Petrino knows ‘Cuse will test Louisville’s woeful defense
Louisville coach Bobby Petrino and the Cardinals are still looking for answers on defense. The Cardinals are 2-7 and getting ready to face a tough Syracuse offense led by QB Eric Dungey Friday night.
“One of the challenges this week is how fast they play,” Petrino said. “They’re going to play as fast as anyone that we’ve went against. (Syracuse senior quarterback) Eric Dungey knows how to execute that offense and work it, so we’ve got to be able to keep it in front of us and not give up the great big explosive plays.
“You’ve got to be able to stop the big plays, and get to third-and-long. That’s been killing us that we haven’t been able to get them into third-and-long. I don’t think they had anything higher than third-and-eight the other day. Most of them were all third-and-short, third-and-medium, and you need to get them into third-and-long, so you can get some pressure.”
Louisville’s defense under first-year coordinator Brian Van Gorder has had issues being in the right place, but even when they are in the right place, tackling has been a major problem.
“We’ve got to be able to tackle, so we’re working really hard on that,” Petrino said.
“Some of it was just not bringing our feet with us and being in good positions. We’ve got to take better angles. Sometimes, when you’re going against a guy like number nine (Clemson sophomore running back Travis Etienne) who’s that fast, the angles changed quick. He’s a very dynamic running back, he can do a lot of things. But, that’s one thing that we’ve got to do. We’ve got to keep the ball in front of us. That’s really important that we keep the ball in front of us.”
Louisville has given up huge chunks of yards in the last several games, and Petrino said he wants to see better effort vs. Syracuse than he did at Clemson.
“The defense, they’ve been a group that has been able to stick together,” Petrino said.
“They’re young and they’ve built on that. We’re going to continue to grow and get better, but it was the first time I’ve seen our defense that I think the look in their eye wasn’t what you wanted to see from them. We’ve addressed that, and they came out and practiced hard today. They didn’t have the right look in their eye in the second half, and it’s hard.”
Louisville is currently ranked 115th in Total Defense, allowing 462.8 yards per game, and 125th in scoring defense, allowing 40.8 points per game (45.0 points per game vs. FBS opponents). Syracuse is 15th in the country in total offense (478.2 ypg) and eighth in scoring (43.3 ppg).