#W2W4: Florida State Seminoles

Can Louisville Get One Thing Ironed Out?

Louisville isn’t going to fix every issue with this team this week. They could fix one thing though. Ideally, they would be able to work out some issues on both side of the ball but I haven’t seen anything so far this season to think that that is possible. So here are a few things that stand out to me that they could work on this week.

• The offense should be able to throw the ball down the field. FSU has been terrible defending the pass and their corners have been beaten for long touchdowns multiple times this season.
• UofL should be able to protect the quarterback. Brian Burns is the only defender that has made an impact as a pass rusher for the Noles.
• Louisville should be able to control the line of scrimmage on the defensive side of the ball. They’re facing the worst offensive line in the country. That’s all that needs to be said here.

Florida State Will Run The Same Misdirection Plays That UofL Hasn’t Stopped Yet

For the last two weeks, Louisville’s defense has had to deal with lot of “window dressing” from opposing offenses. Teams have been using motion, fake screens, wheel routes, and read option plays to move the defense and cause confusion. FSU will do the same.

The Noles love to throw quick screens outside to the perimeter and they will work in the fake screen play where the receiver that is supposed to be blocking fakes the block and releases past the defense. One of their few touchdowns on the year came off of that play.

They will also mix in some read option plays with Cam Akers as well as jet sweeps to Nyquan Murray. They ran a really nice play off of the sweep action with Akers running an “arrow” route down the field. Francois missed him but it was wide open. Willie Taggart is known for running a lot of similar plays until you make him stop. While he hasn’t been able to do that much, he has been able to use those plays to set up other ones with the same actions in them. UofL has not defended those types of things well and they have to do that this week.

Louisville Has To Take Advantage of A Bad FSU Team

Not many people expected Louisville to have a two game winning streak against Florida State. FSU was rolling downhill under Jimbo Fisher but they still had better talent and a better coach. But, two games went the Cards’ way and they’re now going to face one of the worst teams FSU has had in decades.

Louisville needs any win it can get right now and this might be the best opportunity for that to happen. The game is at home and the defense should get a couple of injured guys back. They are also four games into the new defensive system, so guys should have a solid grip on it now. This is a good opportunity to beat a team with glaring issues and UofL has to find a way to pull it off.

If Louisville Doesn’t Decide On a Quarteback This Week, They Never Will

This is the fifth year of Bobby Petrino’s second stint at Louisville and it has been nearly nine months since Lamar Jackson last took a snap for UofL. Petrino still doesn’t know who his quarterback to replace him is. There are so many levels to that stat that I won’t even get into them. What I will say is that they need to figure this out this week. As in, whenever they get done watching film of the Virginia game.

More than that, they need to stick with whatever decision they make and they need to ride that out for the rest of the season. Barring a transfer, the three guys on the roster will likely be your three options when the 2019 season starts. So, if that is the case, there is no reason to play a guy “for the future”. Play the guy that you think will turn this season around and make sure that that guy knows that you have his back. If he turns the ball over, you don’t pull him. If he has a rough series, you let him go back out on the next drive. These guys can’t keep wondering if they’ll be benched.

If they don’t make this decision this week, this musical chairs act will continue all year long. The schedule only gets tougher and they will be playing in tough situations for the rest of the season. Let that player play through those situations or you’ll have more outcomes like the Virginia game.