Louisville Football Historical Stat Review: Defense

The staple of Louisville Football over the past 14 has actually been its defense.  Nationally the Cards might be known for Bobby Petrino’s offense or the stellar play of its Quarterbacks…but the real story has been the Cardinal Defense!

With the exception of the Steve Kragthorpe era and Year 1 of Bobby Petrino (2003) Louisville’s defense has ranked in the Top 40 in Scoring Defense & in the Top 23 of Total Defense every year over the course of its last 4 coaching regimes.  This culture of defense has created a period of unprecedented success for the football program.

It is interesting to see where 2016 fits into the various statistical categories and how that might project 2017 performance.  The Louisville Defense will lose Keith Kelsey, Josh Harvey-Clemons, Devonte Fields and DeAngelo Brown. The strength of the 2017 will likely be its multiplicity and the secondary under new Coordinator Peter Sirmon.

TEAM

In 2016 Louisville Football allowed 23.8 ppg, 31st in the nation.  That total is tied for the 7th best over the past 14 seasons.  A top 40 showing is solid for most programs and was a slight improvement from the 2015 effort.  Some of this can be attributed to the offense’s high number of turnovers because scoring defense accounts for a TEAM’s ability to limit points on the scoreboard and not points while the actual defense is on the field.  There is also no value attributed to short fields or special teams TDs.

Even with that in mind Louisville’s defense did have lapses in games it lost.  Clemson scored way too often as did Kentucky, while Houston & LSU were acceptable efforts.   Can fans expect improvement in points allowed in 2017?  That’s hard to answer with a new Coordinator and several questions up front.

When the 6th best Total Defense performance for Louisville over the past 14 years is 14th in the nation….you’ve had a good run on the defensive side of the football.  The Cards allowed just 322.2 yards per game last year which was an improvement 2015’s 332.8 yards per game, the defense was a major weapon for UofL Football as whole….. but it doesn’t tell the entire story. We’ll get into some details below.

The Cards allowed the same number of 1st downs per game in 2016 than they did in 2015.  17.5 1st downs per game allowed is very strong.  If UofL holds steady on this metric then fans should expect another strong defensive season.

The Cards could certainly improve in the Red Zone defensively.  Last season opponents scored 88.57% of their trips inside the Red Zone.  This represents THE WORST OPPONENT RED ZONE CONVERSION % SINCE 2003.  14 years of Football.

A figure that ranks 96th in the country is not what you might expect with the defensive tools that Louisville had last season and how UofL ranked statsitically in Scoring & Total Defense.  Moving this number in the 78% or less range changes the outlook a great deal. But allowing opponents to score nearly 89% of their Red Zone trips is incredibly high and unacceptable.  Must get better.

On 3rd Down the Cards were a solid 10th in the nation at 31.53% opponent 3rd down conversion percentage.  That was a vast improvement of nearly 4 percentage points from 2015.  Some of these conversions happened at inopportune times in games that Louisville lost….and those untimely conversions certainly can have more of an impact than the overall figure so this metric can be misleading, but it’s more about WHEN these 3rd down conversions occurred (Duke, Clemson, Kentucky)

Opponents 4th Down Conversion percentage was pretty average.  Typically this stat shows how desperate teams are late in the game and usually there shouldn’t be a ton of evaluation of it.

Turnover Margin is a HUGE deal. But it’s also impacted by the offense.  Defensively Louisville GAINED 25 turnovers during the 2016 season which was the 24th best performance in college football.  The problem was that Louisville gave up 32 offensively (124th of 128).  The defense did its job in this category and hopefully will continue to take the football away from opponents at the same rate so that an improving offense can capitalize on Turnover Margin. This is the 3rd year in a row that Louisville has had incredibly high turnovers gained & turnovers lost…. and it continues to slip in the wrong direction.  This is an offensive problem that needs to be corrected in 2017.

Penalties is another category that offense & special teams also affect.  But 2016 Louisville was the most penalized Cardinal Football team in the past 14 seasons.  So this is a BBBBIIIIGGGGG area of opportunity for Bobby Petrino in 2017. The Cards have never fared well in the penalty department nationally, but there is no reason to be 121st (of 128th) in any category for Louisville Football. Must improve.

