How good is Louisville's defense? I have been trying to quantify that for months.
* It's good enough to be 2nd in the nation behind Alabama in yards per carry allowing only 2.8 ypc.
* It's good enough to only allow three rushing touchdowns on the season (one against Marshall, one against Syracuse and one to Wayne Galliman against Clemson). Louisville has gone five games without allowing a rushing touchdown.
* It's good enough to only allow 28+% on third down.
but...I have pressed my mind to try to remember a single mobile QB (maybe Dungey at Syracuse, but that's not really their game) and the running backs have been sort of serviceable; the UVA running back Mizell was a good all purpose back and obviously we made Dalvin Cook our focus in limiting him successfully against FSU and I think FSU's rushing yardage total is really deceiving because the bulk of it came when the score was 63-10 (from Jacque Patrick), the running back for NC State was supposed to be pretty good but was negated. Otherwise the running games faced have been pretty average. Even in the UVA and Duke games the problems for Louisville weren't running games, they were turnovers coupled with secondary breakdowns and it's secondary breakdowns that have been a recurring theme. It's what lost the Clemson game and it's what kept Duke and UVA closer than it should have been.
On a personnel level we have talent and no real weak links; but we are vulnerable to the Playoff and New Year's Day caliber teams because I think we're a little thin by comparison in numbers in the front seven. I was listening to color man Alex Kupper this morning and he thinks Deangelo Brown is the best NT in college football; it's hard to argue to the contrary for me because I can't think of a better one (because in part there are still more teams playing 4 man fronts than 3-4s). Fields returned Saturday and was a monster but to that point Louisville's pass rush had largely gone AWOL since the Marshall game with the exception of the NC State game. Hearns is a very good DE. The linebackers Thomas and Kelsey are outstanding as a tandem. I think we're a little vulnerable in the Red Zone because teams pick on Trumaine Washington to mixed results. When healthy Wiggins starts over him but hasn't been since FSU.
I guess the statistical jury would say one thing, but my observations say something else. Maybe it's a matter of your weaknesses in the Red Zone due to a lack of quality passing lining up with our weakness of being able to cover routes when teams are forced to the air. So many of our scores given up in the Red Zone through the air are on third down which is even odder given our quality third down percentage defensively.
