Louisville Generates Pass Rush Improvement vs. FSU, Hoping to Continue Trend

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Under defensive coordinator Bryan Brown, the Louisville football program has seen a tremendous turnaround on that side of the ball. In just two seasons, it was transformed from one of the worst defenses in college football, to a top-three statistical unit in the ACC.

That being said, there was still plenty of work to be done, as the Cardinals were still not generating the amount of pass rush that was needed to be considered an elite defense. In 2020, they only averaged 1.9 sacks and 5.6 tackles for loss per game, and had one of the worst passing downs sack rates in all of college football, according to Football Outsiders.

Through the first three games of the season, Louisville found themselves still struggling in this department, totaling just five sacks and 14 tackles for loss against Ole Miss, Eastern Kentucky and UCF. But when they traveled down to Tallahassee for their ACC opener against Florida State, the Cardinals flipped a switch, putting up six sacks and 11 tackles for loss in that game alone.

"I think our guys did a great job of studying film, and getting on edges, running their games," Brown said. "Just having that relentless effort up front - there's times where it may be four or five seconds that the quarterback has the ball, and then we finally sack him. That's relentless effort, and that's what you want to see when we're doing a great job in coverage."

Louisville's great pass rush against the Seminoles was highlighted by a pair of standout performances from outside linebacker Yasir Abdullah and defensive end Ashton Gillotte, with each having two sacks and at least three TFLs. DE YaYa Diaby finally broke through for the first sack of his Cardinals career, and OLB Jack Fagot tallied a pair of TFL's on top of his team-high 10 tackles.

"We just had to lock in, do what we had to do like in the offseason, just use our technique we've been using in the past, and just bring it to the present," Abdullah said. "We played as a whole, we did our assignments, our gaps. We had a couple busts, but we didn't panic, so that's a good thing. If we don't panic, we just keep rolling and keep making plays."

With the conference schedule firing up, continuing with a crucial division matchup at Wake Forest, Louisville will have to continually bring this type of effort and execution in the pass rush moving forward. Coming off of a performance like the one against FSU, and even one against UCF where QB Dillion Gabriel was held to under 200 passing yards on 75 percent passing, Brown is hopeful that his guys can do just that.

"I'm excited, and that's awesome to be able to get the amount of sacks we've had the last couple of weeks," Brown said. "Hopefully we can continue that trend, because if we do, we'll continue to be a pretty good defense.

Kickoff at Wake Forest is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 2 at 12:30 p.m. EST.

(Photo of YaYa Diaby - Melina Myers - USA TODAY Sports)

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