The scoreboard started to light up in the second quarter of the Louisville game against Syracuse on Saturday night. Let’s dive into some of the plays that stood out.
This is a perfect play against the perfect defense, but Louisville has to do better here. Syracuse goes five wide, with the hopes that the Cards will match it with either man or a Tampa 2 look. UofL ends up in zone, but this should be a coverage that would stop this play. It’s a shell coverage with the two safeties covering half of the field. That means the corners have to carry the outside routes down the field.
Syracuse has a switch release at the top of the play with the outside receiver and the number two receivers crossing each other. Myles Norwood takes the bait on an out route that would be roughly 10 yards short of the first down on a third-down play. The Orange’s five-star freshman blows right by him, and Norwood is left trailing the play and watching the back of his jersey.
TJ Banks got the blame for this in the PFF stats, but he’s put in conflict on this play by design. The outside receiver is running right up the seam to hold Banks in the middle of the field. On the endzone view of this play, you can see him trying to read Malachi Nelson’s eyes, and he gets stuck in between the receivers. If Norwood keeps up with Calvin Russell, this is a tough throw for Nelson to fit in to anyone on the field. He may have to check it down short of the sticks.
Brian Brohm calls plays like I do on a video game, and I don’t totally know how I feel about it. On third and six, he calls a slot go route that has worked well for them this season. If Syracuse is in zone on this play, you likely have the crosser underneath to get the yardage, or the deeper crosser behind it.
Instead, the Orange are in man with one safety deep. The deeper crossing route holds the safety in the middle of the field, while their fastest receiver gets a solo matchup against the nickel. This is one of the best throws Lincoln Kienholz has made this year, and Tre Richardson rewards it with a great catch.
I’ve been waiting for this play call all season long. Tight end throwback is my favorite red zone play, and it seems to work every time it’s called. The line does just enough to let our very athletic quarterback make this play after the nickel blitz nearly blew the play up. Jaleel Skinner does a good job of selling the block before sneaking out the backside for what sure looked like a touchdown to me.
Rushing four players and dropping your two edge players into coverage is just a poor decision. The Cards mug up the linebackers to the line so that Syracuse will not know who is blitzing, where from, or if they are blitzing at all. I’m all for this being a positive aspect of the defensive scheme, but dropping your best pass rushers into coverage the majority of the time you do it does not work.
Ben Perry blows this coverage as well. I’m not sure why he takes the outside receiver initially, as he has a corner outside of him. He is lined up with the tight end, but he immediately looks at the outside receiver and angles towards him. By the time he realizes he has the tight end, it’s too late, and the pass is complete.
This is great effort in a big moment from Lawayne McCoy. Syracuse had just taken the lead, and the Cards needed to get a score before halftime. His ability to make people miss in these short areas has been pretty remarkable. He almost makes one too many jukes here, but he gets the job done because defenders pursuing the play naturally pushed him forward.
Notable that Kienholz looks for the short option on this play and stays with it even though McCoy is covered. He trusts him to make a play.
Isaac Brown is really fast.
It took what I’m guessing is an injury to Tayon Holloway for Steve Ellis to play Antonio Harris, and the redshirt freshman makes this play on his first opportunity in coverage. Umari Hatcher was dominant on Saturday, but they only attempted one more throw downfield to him after this. Harris showed on this play that he could handle him on a double move, and his confidence only grew from here.
I can’t say enough about how impressive a play this is from a guy who had played 13 snaps in his career before this game. He gets depth at the snap, which allows him to play this perfectly. He is able to stop his feet on the double move without shrinking the space between himself and Hatcher. He then stays outside as he has safety help coming from the inside. Finally, he doesn’t try to body Hatcher in the air. Instead, he jumps while keeping space between them, which allows him to play the ball. I’d imagine this was featured in film study this week.