviously, the Canes won going away because they hit on all the "big" plays right? Yes, sort of...but primarily because of those three plays I mentioned before.
- If you consider anything 10+ yards constituting a "big" play, the Canes had 16 of them (or 27% of the 60 plays they ran). Louisville had 24 (or 29% of the 85 they ran). But when just looking at "explosive" plays (20+ yards), then Miami's 6 were 10% of its plays, while Louisville's 5 were only 6%. Again, those 3 fateful plays where player assignment breakdowns led to 21 points were the clear difference of this game.
- I see those mistakes on those three plays being mostly anomalies, being corrected moving forward, and resulting in better overall performances in future games with our defense inevitably looking back to that Miami game as a grand "missed opportunity." This was NOT the continuous "overmatched" annihilation we saw throughout 2018 and in multiple games during the 2019 season. In my opinion, that's a positive, and a clear indication we'll be better the remainder of the season. Time will tell if this observation is accurate.
- Eliminating the three explosive plays I've referred to that led to a piss-poor performance would not equate to a stellar ACC defense, but would constitute a very adequate defense, a definite improvement for us from the last two years, and good enough to produce a solid 8-3 type record given the explosiveness of our offense.
