Three takeaways: Costly turnovers lead to Louisville's OT loss against Virginia

After last week’s come-from-behind victory on the road against Pitt, the Louisville Cardinals had to face another tough test versus No. 24 Virginia.

The Cavaliers just beat a top-ten Florida State team last Friday, so they came into the game with a high level of confidence. So, when you play a team like that at home, the key is to punch them in the mouth early, and Louisville did the exact opposite.

It’s been the theme all year long, resurfacing after facing a 17-0 deficit at Pitt last weekend. But, surprisingly, the Cardinals are still sitting at 4-1 heading into the bye week.

This was certainly a winnable game for Louisville, and it’s hard to overcome two turnovers that led to immediate touchdowns in any game.

Here are a few takeaways from the 30-27 overtime loss to the Cavaliers that pretty much tell the story.

 Join Cardinal Sports now for $1 your first week and enjoy a complimentary year of The Athletic – included with your membership. Sign up today!

1. Miller Moss will be an up and down QB this season

This was an all-over-the-place type of game for Miller Moss, who’s still struggling a bit with his ball security and under pressure.

At times, he looks extremely comfortable in the pocket with pinpoint accuracy on his passes. There are also times when he displays the total opposite of that, and it leads to erratic decisions like his pick-six today. In a tight game at home against a very good team, plays like that can’t happen, and when they do, it’s usually always the difference in the game. Moss will have to be better at going through his progressions and getting the ball out a whole lot faster in the face of pressure.

2. As of now, the run game is nonexistent

Jeff Brohm has a major problem on his hands. All of his top three running backs are hurt to some extent.

Duke Watson re-aggravated an injury and didn’t return, Isaac Brown hasn’t looked like himself since the James Madison game, and Keyjuan Brown is also nursing an injury that’s limiting his carries. Without a steady run game to rely upon, Moss is now required to throw the ball a lot more than he probably should. And that could also be a problem for Louisville if the bone-headed turnovers continue. Today against Virginia, the Cards outgained the Hoos by almost 150 yards, but still ran for fewer than 30 yards than UVA. It’s a glaring hole in the offense that has been exacerbated by injuries.

Hopefully, they can get back healthy over the bye-week, because they’ll be much needed against a dominant Miami defensive line.

3. The defense isn’t perfect, but has made strides along the way

Ron English has faced criticism in just about every year he’s been the defensive coordinator at Louisville, but this season has been one of his better coaching jobs.

His scheme is still pretty much the same, but the key difference is now he knows when and where to dial up pressure, which then affects the opposing quarterback. Virginia quarterback Chandler Morris looked uncomfortable for a good majority of the game because the defense was in his face the whole time. Even though they gave up that last touchdown, English’s unit did more than enough to win the game this afternoon. Just too many mistakes for Louisville at the worst times, and all of it led to Virginia points.

Louisville certainly has some thinking to do, because beating Miami is going to be a really tall task. It gets a whole lot harder if your top three backs aren’t healthy enough to take some much-needed pressure off Moss.

The good news is that they get the entire week off and will get as much time as possible to prepare for what will be their biggest game all year. With 13 days off, it gives the Louisville running back room a little time to nurse those nagging injuries and hopefully be ready to go.

The bad news is that Miami will be coming off a bye week as well, and they’ll have the same amount of days to prepare for a Louisville team that has shown its flashes of potential, but can’t seem to put the finished product together for a full 60 minutes.

Only time will tell if Jeff Brohm will have his squad ready to go, because if you make those same crucial mistakes against that Miami team, it will get ugly and pretty fast.