Stacking Up: Notre Dame Offense vs. Louisville Defense
The fourth-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish host the Louisville Cardinals on Saturday. Notre Dame will look to improve to 4-0 overall and 3-0 in conference play, and the Irish offense will be key to making that happen.
Notre Dame holds a significant talent and statistical edge on the 1-3 Cardinals. whose defense has been down for several years, and there haven't been many signs of improvement this season.
Let's take a look at how the Notre Dame offense stacks up on paper against the Louisville defense. (Note: There are just 76 teams currently factored into the rankings, compared to 130 last season)
Notre Dame Scoring Offense vs. Louisville Scoring Defense
Advantage: Notre Dame
Notre Dame scuffled offensively in the opener against Duke, but the Irish steamrolled South Florida and Florida State, averaging 47 points and 492 yards per game, and 7.4 yards per play.
A counter argument could be that Notre Dame beat up on a pair of inferior defenses that are struggling this season. While true, the reality is Louisville matching the play of Florida State or Duke on defense would be an improvement.
The Irish converted just 28.6% of its third-down opportunities against FSU, which dragged down its ranking. The good news for Notre Dame is it only had seven third-downs the entire game, its fewest since having only five in a win over Navy back in 2013.
As bad as Louisville's overall defensive rankings are, they are actually a bit inflated. Western Kentucky is one of the nation's worst offenses, and Louisville held them to 21 points and just 248 yards.
In three games against Power 5 opponents, Louisville allowed 38.7 points per game, 437.0 yards per game and 6.8 yards per play.
This is a matchup Notre Dame should dominate.
Notre Dame Rush Offense vs. Louisville Rush Defense
Advantage: Notre Dame
This is a big-time mismatch, at least on paper. Notre Dame's ground attack has been absolutely brilliant in the last 10 quarters, and Louisville's run defense has been average at best.
Notre Dame's offensive line is playing at a very high level right now, and running backs Kyren Williams (359 yards) and Chris Tyree (188 yards) are both averaging 7.5 yards per rush. They have shown the ability to rip off big runs just as effectively as they have shown the ability to maximize available yards.
Notre Dame averaged 317 yards per game and 7.3 yards per carry in wins over South Florida and Florida State.
Louisville's per game and per carry rankings are both below average, ranking in the bottom half of the national rankings. To make matters worse, at least from Louisville's point of view, they rank that low despite playing offenses not known for running the ball effectively.
An example, Louisville "held" Pitt to 156 yards and 3.9 yards per carry. The per carry average is good, but the problem is its Pitt's best average against a Power 5 team, by over a yard. The 156 yards is also Pitt's highest of the season, nine more than it put up against Austin Peay.
Georgia Tech's 5.7 yards per rush against Louisville was its best mark of the season.
Louisville has just one starter in its front seven that weighs over 260 pounds, which doesn't bode well against a Notre Dame line that averages 308.8 yards per game.
Notre Dame Pass Offense vs. Louisville Pass Defense
Advantage: Notre Dame
This is the closest on-paper matchup between the Notre Dame offense and Louisville defense, but even then it's still a significant Irish edge.
Notre Dame's pass offense has been mostly mediocre this season, but it started to wake up a bit against Florida State, with quarterback Ian Book putting up his best passer rating of the season, by far.
Notre Dame needs its pass game to make a big leap this week. Getting breakouts from Braden Lenzy and/or Kevin Austin would be a positive, and this could also be a big week for tight end Tommy Tremble.
Notre Dame's line will need to be sound when it comes to picking up Louisville's pressure packages. If they do the Cardinals will have a hard time stopping Notre Dame.
Louisville's secondary struggles from two problems. One is a failure to execute, which often results in them turning receivers loose. Two is a lack of overall talent.
Their inability to get after the quarterback has made matters worse.
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