Defense struggles against Clemson
Louisville football allowed over 500 yards of offense for the fourth straight game in a 45-10 loss against Clemson. Despite the third-ranked Tigers offensive production, Cardinal coach Scott Satterfield thought his defense did good things against the ACC’s only remaining undefeated team.
“They are a high-powered offense with a lot of talent and we just didn’t help our defense offensively,” Satterfield said. “I thought we played well enough in the first half defensively to be in that game and we didn’t do anything on offense, and that’s the bottom line.”
The defense handed the ball back to the Louisville offense in the game’s opening drives, but the Cardinals couldn’t come away with points and had two turnovers of their own.
Safeties Jack Fagot and Russ Yeast intercepted Tiger quarterback Trevor Lawrence twice in the first quarter, but the offense couldn’t capitalize on the turnovers.
“We got guys stepping in and confused (Trevor) Lawrence a little bit on some of the throws he got some great picks,” Satterfield said.
The big plays eventually came for Clemson. Amari Rodgers had a 61-yard reception in the second quarter that led to a touchdown while Justyn Ross had a 25-yard touchdown reception with five seconds left before halftime.
Travis Etienne had a 49-yard touchdown run in the third quarter to extend Clemson’s lead to 24-3.
“We missed a few tackles, but if you’re missing tackles, we had guys there,” Satterfield said. “That’s what you want. We had guys right in the hole where they needed to be, but we didn’t make them sometimes and we have to tackle better.”
