Three takeaways: Louisville fights off a feisty Boston College for a 38-24 win

The Cardinals were the talk of the town last week after beating the no. 2 ranked Miami Hurricanes on the road, but that was last week.

This week, it’s Boston College, who’s had an underwhelming season under former NFL head coach Bill O’Brien. The Eagles were 1-6 coming into the game, yet they came out and gave Louisville a fight pretty much until the final drive.

Each time it seemed like they finally had laid down, here comes Boston College making a play to make the game closer and more interesting. Louisville had to shake off an early slow start that certainly stemmed from riding high off last week, but every college football fan knows that the previous week’s results don’t have any impact on the following week’s results. You gotta come out and play good football to get the job done and that’s exactly what Jeff Brohm’s team did after a while, they just needed a little wake up call.

What better way to wake up your squad than a 73 yard run on your first touch of the game. That’s what Isaac Brown did, and it seemed like he did it for the entire game. That kid is special when it comes to finding open space and just turning on the jet’s. When he’s healthy, there aren’t too many running backs in the country you would rather have on your team. Brown set the entire tone for the Cardinals and when they saw him carrying the load, everyone else started to follow suit. Louisville’s star sophomore was averaging a whopping 30 yards a carry at one point in the first half, which is absurd against any P4 opponent.

The formula for Brown is simple, get him the ball in open space and we’ll see you in the end zone. When you have a guy who can carry the ball that well, it makes fighting off a feisty opponent much easier.

Here are the three biggest takeaways from last night’s game.

The Miami hangover was real

Well, I think it was pretty easy to tell that the Miami win was still in the players’ minds. Louisville wasn’t in control of this game until the later stages of the second quarter, but all the time before that consisted of Boston College moving the ball down the field, and taking up a good chunk of time off the clock. In the first 52 plays of this football game, the Eagles ran 40 of those plays. Ron English’s defense needed an early wake up call. They just couldn’t seem to get off the field at first, but then they adjusted and made it a lot tougher for Boston College to sustain drives.

You can get away with slow starts majority of the time against bad teams, but you can’t do the same against good teams. This team needs to get in a better habit of coming out and immediately setting the tone, just like they did against Miami. Good thing Isaac Brown plays for Louisville.

Running backs are officially getting healthier

By this point, we already know what a monster performance on the ground Isaac Brown had, who finished with a season high 205 yards on just 14 carries. He was simply sensational, but it’s also important to show some love to Keyjuan Brown who’s been dealing with injuries of his own. He finished the game with ten carries for 95 yards and a 38-yard reception from Miller Moss that he took to the house. Louisville would probably be in a late game nail-biter if it hadn’t been for their second Brown in the running back room.

The Cardinals don’t win that game by two scores without his timely plays. Duke Watson still isn’t fully recovered , but when he does this will undoubtedly be one of the best units not only in the ACC, but in the entire country. Those guys play a huge role in Brohm’s success and they make Miller Moss’s job that much easier.

Defense has turned into a turnover machine

It wasn’t the best performance from Ron English’s unit in terms of playing to their standard, but the one thing that’s remained constant with them through seven games is timely stops.

Whether it’s getting a much needed three and out when the offense gets a little stagnant, or a forced fumble/clutch interception, this defense has been flat out getting it done. As the rest of the country saw last week, when they’re wreaking havoc, it’s one of the best defenses in the country. Louisville’s current top 20 ranking is stemmed from how great the defense has been in these games. Not necessarily start to finish, but when you need them they’re there.

Shoutout to Ron English who heard all the criticism and channeled it into probably his best group since he arrived in Louisville. This team is very tough to beat when he’s taking care of business the way that he is.

It wasn’t Louisville’s best day by any means, but they made plays when they needed to and they’re sitting at 6-1 with a firm shot at the ACC title game with a 3-1 conference record. They certainly need some help along the way after the overtime loss against Virginia. The good thing is there’s still a whole lot of football left to be played. All the Cardinals need to do is worry about the next team on the schedule and simply take care of business.

Next week, Louisville will have yet another road test against a solid Virginia Tech team whose quarterback Kyron Drones has given the Cardinals some trouble in the past. They’ll have to be locked in from start to finish in order to move to 7-1 in their young and promising season.