Final Thoughts and Observations on Louisville vs. Virginia

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The Louisville football program has run into their first adversity of the 2025 season, dropping a 30-27 overtime decision to No. 24 Virginia for their first loss of the season.

Before we close the book on the game and transition to the second bye week, I wanted to provide some closing thoughts and observations from the game against the Cavaliers:

First of all, that was one of the most frustrating games I have ever seen. For as good as Virginia is (yes, the Cavaliers are a good team), they handed Louisville multiple opportunities to run away with the momentum and cruise to a somewhat easy victory. Instead, time and time again, Louisville squandered the opportunity to take full control. Just how lopsided could this game have been if Louisville took advantage of the chances to take control? Virginia had a postgame win expectancy of just 10.1 percent, per SP+. It was the lowest PGWE for a winning team in *ANY* game played involving a Division I team so far this season. Don't get me wrong, Louisville did not deserve to win this game in the slightest. But it was baffling to see this team, once again, refuse to take advantage of their opportunities (at least on one side of the ball).
It goes without saying that the play on the field by the actual players certainly left a lot to be desired. That being said, it's time to call a spade a spade: head coach Jeff Brohm did a terrible job in terms of pre-game preparation and in-game management, and the play calling, once again, was extremely hit-or-miss. The end-of-half clock management in both halves was atrocious. A couple timeouts were wasted in this game simply because of not having everyone on the same page. Accepting a penalty when it declining it would have forced Virginia to kick it on 4th and 8, with UVA scoring a touchdown later on that drive. Brown's fumble allowed a defensive touchdown, but the play call itself (a toss play on 4th and 1) was likely going to get stopped anyways. Failing to get Chris Bell involved in the third quarter after he torched Virginia in the first half. This is now the third time this season (JMU, Pitt) that Brohm has said in the postgame that he was either not expecting them to run certain looks, or didn't he didn't make proper adjustments as the game went on. Brohm is still an overall very good coach, but this entire season has been far from his best work, and that has been extremely concerning moving forward.
I really don't want to dive into the offense first, but I feel like I have to. I don't know if I've ever seen a quarterback who is more Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde than what Miller Moss has done not just this year, but the season as a whole. On one hand, completing 70.8 percent of your passes is very efficient, and his 33-yard strike to Kris Hughes was insanely clutch. But my goodness... he'll counter that with some truly head-scratching plays. I get that the offensive line is not good right now, but a few of those sacks he basically served to Virginia on a silver platter considering. I'm not sure who has worse pocket awareness: him or Sheduer Sanders. He still continues to struggle with letting passes sail long on wide open receivers. And don't get me started on that third quarter. He should have thrown at least three interceptions, and probably should have thrown at least two pick sixes. There's been at least one instance per game where his wide receiver has to play defensive back to avoid throwing an interception. Moss does just enough to actively avoid getting benched, but more than enough to even warrant having the conversation in the first place.
I'm not going to raise a stink about any non-Chris Bell wide receiver being basically absent for large swaths of this game. Bell was playing like prime Randy Moss, so just keep feeding the ball. In fact, I was mad that Bell didn't get hardly any targets in the third quarter, although I did like seeing the tight ends get involved.
It's difficult to watch this run game struggle like it has, especially considering how both Isaac Brown and Duke Watson are still struggling with injuries. That being said, I'm not going to place a ton of blame on them for why the ground game has been been flailing. Instead, that falls squarely on the feet of the offensive line. Once again, this unit couldn't open up rushing lane worth a damn, and they routinely allowed defenders to get into the backfield and chase after Moss. The play at the tackle spots from both Mahamane Moussa and Rasheed Miller was particularly egregious. It's time for Trevonte Sylvester to permanently take over one of those spots, and have Lance Robinson kick back out to tackle.
Okay, now we can talk about the defense. There were a couple questionable instances, such as Ron English dialing up a corner blitz on 3rd and 20 or D'Angelo Hutchinson letting his man go right past on Virginia's first TD. But for the vast majority of this game, the defense -both with the players and the coaches - played lights out. This was a top-five offense heading into the matchup, and Louisville forced them into season-lows all across the board.
Considering how much they love to run the football and the success they have there, the ground game is UVA's identity on offense. While there were five runs that went for a combined 66 yards, the 27 other attempts went for just 22 yards. This was an incredible effort by the front seven to keep the ground game in check. The pass rush wasn't as efficient, but it still produced a handful of stops. T.J. Quinn had another incredible outing after posting the game of his life last week, while Clev Lubin, Wesley Bailey and Justin Beadles did a great job setting the edge. Though I was mildly disappointed with the performances from Rene Konga and T.J. Capers.
On the back end in coverage, Louisville was just as proficient, and then some. They allowed just three passes of 15 yards or more, and had Chandler Morris confused on the exact coverage for a vast majority of the game. While he was much less of a risk taker in this game than he normally is, the secondary also did a good just at taking away his primary reads. JoJo Evans put together a phenomenal game, as did Antonio Watts and Tayon Holloway.
As far as special teams goes, this was mostly a good game for this unit. Caullin Lacy did a great job picking up hidden yardage, and Cooper Ranvier was able to nail a pair of field goals - including a 50-yarder. As for his missed 42-yarder, that mainly falls on long snapper Shai Kochav, who oddly enough is having a very average year by his standards.
I'll close with this thought: it's easy to overreact given how hapless Louisville's offense has looked to start the season, and quite frankly, I don't blame fans for having this mentality. Sure, an ACC Championship Game appearance will likely not come this season, but there is still plenty of other goals to play for. Given how manageable their games after Miami all look, a nine-win season is still on the table. That being said, there has to be some major adjustments on the offensive side of the ball in order to get there.

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