Louisville football: Petrino takes advantage of worn out Denzel Perryman

Denzel Perryman (#52 in the gifs below) was trouble for the Louisville running game for much of the night against Miami. Miami's defensive line did a very good job occupying blockers and allowing Perryman to roam and attack the run extremely aggressively. For example, the play below. On 3rd and 1, Louisville lined up with an unbalanced line to the left and Perryman was able to quickly shoot through and crush Dominique Brown in the backfield.

Louisville quickly got the ball back and went to work on Perryman. Running away from him, then completing a pass to Christian who stretched for a first down. On the following first down play, Gardner threw to Quick. You can already see Perryman was a little slow in pursuit from the middle of the field and was standing up straight to catch his breath.

On the following play, Perryman was unable to cover Gerald Christian across the middle on a pass that resulted in a first down for Louisville. The important thing to note: Perryman signaling to the Miami sideline that he needs to come out of the game.

Louisville had not been huddling on this drive and they hurried to the line even more quickly on this play. Petrino and McGee signaled to Gardner to check to this play and run it right at Perryman. For one of the few times that night, Perryman was slow to react at the snap and was quickly sealed by just the tight end which helped spring Brown for a 15 yard touchdown run.

Seeing the way Louisville quickly took advantage of Perryman wearing down reminded me of what Smart Football's Chris Brown said during the game:

@BlatantHomerism @CoachHuddleston Very different and both good but no human on earth is like Petrino. He sees defenses like the Matrix...

— Chris B. Brown (@smartfootball) September 2, 2014