Behind Enemy Lines: Five Questions For Louisville Report's Matt McGavic
PITTSBURGH -- The Louisville Cardinals march into Pittsburgh undefeated and ranked No. 14 in the country after dominating then-No. 10 Notre Dame on national television and will present the Pitt Panthers with perhaps their biggest challenge of the season so far.
To get to know the Panthers' impending opponent, Inside the Panthers asked Louisville Report's Matt McGavic five questions about the Cardinals.
If you want to read up more on Louisville, you can find Matt's work at louisvillereport.com or follow him on Twitter @Matt_McGavic and @UofLReport.
How high are the expectations for the Cardinals after beating Notre Dame? Is it just an ACC Championship game berth or is everyone allowing themselves to think bigger?
Expectations are about as high as they have been since at least the Lamar Jackson era. Entering the season, most thought that a “successful” campaign would be around 8-4, maybe even 9-3 with how the schedule shook out. Now? Not only is there talk about making it to Charlotte for the ACC Championship, some fringes of the fanbase already indulging in College Football Playoff talk. I personally think it’s much too early for the latter, but potentially earning a berth in the ACC Championship is very much on the table at this point. Their rushing attack is a much bigger factor in their offensive success, and their defense as a whole didn’t have this massive drop-off that some were expecting after changing schemes and losing so many impact players.
We know about the Big 3 on offense - Plummer, Thrash and Jordan - but who stands out on defense for this team?
I’ll highlight a player from each area of the defense. The first person who stands out on this defense absolutely has to be Ashton Gillotte. The standard stats (sacks/TFLs) and advanced metrics (PFF) both suggest that he is one of the better defensive ends in all of college football. Thanks mainly to his insanely high motor, he causes a plethora of disruption in the backfield whether it’s a pass or a run. In the linebacking corps, T.J. Quinn has taken a huge step forward. While he doesn’t have a ton of sacks or TFLs, he is one of the most efficient tacklers on the team, and has done a great job at reading ballcarriers to make sure they do not advance very far past the LOS. The secondary, there’s plenty to highlight here, but I’m going to go with Quincy Riley. He was already a good player last season, but an already good cover corner has only gotten better when dropping into pass coverage. His ACC-leading eight pass defenses backs this up.
What’s the biggest difference in 2023 Louisville compared to 2022 Louisville after going through a coaching change?
It’s simply the fact that Louisville can actually go out and finish games. Arguably the biggest criticism of head coach Scott Satterfield, and there are a lot of them, was that his teams just simply could not get the job done in the second half or the fourth quarter. Time in and time out, Louisville would position themselves to be in good shape to get the win, but then would slowly let it creep away from them. Now, Louisville’s execution in the second half and fourth quarter is arguably their biggest strength.
Outside of Notre Dame and Boston College, the Cardinals had mostly been “surviving” close games against FBS competition. What allows them to be so good in close games?
If I had to guess, it’s partly that their mental resolve seems to be much tougher than it has been in years past, and that it’s also that there actually seems to be a complete and total buy-in from the players to what the coaching staff is trying to do. Under Satterfield, there were times where the latter was very much a question. Now that Louisville has already found themselves in several situations where they’ve had to hunker down and make plays, the players have complete trust in the staff. It’s only getting stronger, too. When they fumbled to start the second half against Notre Dame to lead to an Irish score to take the lead, that could have served as a massive momentum-swinging instance against them. Instead, they proceeded to put up 26 second half points.
Drake Maye is probably the clear No. 1 quarterback in the conference, but where does Jack Plummer fall after him? Is he the best signal-caller in the ACC outside of Chapel Hill?
I actually don’t think so. I personally would put FSU’s Jordan Travis and *maybe* Miami’s Tyler Van Dyke ahead of Plummer and behind Maye. Don’t get me wrong, Plummer is a very good college quarterback. But he’s probably more so the game manager type with some occasional instances where he is the one making plays (such as the Boston College game). He has been very inconsistent at times this season, and has had a fair share of bone-headed decisions. But when he’s at his best, it’s hard to force him to make the wrong decision. He can be very good at making correct reads, not taking unnecessary risks and taking care of the football. He also has had times where he is a tad over-aggressive, but that hasn’t been a huge issue.
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