Louisville Football: 15 Year Defensive & Special Teams Stat Review

Louisville Football over the past 15 years has witnessed a lot of turnover.  Player turnover is a part of life in college athletics, but for UofL football they’ve also enduring coaching & conference turnover as well.  Through it all the Cards are 127-63 in the last 15 seasons of football.  Let’s take a look at how well they’ve done in the individual defensive categories statistically during that time (some stat groups are shorter than 15-years).

Defense

Scoring Defense

Louisville gave up a lot of points last year.  That’s no secret.  It was the 3rd worst defense Louisville Football has put on the field in the past 15 seasons sandwiched between the Steve Kragthorpe era.  It’s never good to be in the Kragthorpe area on any of the stats presented here but 2017 was even 1.4 ppg worse than Bobby Petrino’s 2003 defense that was considered pourous at the time.  But the Cards rebounded in 2004 with the 24th best defense following the 2003 lackluster effort.  Additionally Mississippi State went from 93rd to 26th once the Bulldogs got rid of Peter Sirmon in what we’ll call “The Sirmon Bump” (a season in which you’ve rid your program of Peter Sirmon).

Total Defense

Once again it’s never a good thing to be in Kragthorpe territory.  Louisville gave up 613 yards to Clemson, 520 to NC State, 555 to Boston College, and 625 to Wake Forest.  The Clemson and Wake Forest games are in the Top 10 most yards ever given up by Louisville in a single game.  Peter Sirmon is gone.  Can Louisville enjoy the same “Sirmon Bump” that Mississippi State enjoyed as they were 110th in Total Defense in 2016 WITH SIRMON and 10th in Total Defense once he left?

It’s also important to note the big strides Petrino enjoyed from 2003 to 2004 going from 82nd to 12th in Total Defense.  Petrino has seen a big reversal in defensive performance before AND 6 of 8 of Bobby’s defenses have been able to keep opponents under 333 yards per game (would have ranked 21st nationally).

Passing Defense

It wasn’t good.  224.7 yards per game.  Purdue had 293, North Carolina had 384.  Clemson had 314.  NC State had 367, Wake Forest had 461!.  If not for holding Kent State to just 11 yards passing and Murray State to just 61 this stat could have been much worse.  Wake Forest’s 461 yards was the 2nd most allowed in Louisville Football history (1998 UK – Cardinal Stadium opener remains #1).  Let’s hope that Petrino enjoys another 51.6 yard per game improvement in this metric like he did in 2004 from 2003.

Rushing Defense

Again it was bad.  It’s clearly bad when it is a struggle to find a single category where Louisville fans can say, “Well that was an alright part of the defense.”  Louisville MUST get tougher against the run in 2018.  The good news is that MLB Dorian Etheridge led the Cards in tackling as a true freshman in 2017 and returns.  We’ll see how UofL’s defensive front holds up against rushing attacks this year.  In 2017 Clemson had 297 yards on the ground, Boston College had 364!, Kentucky (KENTUCKY! Had 228) and Mississippi State had 277.  Let’s do better in 2018.

Sacks

Like many categories…. Louisville didn’t really do well getting sacks or Tackles for Loss in 2017.

Tackles For Loss

Opponent Red Zone Conversion %

Alright. Let’s talk about this.  Teams that got into the Red Zone vs. Louisville Scored at a rate of 87.18%.  Only two of Petrino’s offenses at Louisville have ever done so well. It’s the second year in a row where Louisville Football has really underperformed in the Red Zone.  It’s time to do better in this category.

Opponent Red Zone TD %

This is where Louisville was particularly bad. In fact the worst in 10 years bad.  When opponents entered the Red Zone they scored TOUCHDOWNS 74.36% of the time.  It was 124th in college football.  The Cards beat out just SIX programs in this metric (Maryland 4-8, East Carolina 3-9, Rice 1-11, Louisiana-Monroe 4-8, and UTEP 0-12).  Let’s never be 124th in anything again.

Opponent Red Zone Trips

Surprisingly Louisville only allowed 39 trips to the Red Zone in 2017.  That’s good for 28th in the country.  Unfortunately this is a mis-leading stat as Louisville allowed 59 plays in 2017 of 20+ yards  (so teams didn’t need to be in the Red Zone to go for 6).

Opponent 3rd Down Conversion %

Wouldn’t it be awesome to find at least one thing Louisville’s defense was proficient in last season?  Sure would be.  As it stands the Cards will be starting all over in 2018 without Peter Sirmon.  Louisville Football was bad on 3rd down in 2017 (Analysis).

Opponent 4th Down Conversion %

4th down is always a tricky stat to measure but once again Louisville wasn’t any good.

Opponent 1st Downs

Louisville gave away a ton of 1st downs in 2017 too.

Fumbles Forced

Hey!  We found something!  Louisville 36th in the country at forcing fumbles in 2017.

Fumbles Recovered

And the Cards also recovered a lot of the fumbles they forced!

Interceptions Gained

UofL also was able to create some Interceptions as well.  So forcing turnovers was a positive for the Cards defensively in 2017.

Passes Defended

Special Teams

Punt Returns

Unfortunately the Cards haven’t been very good at returning punts as of late.  Two Top 40 finishes in the past 10 seasons isn’t great and in 2017 UofL experienced nearly a 3 yard per punt return average drop.  This is mainly due to Jaire Alexander being absent in this capacity for much of the season, but Louisville really shouldn’t be consistently 60th or worse when returning punts.

Kickoff Returns

The Cards haven’t been much better lately at returning kicks either.  It will be interesting to see how the kick return rule affects this in 2018 as teams may elect to ‘fair catch’ kicks inside the 20 and receive a ‘touchback’.

Opponent Punt Returns

Louisville was much improved in Punt Return Defense with a nearly 4 yard improvement per return in 2017 over a year prior.  UfoL has had some excellent years in punt coverage over the past 10 seasons.

Opponent Kickoff Returns

2017 was the best year in the last 10 for covering kickoffs for Louisville Football.  The ‘best’ is good enough for 46th in the country.  Not great, but we’ll take momentum in the right direction.  Again it will be interesting to see how this stat is affected nationally with the new ‘fair catch rule’.

Field Goal %

Louisville experienced dramatic improvement in the field goal kicking game in 2017 as Blanton Creque established himself as one of the best kickers in the nation.  The Cards improved from 76% to 85% on 3 point tries in 2017.  This is big time movement and hopefully the Cards can continue to rely on Blanton’s leg for points.

Opponent FG %

Another remarkable stat.  Louisville opponents only made 56.3% of Field Goal tries in 2017.  This improved 16% from a year prior.

Blocked Kicks

Punting

Mason King had another banner year punting the football.  This is a huge part of field position and Mason continually bailed out the Cards of bad situations in 2017.  Let’s be grateful he retuns in 2018.

Kickoffs

Team

Turnover Margin

Penalties

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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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