Louisville's Defensive Struggles Exploited in Loss to Miami

The Cardinals have their defense struggle since making the jump to power conference competition.

Oct 19, 2024; Louisville, Kentucky, USA; Miami Hurricanes running back Mark Fletcher Jr. (4) runs the ball against Louisville Cardinals defensive back Tamarion McDonald (12) during the first half at L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium. Miami defeated Louisville 52-45. Mandatory Credit: Jamie Rhodes-Imagn Images / Jamie Rhodes-Imagn Images

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Throughout his career, head coach Jeff Brohm has been known to come up for the big games. While the head coach at Purdue, he went 3-1 against teams ranked in the top-five of the AP Top 25. Last season, he pulled off an upset win over No. 10 Notre Dame in his first year with his alma mater at Louisville.

So when No. 6 Miami came to town, naturally, the Cardinals were a trendy national pick to pull off the upset special. Instead, Louisville found themselves on the wrong end of a shootout, falling 52-45 to the Hurricanes on Saturday.

“Unfortunately, we weren’t able to come out with a win," Brohm said after the game. "We had some chances, I do think our guys played hard but it wasn’t good enough. We definitely have not got off to good starts. I applaud our team for hanging in there and playing until the end but we have to play better football."

When looking at the final score, it's pretty easy to deduce what was Louisville's downfall against Miami. All afternoon long, the Cardinals' defense struggled mightily against the Canes. By the time that the clock hit zeroes, Miami had put up 538 total yards on Louisville. Additionally, the Hurricanes went 9-of-15 on third down, 2-of-2 on fourth down, and - excluding the final drive where they kneeled out the clock - scored on seven of their ten possessions.

"They were able to move the ball at will for the most part," Brohm said of Miami's offense. "We had a couple good stops there in the middle of the game, that was good. We were able to get a couple sacks but we are giving up way too many big plays. We gave up way too many big rushes. We weren’t able to tackle people to the ground late in the game. We weren’t able to bring people down when we needed to. So those are things we have to get fixed if we want to try and win football games.”

Of course, it was a given that Miami was going to have some offensive success. After all, they came into this game with the No. 1 total and scoring offense in the FBS, averaging 583.8 yards and 47.7 points per game. It also helps that quarterback Cam Ward is one of the top midseason candidates for the Heisman Trophy. It was an inevitability that points would be scored.

That being said, Louisville's defense's didn't exactly pose much of a threat to Miami for the majority of the game. Up front at the point of attack, the Cardinals were bullied and bulldozed, allowing short runs to develop into much bigger gains. In fact, Louisville gave up nine different runs of 10-plus yards, and Miami ran for 219 yards - the most by a UofL opponent at home since Kentucky ran for 362 back in 2021.

Through the air, Louisville's didn't fair much better. While Cam Ward was sacked three times, the Cardinals' pass rush struggled to bring down the slippery signal caller at times. On the back end, like we have seen a handful of times this season, untimely coverage busts - especially in the middle of the field - led to drives getting extended.

But perhaps what the biggest issue on the defensive side for Louisville was tackling. While it's long been established that this area isn't an area of strength this season for the Cardinals, it was particularly egregious against the Miami skill position players.

“We have been working on tackling a lot for the last couple of weeks because we haven’t been great at it even before now," Brohm said. "Wrapping up? You have seen our bodies, our shoulders, our arms, tackling higher and not so low and getting more guys to the ball – all of those things need to happen. Sometimes there were big piles in there and we need to get in there and get it done. Without question, the tackling was not good late in the game. So that needs to be fixed.” 

It wouldn't be concerning if this was the first time we have seen Louisville struggle on that side of the line of scrimmage. While some progress was made in the previous vs. Virginia with defensive coordinator Ron English's move to the sideline from the booth, there have been season-wide struggles on defense for the Cardinals.

Over their last five games, Miami included, Louisville is giving up an average of 431.6 yards per game. The only team not to put up 400 yards on the Cardinals during that span is Notre Dame. Over the last three games, they've giving up an average of 303.7 passing yards per game.

With a short turnaround in store, Brohm says that Louisville needs to make a lot of adjustments before their Friday night road trip to Boston College.

“We need to adjust, there are some things we need to do differently," Brohm said. "As the head coach, it’s my job to make sure those things get done. I think our guys are working hard, we tried to correct some things the last two weeks. I do think our coaches have put the effort in. I just thing we’re going to have to continue to change some things and I’m going to have to make sure that those changes get done and we go out there and try to get better.

"We’ve tried to take the approach that we need to challenge things, guard things tighter, make them make plays. I didn’t know if that happened as much as I would like in this game. I thought we got better in the game as it happened, but that needs to happen from game one to the very end. And if we lose, we need to lose challenging things and getting beat in a one-on-one matchups. Obviously, you need to have some intelligence in that and not go overboard with that, but I just feel like we can defend things better, so we have to get a better plan.”

(Photo of Mark Fletcher Jr.: Jamie Rhodes - Imagn Images)

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