Everything You Need To Know: Louisville

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Can Virginia’s defense be disruptive again this week against Louisville? ~ Mike Ingalls

The Virginia football team got back into the win column last week against Richmond, but the competition jumps up a notch with No. 21 Louisville coming to Charlottesville. The Cardinals are new to the ACC and have replaced Maryland as UVa’s yearly cross-division rival on the schedule. After going winless in the ACC last season, the Hoos would love to end that streak and get their first ACC win in their first ACC game of the season.

Here’s everything you need to know for the contest.

Essentials

Game Nuggets

  • Saturday is the third all-time meeting between Louisville and Virginia. The series is tied 1-1. Louisville won at home in 1988, 30-28. UVa won in Charlottesville in 1989, 16-15. The first two meetings went down to the wire. In 1988, Louisville kicker Ron Bell connected on a 39-yard field goal with 10 seconds left in the game to give the Cardinals the win. In 1989, Jake McInerney kicked a 37-yard field goal as time expired to lift the Hoos to victory.
  • Saturday is Virginia’s conference opener. The Wahoos hold a 22-38 all-time record in conference openers. The Cavaliers are 0-6 when facing a new ACC member for the first time in conference play, dating back to when Georgia Tech joined the ACC in 1979.
  • Louisville is on the road for the first time this season, making this the program’s first ACC road game. Since joining Conference USA in 1996, the Cardinals are 10-8 in their first league road game of the season. The Cards are 34-48-1 all-time against the current 14 teams in the ACC.
  • The Cardinals have won six straight road games dating back to last season. No. 21 Louisville takes on unranked UVa in Charlottesville this weekend. Bobby Petrino owns a 39-5 record against unranked teams as the head coach at Louisville.
  • Saturday is Military Appreciation Day and there will be a few different ways UVa will honor those who serve the country: a Wounded Warrior recognition, coin toss by Brigadier General Risch of the UVa JAG School, national anthem by Midshipman Sarah Fuller with a joint color guard presentation, and a pregame parachute exhibition. A red, white, and blue honorary ribbon will be painted on the field.

Spotlight On Will Gardner

Louisville had it good the past three seasons with Teddy Bridgewater at quarterback. Bridgewater completed 68.4% of his passes for 9,817 yards, 72 touchdowns, and just 24 interceptions. That led to a spot in the NFL as a first-round draft pick of the Minnesota Vikings.

Those are big shoes to fill for redshirt sophomore Will Gardner, who has won his first two starts for the Cardinals. The 6’5″, 224-pound QB has completed 33 of 50 passes (66%) for 339 yards and four touchdowns. He has yet to throw an interception, though he has lost two fumbles. Virginia coach Mike London has been impressed with Gardner on video.

“He’s poised back there in the pocket. He manages the game well. You can look at where he’s looking to throw the ball and the completions, being efficient. He gets the ball to their playmakers. We watched the game against Miami and this past game that he can put the ball money on the spot,” London said. “It’s important that our rush lanes and being able to try to get after him, pressure him a little bit and not give him a whole lot of time, that’s going to be critical for us. But he has done well for his football team. He’s led his team by doing the things that they’ve asked him to do and hand the ball off or throw the ball to those receivers who are very dynamic.”

Despite the good start with two home games, Gardner is still finding his footing as a college starter so his first road game at Virginia will be a test. The Hoos change coverages, vary pressures, and blitz from all angles and that all can be challenging for a new starter. Gardner hasn’t had much experience with this type of scheme – he attempted just 12 passes last season as a redshirt freshman and that followed a two-year playing gap (he tore his ACL as a high school senior and then redshirted) – or this type of defensive speed up front. How he fares against the UVa defense will be a big storyline this weekend.

Match-Ups To Watch

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Quin Blanding and UVa’s safeties will see some crossing routes in front of them. ~ Mike Ingalls

Louisville tight end Gerald Christian and receiver Eli Rogers vs. Virginia’s linebackers and safeties. Richmond purposely used motion and bunched formations to pull UVa’s linebackers into coverage on backs and receivers. Considering that Louisville features similar offensive elements – motion and trips sets – in its passing game as well as shallow crossing routes, it’s going to be important for Daquan Romero, Anthony Harris, and company to be on their toes defensively. The Cardinals are going to try to create favorable match-ups and they’re going to try to get the ball to someone like Rogers crossing the field in stride. They also like to hit Christian in the middle of the field or on the backside of play-action fakes. Through two games, Christian has nine catches for 91 yards and two touchdowns (team high) while Rogers has 10 receptions (team high) for 110 yards. He has caught five or more passes in 13 of 40 career games.

Virginia’s Kevin Parks, Khalek Shepherd, and Taquan Mizzell vs. middle linebackers Keith Kelsey and James Burgess. Louisville’s outside linebackers Lorenzo Mauldin (weak side) and Deiontrez Mount (strong side) rightfully get a lot of attention because they make it hard to attack the perimeter against Louisville and they pursue running backs, receivers, and quarterbacks equally well. With Virginia running between the tackles frequently so far this season, however, middle linebackers Kelsey and Burgess are going to have a lot of chances against Parks and company. Both players are tied for the team lead with nine stops each and they will be the two crashing between the tackles and slicing into gaps for those straight-ahead runs in this one. Overall, Louisville is ranked sixth in the nation against the run by allowing just 55.0 yards per game so far.

