Final Thoughts and Observations on Louisville vs. Boston College

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Heading back on the road for a showdown against ACC foe Boston College, Louisville was unable to secure their first win in conference play, instead falling 34-33 at Alumni Stadium.

Before we close the book on the game and transition to the matchup at Virginia, I wanted to provide some closing thoughts and observations from the game:

First of all, this was a game that Louisville absolutely needed to win. They needed to build on the slight momentum generated from the USF game, get back on track in the ACC with their first conference win at Boston College, then parlay those results into a win against another down ACC squad in Virginia. After the way that the Cardinals opened up the year, coming off of that soul-crushing loss to Florida State, firing off three wins in a row, against teams that they *should* beat, was the only was that Louisville could put themselves in a position to save their season considering how backloaded the schedule is. Instead, we got almost an exact repeat of what happened in the Florida State game, but against a team who is much, much, MUCH worse. Like they have so many times in over the past two and a half years, Louisville was presented a golden opportunity to get back on track, build up some confidence, and they completely and totally squandered it.
I probably sound like a broken record at this point with the next observation I'm going to make. Once again, the play calling on offense was both vanilla and predictable. It's been over two years since Satterfield first said he is going to open up the playbook some more heading into his second year at the helm, and we have still not seem him do so on a consistent basis. There have been brief moments where he deviates from this and actually produces a handful of creative play calls in a game, but this has been few and far between, and it was blatantly obvious against Boston College. Not only running the ball on obvious passing downs, but continuing to run it even though BC was getting good penetration. Even when Satterfield did draw up more passing plays, the defense knew they were coming because the run game has been stuffed so many times. It's the same song and dance we have seen countless times already. I'm not saying Lance Taylor needs to be the play caller for the rest of the year, or even for an entire game. But let him at least script an opening drive or something to that extent. It can't be much worse than what we're seeing now.
Okay, I think it's time we had a deep conversation about Malik Cunningham (though I'll shorten it for now for posterity's sake). He is a good quarterback, but a woefully inconsistent quarterback. He abilities with his legs are already well documented, so I'm not going to get into that. He produced a few really beautiful throws against BC, such as the back shoulder fade to Tyler Hudson in the second quarter, and the two throws to Ahmari Huggins-Bruce on their third quarter scoring drive. But he will also put up some abysmal throws in the process on top of that. Cunningham had multiple throws that either sailed way over the receiver's head, or were not placed in a catchable spot. If he can't get a lot going on the ground (which despite the three scores against BC, he only had 52 yards), and the play action isn't there, Cunningham has been shown to be extremely limited in what he is capable of, especially on deep throws.
Side note: Louisville is capital-S screwed if he has to miss a lot of time. Backup quarterback Brock Domann completed his first pass, then proceed to miss seven in a row thanks to either bad throws or bad decisions. Sure, the play calling didn't put him in a great position to have success outside of his first drive, but it's very clear he is not the long term option.
Anywho, even with Cunningham's struggles, it's clear the wide receivers haven't made his job any easier. They are still struggling to create consistant separation, except for Ahmari Huggins-Bruce. He needs to be thrown the ball a LOT more than what he currently is. At least Marshon Ford was somewhat involved in the passing attack this week, though it still wasn't enough if you ask me. But regardless, struggling against FSU's athletes in the secondary is one thing. Struggling against Boston College's secondary is a lot more alarming.
I was surprised at the lack of production Louisville was able to get on the ground, mainly because of the offensive line. That unit actually did a really good job of keeping a clean pocket for Cunningham, but for some reason they struggled to create holes for the backs. It also didn't help that they were short Jalen Mitchell again, and Tiyon Evans had to exit the game with an injury before halftime, but this Boston College front seven wasn't one that should blow you away based on either scheme or personnel.
The defense... hoo boy. Big plays came to bite them in a BIG way. BC put up 449 yards of offense in 52 plays, and 200 of their yards came on five plays. Another way to frame it is that the Eagles had 13 chunk plays (15+ yards pass, 10+ yard rush) that went for 401 yards, and their remaining 44 plays went for 49 yards. It's not that they were bending but not breaking, they were being stout and then inexplicably collapsing. If the players stayed focused for the entirety of the game, and the coaches put together a consistent game plan, Louisville might have covered the 13.5-point spread even with their offensive issues. Like the offense, defensive coordinator Bryan Brown has had an extremely inconsistent season as a play caller, and time is starting to run short on him, if you ask me.
Boston College came into this game with one of the worst offensive lines in all of football, and if you ask me, it single-handedly was the reason BC was 1-3 heading into this game. Not to mention it was announced just before the game that projected starter was going to be out, and other would still be on a snap count. With how much success Louisville has had in getting penetration in the backfield, they should have feasted in this matchup. Instead, it was Boston College that seemed like they had more push. Not only did they create a semi-clean pocket for Phil Jurkovec, but were able to rush for 145 yards. That doesn't sound like a lot, but that's more yardage than in their past three games against Power Five opponents COMBINED. An absolutely inexcusable effort from the defensive line.
I say the defensive line because the linebackers actually had a phenomenal game. Monty Montgomery finally had the breakout game we had been waiting for since he came back from his injury, tallying three first half forced turnovers. MoMo Sanogo also looked really good both in coverage and in run support. Ben Perry had a great 3rd down tackle just before the third quarter. Yasir Abdullah might not have filled up the stat sheet, but was still impactful.
As for the secondary... they had the opposite performance. There's no other way to put it: they stunk. Out of Jurkovec's 304 yards passing, Zay Flowers and Jaelin Gill had 248 of them. Louisville knew that Flowers was a huge problem, and both the players and coaches failed in not only coming up with a game plan to contain him, but executing anything resembling a stop. I'll give Flowers his flowers on that first score he had in double coverage, that was just a nice catch. But for his second score, there was no excuse for the coaches to play a single high safety against a receiver of his caliber. Even when they didn't play two high, Gill still had a couple catches where he got right by the safeties. Damned if you did, damned if you didn't, all because of simple execution.
Before I wrap this up... penalties, man. Louisville had done such a good job at staying disciplined in this area in the first half. But after not committing any before halftime, they were flagged for six of them in the second half. Jawhar Jordan had a 48-yard score - that would have put Louisville up by two scores - wiped by a backside chop block, and Dezmond Tell had a boneheaded personal foul that helped ensure BC would kick the go-ahead field goal. I don't know what the answer is at this point.
I'll close with this thought: this was a game Louisville absolutely needed to win, and had the potential to dominate in. Not only did the Cardinals not give off the vibe that they were better than Boston College, this was almost like a get-right game for the Eagles. This isn't the first time that has happened under Satterfield, either. The Florida State game had potential to be the point of no return for Satterfield, but this game actually felt like it. I still have no idea what to expect for the rest of the year considering how wildly inconsistent this team is, but it feels like it's starting to set in that the Satterfield/Louisville marriage is careening towards a divorce.

(Photo of Malik Cunningham: Bob DeChiara - USA TODAY Sports)

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