Louisville Aiming to Play 'Cleaner' Football Ahead of FSU Matchup
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The Louisville football program was certainly able to flip a switch between their first two games of the 2022 season. After putting up a completely lackluster effort in their season-opener at Syracuse and falling 31-7, the Cardinals were able to rebound against at UCF and find the win column with a 20-14 victory.
But even with the various improvements that Louisville made this past weekend down in Orlando, they were far from perfect. In fact, one could make the argument that they won in spite of themselves, and played a borderline sloppy and undisciplined style of football.
"We have to play a lot cleaner football," head coach Scott Satterfield said Tuesday. "Whenever you get in these close games, you don’t want to beat yourself. It very easily could have happened last game and certainly happened in the first game with turning the ball over and penalties. We just have to play cleaner football. That’s just more focus every day in practice and continuing to focus throughout the game and not having those things happen to us."
A slightly alarming trend that has emerged over the first couple games is the amount of penalties that Louisville has committed. They committed seven for 50 yards against Syracuse to open the season, then 12 for 96 yards this past weekend against UCF. Their 9.5 penalties per game ranks 12th in the ACC and 118th in FBS, while their 73.0 penalty yards per game is dead last in the league and 107th nationally.
It's not one side or the other that is the issue when it comes to the penalties. For example, each side of the ball committed six penalties against UCF. Four of the offensive penalties came either on third down or in the red zone, while three of the defensive penalties gave the Knights an automatic first down - including one on fourth down.
"We need to get a lot better at playing more disciplined football, which includes the penalties. We have not been good in the red zone offensively, especially with three or four red zone penalties that have knocked us out of that. When you get long yardage from penalties in the red zone, it’s hard to overcome.
"Last week, defensively, we jumped offsides two times – one on fourth down giving them the first down and the other on third down when they threw an interception, and we were offsides."
Penalties haven't been Louisville's only struggles early on in the season. Through the first two games, despite offseason moves and efforts to try and correct it, third down and red zone execution is still poor.
Sure, penalties have played a large role in some early season struggles on third down and in the red zone - particularly on offense - but it hasn't been the sole reason. Louisville's third down conversion rate of 36.0 percent is just 80th nationally, while their red zone conversion rate of just 60.0 percent (three scores in five tries) is 123rd.
"There were some positives, but still a lot to clean up," offensive coordinator Lance Taylor said. "Right now, we're not great on third down. We're not great at converting touchdowns in the red zone. We had multiple opportunities at the end of the game to close it out with us on the field, not putting our defense out on the field, and we didn't do that."
Satterfield, Taylor and the rest of the offensive staff have put an emphasis on trying to erase these crucial, sometimes drive-killing, penalties, and believe they have started to see some improvement. For them, it all goes back to taking it one game at a time, looking at the tape from each game, identifying each issue that needs to be corrected, and implementing the change. Taylor believes this will be the key to changing some early-season bad habits.
"That's really just the process that we're gonna go through every game this year," he said. "If we just get a little bit better each game, then we can get some confidence going, and we'll be a tough team down the stretch."
Over on defense, the issues that have plagued the offense haven't been as bad, but are still somewhat present. While Louisville's red zone defensive conversion rate of 75.0 percent ranks 40th in FBS, their defensive third down rate of 37.0 percent is 72nd.
Defensive coordinator Bryan Brown is taking the same approach that the offensive staff is, but also thinks the issues are partly to blame on "first-couple-of-game jitters." He also believes that conditioning also plays a role in some of the untimely penalties, particularly late in the game.
"You just got to be disciplined. You got to be very, very disciplined and lock out the noise," he said. "I think some guys are still getting into game shape. Sometimes you get tired, and then mentally weak. You end up jumping offsides, get a P.I., whatever the case may be. I think that goes into getting back into game shape, as well as just honing in, doing your job and being a little more focused."
Louisville will finally play their first home game of the 2022 season this weekend, but they certainly have a challenge in front of them in Florida State. The Seminoles are riding some early season momentum, having won their first two games of the season, including a 24-23 win over LSU at the Superdome.
With the energy and excitement that comes from a full Cardinal Stadium, Satterfield is hoping that they can use that to not only help correct their own issues, but force some on FSU as well.
"What Florida State does really well, they’ve been staying on sticks," he said. "I think they’re one of the better teams on third down. They’re averaging a third and five. If you’re averaging third and five, you get an opportunity to pick up a lot of first downs, so hopefully we can knock them off the sticks a little bit and hopefully the crowd here will help that out.”
Kickoff between the Cardinals and the Seminoles is set for Friday, Sept. 16 at 7:30 p.m. EST.
(Photo via Mike Watters - USA TODAY Sports)
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