Virginia’s Eli Harold vs. Louisville’s Jamon Brown. The match-up between Virginia’s defensive front and Louisville’s offensive line as a whole should be interesting. The Cardinals’ Jake Smith (right guard), John Miller (left guard), and Brown (left tackle) all have 30 starts or more in their career, while the front seven for the Hoos’ is an experienced group as well. Smith is on several preseason watch lists as sort of the premier lineman for Louisville and his battles with Mike Moore and David Dean are something to keep an eye on too, but Brown’s match-up with Harold should get a lot of attention this weekend. Harold’s ability to get around the edge and collapse the pocket has taken another step forward this season in concert with Max Valles on the other side. If Brown can slow down Harold, it could help quarterback Will Gardner find a rhythm against the Hoos.

Louisville safeties James Sample and Terrell Floyd vs. Canaan Severin, Darius Jennings, and the UVa receivers. The Cardinals graduated two all-conference safeties in Calvin Pryor and Hakeem Smith last season. That puts a lot on Sample and Floyd as the replacements. With an experienced front seven and Louisville often deploring Cover-2 in the secondary, there are going to be opportunities to attack the seams and the sidelines in front of Sample and Floyd. That means players like Severin, Jennings, Andre Levrone, and others are critical to success this week. Those receivers need to find the soft spots in the coverage and make tough catches to keep the offense on track.

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Eli Harold and the Hoos need to stop the run and pressure the pocket again this week. ~ Mike Ingalls

Kris’ Keys

1. Have time on your side. Bobby Petrino’s teams over the years are known for scoring points, but it’s not the Oregon flash-and-dash style that gets the scoreboard churning in this case. Louisville likes to run the football, grind up opponents, and then use big passing plays and red zone success to tally up points. So far this season, the Cardinals are No. 1 nationally in time of possession at 37:43 per game. On the flipside, however, is that Virginia wants to keep the ball away from the opponent too in order to let an aggressive defense take its best shot each series. UVa has held the ball for 31:00 per game this season, good enough for 50th nationally. A year ago, the Hoos were fifth nationally at 33:22. If the outcome of this game is dependent on which defense remains the freshest in order to dominate, time of possession will be important.

2. Get the better results out of a two-quarterback approach. Virginia is definitely going to play both Greyson Lambert and Matt Johns this weekend. Louisville might trot out two quarterbacks too, depending on how confident the Cardinals are in true freshman Reggie Bonnafon after his debut last week. It looks like Bonnafon might be a nice change-of-pace read option threat in relief of starter Will Gardner. In past years, Petrino has used two quarterbacks at times but this season is too young to see where he is going with a rotation in 2014. Regardless, UVa needs to be prepared for the change-up pitch. Lambert and Johns, meanwhile, need to be productive when it is their turn. Each quarterback led two touchdown drives against Richmond and each is completing at least 58% of his pass attempts. Then there is the interception element. Louisville has yet to throw an INT this season, while UVa’s duo has combined for three picks.

3. Win the money battles. On paper, the Cardinals are dominating the two money categories of third down and red zone success. They rank 19th nationally in third down conversion offense (18 of 34/59%) and they rank seventh nationally in third down conversion defense (5 of 25/20%) so far this season. That’s on track with last season where they converted 56% on offense and allowed 27% on defense. On the other side, Virginia ranks 53rd in third down conversion offense (16 of 35/45.7%) and 100th in third down conversion defense (15 of 34/44.1%). Last season, UVa finished 85th nationally on offense (37.9%) and ninth nationally on defense (32%).

Louisville is dominating the red zone so far this season. The Cardinals have converted 100% of their 13 possessions into points and 92.3% into touchdowns with 12 end zone visits. Their defense, meanwhile, has allowed just three touchdowns in seven attempts (42.86%, tied 32nd nationally). The Hoos have converted seven of eight red zone attempts this season (87.5%, tied 59th nationally) but only four trips have resulted in touchdowns (50%, tied 83rd nationally). The UVa defense has allowed just two touchdowns in five trips (40%, tied for 24th nationally).

The Pick

The Virginia football team ended a 10-game losing streak with its win last week, but there are two more big numbers hanging over the Cavaliers’ collective heads. The Hoos haven’t won a game against an FBS team since last season’s opener against BYU (11 games) and they haven’t won an ACC game since Nov. 10, 2012 when they edged Miami (10 games). UVa can take care of all of that this weekend with a victory.

Virginia can win if … the score stays in the low 20’s. In 115 career games, Louisville coach Bobby Petrino is 72-6 when his teams score at least 25 points. Throw in the fact that the highest FBS total so far in offensive coordinator Steve Fairchild’s Virginia tenure is 27 points (in a loss to Ball State) and anything in the 27-and-up range is probably out of reach for the Cavaliers to win. Both teams like to control the ball on offense and both teams like to let their defenses dictate to opponents so it’s possible this could unfold as a defensive slugfest and that’s the best-case scenario for a UVa victory.

Virginia can lose if … rushing offense is the deciding factor. The Cavaliers have struggled to get their ground game going with just 138.5 yards per game (93rd nationally) and it won’t get any easier this week with Louisville’s sixth-ranked defense in town (55.5 yards per game). The Cardinals crank out 227.5 rushing yards per game (37th nationally) on offense and their power running style could be a challenge for UVa’s preferred nickel defense, though the Cavaliers have been solid so far against two teams that simply couldn’t run the ball. I think the Hoos can win without running the ball, but they will at least have to stop the run to get that chance.

And the winner is … Virginia in a close one. I’m well aware that this is an awful match-up on paper in a lot of ways, especially for the Cavalier offense against the Cardinal defense. I’m well aware that it’s been more than a year since the Hoos have won an FBS game. I’m well aware that Louisville is ranked at No. 21. A young quarterback in his first road start and a team in its first ACC road game, however, look like neutralizers to me. I think turnovers make the difference with a defensive pick-6 setting the tone for the Cavaliers. Hoos 23, Cardinals 20. Prediction record to date: 2-0.