WTWF: BC Eagles

TYLER MURPHY OFF THE EDGE

Louisville has yet to face a running quarterback and they will face the nation's best threat in Murphy. With an average of 107.2 yards per game, Murphy is one of the better runners Louisville has seen all year. BC runs a power running game out of pretty much any formation you could dream of. They will spread the field on one play and run a read option off tackle, then follow it up with a offset I-formation with three tight ends and run an inside trap. What makes the offense so hard to stop is Murphy's ability to hit the edge of the defense and takeoff. If he gets the corner he has the advantage of having big wide receives outside that can wall off corners and safeties and allow him to use his speed to break free. Louisville showed their first signs of having some issues with edge runs against NC State and Dalvin Cook was able to score two touchdowns off the edge last week. Murphy has killed defenses on zone reads so Louisville will have to focus on that.

DEVANTE PARKER VS BC'S SECONDARY

Parker has been electric since returning from a broken foot two weeks ago. The BC secondary is the "weak" link of the defense so far this season. Something has o give here. BC doesn't have great athletes on the roster and wide skill positions are where that is most glaring. Manny Aspirillo and John Johnson don't have an interception between them this year and Johnson has barely made an impact in the passing game at all. Parker was able to go off for over 200 yards against future NFL players PJ Williams and Ronald Darby last week so I can only imagine that he should have success against two players that don't stack up nearly as high as those two. BC will bring a lot of blitzes and so the quick slant routes that we've seen from Parker over the last two weeks should continue. If he can break a few like he has so far, he might actually be able to take them all the way for touchdowns.

THE TURNOVER BATTLE

BC has only turned the ball over eight times this year with six of those turnovers being interceptions. As good of a runner as Tyler Murphy is, he has struggled with his accuracy all season. He doesn't have great athletes to throw to which means that he's throwing into smaller windows and that always leads to picks. With Gerod Holliman leading the nation in interceptions it can be easy to see Murphy adding to that total. What will be really interesting to see is how well BC protects the ball in the run game. I expect Grantham to really stack the box against the run and to have the defense gang tackling and swiping at the ball. BC is a disciplined team that values the football. A turnover or two for Louisville's defense could really be backbreaking for the BC offense.

WILL GARDNER'S RELIANCE ON DEVANTE PARKER

Michael Dyer and DeVante Parker have accounted for 77% of the offense over the last two weeks. Read that again. Two guys should never account for that much of your production. Part of the issue with this is that Will Gardner is focusing so much on Parker that his other receivers are being overlooked. Parker is the only target on third downs and he's also the go to guy on first down pas plays. A good defensive coordinator like Don Brown will key on that and he will make everyone else on this offense beat him before he lets Parker put up three touchdowns. Until Will goes back to the guys he relied on before Parker came back, the offense is still limited. The biggest factor of having Parker back is not his playmaking ability. It's his ability to put the defense as a whole on it's heels. He changes the shape of the defense and allows other guys to attack zones that are more open than they were when he wasn't out there. Gardner needs to start looking at guys like Quick and Rogers on the opposite side of the field as they should be more open than they were previously.