Passing Defense

Passing defense is usually a direct reflection of how tough it is to run the football on a defense OR a good measurement of a team that usually in the lead and opponents are passing throughout the 4th quarter trying to save time and gain large chunks of yardage.  Still UofL can do better than 207.1 yards per game allowed in the air and better Cardinal teams have certainly had more leads in games with strong rush defenses than last year. Teams will likely try to run on UofL a little more in 2017 as the secondary should be the strength of the defense, so we’ll monitor how the Cards are doing in this department after Week 3.

Louisville Football slipped in 2016 getting to the QB and was the 7th team in the last 14 years to NOT be a Top 20 Sacks team.  In 2016 the Cards finished 45th overall with 2.31 sacks per game.  UofL gets James Hearns & Trevon Young back on the outside and many think the pair will be quite the duo of rushing the passer in 2017.

The Cards weren’t as effective in 2016 at getting INTs as they were in 2015….but UofL was still 22nd in the country with 15 picks the 4th best performance in the past 9 seasons.  Louisville’s secondary entirely returns and adds some players who waited in 2016.   A big boost could come from the inclusion of Safeties CJ Avery & Lamarques Thomas AND a much improved Ronald Walker.  Not to mention a healthy Cornelius Sturghill.

Passes defended slipped slightly in 2016.  It would be expected that INTs and Passes Defended would correlate into national rankings.  Still, UofL’s performance is ‘acceptable’ for 2016 in this category, but fans would certainly like to see it move back into the 5.00+ range.

Rushing Defense

Running the football on Louisville has been a chore over 9 of the past 14 seasons.  2016 was the 7th best performance since 2003 in stopping the run and Louisville was 12th in the NATION! The Cards do lose DeAngelo Brown & Keith Kelsey and other veterans who have been a big part of this culture.  So it will be interesting to see how UofL deals with these personnel replacements and if they can build on last year or at the very least maintain.

2016 was solid in forcing fumbles.  Especially when coupled with the number of interceptions UofL got as well.

10 fumbles recovered is strong considering that UofL forced 12 last year (Forced fumbles don’t account for how many times an opponent fumbles).

Once again Louisville was one of the best teams in the country getting tackles behind the line of scrimmage.  The Cards have been a Top 40 team in TFLs 6 of the past 9 seasons. This should continue with Trevon Young & James Hearns off the edge in 2017.

Special Teams

Opponent FG % is always a strange stat.  But it does matter.  Usually it shows how close in opponents are taking their FG attempts. As we saw in Red Zone Conversion %, UofL’s opponents had some easy makes.  So as Opponent FG% decreases, so does Red Zone scoring rates….. which we know needs to improve.

The Cards got 2 blocked kicks in 2016…. let’s hope for more in 2017.

The lowest rate in the past 9 seasons on kickoff.  The rule changed for kickoffs from the 30 to the 35 yard line in 2012.  But UofL should really be around 61.5 yards to 63.0 yards average on a kickoff.  This will help coverage immensely.

2nd worst performance in the past 9 seasons for Louisville Football in covering punts.  9.63 yards per return is an unacceptable metric as the Cards have been at less than 7 ypr for 5 of the past 9 seasons.

On the other hand Louisville did punt the ball much better in 2016 than it has over the past 9 seasons.  Mason King hit some booming punts that flipped the field.  The Cards need to get further down the field in 2017 to cover King’s punts better.

Historically Louisville hasn’t covered kickoffs well.  If a team is going to have short kickoffs, they should at the very least allow short returns.  20.85 ypr return is the 2nd best performance over the past 9 seasons, but was still just 70th nationally.  Hard to say that this will get better based on past performance, but at the very least UofL could kick the ball deeper down the field to negate this.

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Mark Blankenbaker

@UofLSheriff50. Louisville native, University of Louisville Business School Grad c/o 2004. Co-Founder of TheCrunchZone.com

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