Good morning!
After a night’s rest, I can say that it’s still great to get a win.
I’d like to say that Thacker and Patenaude called a better game than they did against Syracuse, but I really couldn’t tell. We got the Friday night broadcast and camera crew, and it showed—or, more accurately, it didn’t. If you wanted to watch the offensive and defensive lines, you got that view a lot, but I rarely saw a big picture where I could see a play develop on either side. I wanted to watch what the corners were doing, and if they were having the same technique problems that they had last week. I wanted to see the routes develop in our passing plays. I had no luck.
On defense, the safeties did a much better job keeping receivers in front of them. That’s even more impressive because Louisville as much more team speed than Syracuse. Cunningham is faster than most anyone we have in the front 7, so assigning a linebacker as a spy didn’t work out great. I hope that’s something Thacker files away for later reference.
We did a better job holding on until someone showed up—or seemed to—and saw some gang tackles that bailed us out.
Louisville’s offensive line seemed about the same as Syracuse’s, but stronger in the middle at G-C-G. Our DTs had to gut out a game.
On offense, we started the game and had some routes break into the clear, and didn’t run out the route. We left a long TD or two on the table in the first half. Sims was overexcited in the first half, and the ball was sailing on him. We had a couple of series fail to convert because he was overthrowing the open man. If he’d started more even and level, we’d have probably gone into halftime tied or in the lead, with a better rested defense.
Our offensive line was not getting a great push against their D line. It especially showed up on the 3 and out inside our 5.
I also think we had a lot more called handoffs that looked like options, but there was no option. I think Patenaude was simplifying decisions for Sims, and the mistakes went down, but some big play opportunities stayed on the shelf.
Special teams—we lucked out. The kicks were generally good, especially on kickoffs, but we weren’t keeping our lanes in coverage. Louisville was fast, and we’re really lucky they didn’t break a return all the way. The fake punt was solidly executed.
Penalties were way way down, and it wasn’t just the crew. I don’t recall our receivers having an illegal shift or illegal formation penalty this week.
