Points of Emphasis: Louisville vs. Duke

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - After suffering their first loss of the season at Pitt, the Louisville football program is coming out of their bye week ready to rebound, hosting Duke for a top-20 matchup.

Here are some of the more notable storylines heading into Saturday's game:

Injury Report

This late in a football season, it's normal for injuries to start accumulating. For both Louisville and Duke, this happens to be the case.

The Cardinals will be short starting right guard Renato Brown for the remainder of the season after he suffered a knee injury in pregame warmups prior to the game at Pitt. Star running back Jawhar Jordan (hamstring) and starting cornerback Jarvis Brownlee (foot) are both questionable for this upcoming matchup vs. Duke, but there is optimism that they could play.

As for Duke, they also have a pair of notable injuries. After re-aggravating an ankle injury in the previous game against Florida State, quarterback Riley Leonard is "day-to-day" ahead of the matchup with Louisville. Cornerback Myles Jones - Duke's highest-graded defender per PFF - is also "day-to-day," but head coach Mike Elko noted that "it'll probably be a race against the clock to get him ready for Saturday."

Louisville Getting Refocused Following First Loss

Previously riding the high of taking down a top-10 opponent and winning their first six games of the season, the Cardinals (6-1, 3-1 ACC) then ran into their first roadblock of the Jeff Brohm era in their last time out with a 38-21 loss at Pitt back on Oct. 14. Players, coaches and fans alike then got to stew on that loss for an extra week, as this was preceded by their lone bye week of the 2023 season.

"Bye weeks are never a whole lot of fun when it happens after a loss, but that's life, and we have to live and learn and try to find ways to improve and get better," Brohm said. "There are plenty of things that we need to do to get better. So, I think this past week was used to get guys as healthy as we can because that's very important as well, and then to try to identify the weaknesses we've had and make sure we're getting better in those areas and improving."

With a difficult second half of the season coming, Brohm said that getting refocused was of utmost importance for Louisville during their bye week. Fortunately, the entire program seems to have taken this message to heart.

"We got to go back and study a lot of fundamental things," wide receivers coach Garrick McGee said. "Each coach would go on the field for those workouts, and we had some technique things to really concentrate and focus on. We spent both days working on certain things that we think that we need to be able to execute to move forward. I think it was really good for us, in regards to our fundamentals and techniques."

Brohm Wanting to Improve Efficiency While Maintaining Aggressive Approach

In the previous game against Pitt, Louisville shot themselves in the foot on several occasions. Offensively, despite out-gaining Pitt by 142 yards, three turnovers inside the red zone proved to be their undoing. Defensively, Louisville allowed seven chunk plays to the worst offense in the ACC, and a Pitt team that had gone to their backup quarterback in hopes of a spark. Even on special teams, Brock Travelstead missed a 47-yard attempt.

While a lot of this boils down to simply executing the play, an area that Brohm wants the team has a whole to improve upon is efficiency.

"I do think offensively being more efficient in what we're doing needs to happen," Brohm said. "Winning the turnover battle is vital to success. You saw it in the Notre Dame game, it definitely helped us. Of course, in the Pittsburgh game it hurt us that we turned the ball over so much. ... Defensively, I think we've been playing some good football. Of course, this team last week was able to hit some big plays on us."

In the same breath, a lot of Louisville's success this season has been due to an aggressive approach. While Brohm wants the Cardinals to operate with more efficiency and precision, he's not willing to sacrifice their aggressive mindset in the process.

“I think we have been aggressive in our approach and that part has been good," Brohm said. "I think once you do that a lot, you have to understand that people are going to study you and what you do. So, you have to make sure you have enough safe calls that you’re able to mix in. We’ve done some really good things.

'Stout' Duke Defense Marching Into Louisville

While quarterback Riley Leonard, the running backs and the rest of the Duke offense generates most of the headlines, where the Blue Devils have really made their hay is on defense. In fact, they enter their matchup with Louisville with one of the top defenses not only in the ACC, but college football.

“They're stout on defense," Brohm said. "They play a solid brand of physical football that keeps the ball in front of them. They do some really good things up front in running games and stunts and creating some havoc for your offensive line, and they they've just been very good. I think until the Florida State game, you could hardly score any points on them, and they kept that game extremely close to the very end."

Duke's defense is currently averaging only 315.9 yards and 13.9 points allowed per game, which comes in 24th and ninth, respectively, in the FBS. While their rushing defense comes in at 60th at 136.4 rushing yards allowed per game, they make up for it by having the No. 2 red zone defense in college football, behind only Michigan.

Where the Blue Devils really excel is in pass coverage. Not only are they allowing only just 179.4 passing yards per game for the 16th-fewest in the FBS, their passing efficiency defensive mark of 104.66 comes in at 8th nationally.

"Their secondary, they're playing with three corners and two safeties, and one of them is a sophomore I believe, but the rest of them are grad students or seniors," wide receivers coach Garrick McGee said. "So they've played a lot of football, and they don't make mistakes, they communicate and they play hard."

Louisville-Duke Serving as Critical Matchup in ACC Title Race

After Louisville's stunning upset loss at Pitt, it dealt the Cardinals a crushing blow to their chances at making the ACC Championship game. Of course, it didn't eliminate their chances entirely, but it certainly made getting to Charlotte a lot more difficult.

But while Louisville was on their bye week, things got interesting. Not only did Duke lose their game at Florida State, North Carolina also suffered their first loss of the season courtesy of a shocking loss to Virginia. As a result, FSU is now the only undefeated team in the ACC, with four one-loss teams in conference play.

UNC still has the second-best odds to reach the ACC Championship game at 35.6 percent, per ESPN's FPI, but Louisville is right behind them at 27.0 percent and Duke is at 25.9 percent. This weekend's matchup doens't necessarily mean the winner will control their own destiny to get to Charlotte, but it definitely all but eliminates the loser.

While making the conference championship is an attainable goal, and one that Louisville was vocal about in the preseason, it's not a large talking point at the current moment. They're more concerned with facing the team directly in front of them.

"I don't spend a whole lot of time talking about what the end result could be at the end," Brohm said. "Now, we understand, and we talk about that we have a lot of goals ahead of us that we need to work hard to accomplish. Obviously, when you lose, the chances of getting those get less and less.

"I think we put ourselves in a good position now that, if we can find ways to improve and finish strong, then maybe good things happen at the end. But for us, we can just put all our focus on Duke, and making sure we're getting prepared to play, because we're going to need to. You figure out a way to come out with a win, then you get closer to your goals.

(Photo of Jamari Thrash: Jamie Rhodes - USA TODAY Sports)

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