The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Louisville Cardinals 2024 edition

Miami survives Louisville’s best shot and the undefeated season continues

Your Miami Hurricanes went into hostile territory and beat the Louisville Cardinals 52-45 in a shootout on Saturday afternoon.

Mike Schiffman has your 3 stars from the win:

And now, let’s dive into The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly:

The Good

• A win! Again, winning isn’t easy, and I’m gonna savor every one of these!
• Finding a way to win. It wasn’t easy, and we knew it wouldn’t be, but in the end, Miami made just enough plays to seal the win.
• Miami won a game following a bye week! Last year, it was the loss to GT after a bye. The 2 years before that, the losses to North Carolina (yes, in each season). And more. But, Miami finally found a way to win following a bye week. And that, to me, is #good.
• Welcome to the party, Miami Hurricanes run game. 219 yards on 40 carries (5.5 yard per carry average). These numbers are better when you remove sacks and kneel downs.
• RB Mark Fletcher. 13 carries for 73 yards, and 4 catches for 26 yards. He was eating early.
• RB Ajay Allen. The forgotten man in the RB room, Allen had 5 carries for 31 yards and a touchdown while showing a great combination of power and speed.
• RB Damien Martinez. Now THIS is the guy we paid all that money to sign from the transfer portal. 12 carries for 89 yards and Marshawn Lynch-like touchdown, when he was just too big and too strong for Louisville to stop.
• QB Cam Ward continued his Heisman Trophy candidate season. 21/32 passing (66% completions) for 319 yards with 4 TDs and 0 INTs. Ward added 29 yards rushing (which was more, but you take away the sack yardage).
• Updating the Cam Ward season stats: 169 for 246 passing (68.7% completions) for 2,538 yards with 24 TDs and 5 interceptions. He’s also added 190 yards and 3 TDs rushing.
• WR Sam Brown. I’d been very critical of him, but Brown showed his skills today. 3 catches, 125 yards, and a TD.
• WR Xavier Restrepo. 7 catches, 101 yards, and a TD.
• The return of OL Jalen Rivers. He both anchored the line at LT, and, in a new development, slid inside to LG (where he played earlier in his career) next to 6’9 behemoth Markel Bell.
• This lineup of Bell at LT and Rivers at LG was used for the majority (if not entirety) of the second half. A sign of things to come? Hmmmm…
• CB Daryl Porter Jr. led the team with 9 tackles.
• DT Simeon Barrow was a monster yet again. 6 tackles, 2.5 TFL, a sack, a forced fumble, and a QB Hurry.
• DL Rueben Bain Jr. 2 tackles, a TFL, and a sack. But he ate up double teams all night and gave room for Barrow and others to make plays.
• LB Kiko Mauigoa had 4 tackles and 2 PBUs.
• LB Raul Aguirre. Only 2 tackles, but a key fumble recovery for a touchdown.
• DL Tyler Baron. He didn’t have many stats — 4 tackles, 0.5 TFL, 2 QB hurries (but I counted more) — but he was in the backfield all day against his former team. And he was THISCLOSE to about 3 sacks. Need to finish those, though.
• K Andres Borregales. Hit his only FG from 55 yards (would have been good from 60), and made all his PATs. Only blemish, that one short kick that allowed the KR-TD.
• Louisville dropped 8 in coverage in the red zone. Didn’t matter. Because Cam Ward can do THIS. WOOOOOO!!!!!.

• After going uptempo, Miami confused the Louisville defense, and Cam Ward took advantage with this 49 yard TD to Sam Brown.

• Rueben Bain and Simeon Barrow combine to force a fumble, which Raul Aguirre recovers in the end zone for a Miami touchdown!! Miami’s first fumble recovery of the season!

• Miami came out of the half and walked down the field on a 14 play, 75 yard drive that took 6:39, capped by this Ward to Restrepo touchdown.

• Cam Ward to Xavier Restrepo for 64 yards. An incredible throw under pressure. Shoutout to Elijah Arroyo for the block to allow Ward to get that off. Canes scored on the next play.

• Cam Ward scrambling for 22 yards on 3rd and 17 with about 7 minutes left in the game to keep the drive going was huge.
• The drive Ward extended? It ended with this POWERFUL 30 yard TD run by Damien Martinez.

• Xavier Restrepo recovers the onside kick attempt and that’ll do it!

• 538 yards of offense
• 319 yards passing
• 219 yards rushing
• 7.5 yards per play
• 9/15 on 3rd down
• Held Louisville to 3/12 on 3rd down
• 2/2 on 4th down
• 27 first downs
• 15.2 yards per completion
• 5.5 yards per carry
• 16 chunk plays — 7 passes (15+), 9 runs (10+)
• 34:33 time of possession
• 6 TFL
• 3 sacks
• 1 forced fumble (Barrow)
• 1 fumble recovery (Aguirre)
• Advanced stats are a mixed bag, because there’s so much green. Which is good for Miami’s offense, but bad for Miami’s defense (to allow the Louisville side to be equally as green)

The Bad

• Offensive line giving up consecutive sacks, killing a drive with about 5 minutes left in 2Q. Mark Fletcher Jr. had been slicing and dicing on that drive. Would have liked to see him continue to get the ball there.
• 5 penalties for 55 yards.
• And one of those penalties took a touchdown off the board AGAIN.
• Allowed 3 sacks
• Allowed 3 TFLs (not that bad, considering Miami ran 72 plays and scored 52 points)
• Allowed 24 first downs
• Allowed 342 yards passing
• 1 turnover (fumble lost)
• Giving up a 14 point lead in 1:22 of game time.
• Almost fumbling the ball away while taking a knee from victory formation. Man. That was CLOSE.

The Ugly

• Allowed 448 yards of total offense — that’s a season-high for a Miami opponent
• Allowed 45 points — a season-high for a Miami opponent
• Allowed 15 chunk plays — 11 passes (15+), 4 runs (10+)
• Look back at the advanced stats. Louisville was eating our lunch on defense. EPA = elite. Success rate = elite. And more things that are CONCERNING. And that’s WITH Miami forcing 3 punts and getting a missed FG.
• Giving up a 14 point lead in 1:06 of game time. How? Allowing the ensuing kickoff to be returned for a TD, then fumbling the first offensive snap after THAT ensuing kickoff, and allowing a TD 3 plays after that. A whirlwind of terrible.
• The missed tackles today were as bad as we’ve seen them this year. Time after time, Miami defenders just whiffed on Louisville players. When will it ever get fixed?
• My guy Justin Dottavio has written about this multiple times over the years, but guys come to Miami and get slower. And that continues to manifest itself on defense. I. Don’t. Like. It.
• Another penalty takes a touchdown pass off the board. Elijah Arroyo called for offensive pass interference on a crossing route negated a 26 yard Xavier Restrepo TD on Miami’s first drive.

• Miami has had no fewer than 6 touchdowns called back via penalty this year. So IMAGINE what Cam Ward’s (and others) numbers would look like if even HALF of those hadn’t been called. Yeah.
• This is a good run by Louisville and Isaac Brown is super fast, but Miami got out leveraged to the defensive right in the exact same way that happened against Florida in the opener for the 71 yard TD run. Ugly to see that same thing happen again.

• Miami gave up a kick return touchdown on the ensuing kickoff after going up 31-17. Terrible.

• Mark Fletcher fumbled on the 1st play of the ensuing Miami drive after the KR-TD, which led to the game-tying touchdown by Louisville 3 plays later.
• Allowing a fake punt conversion after getting a 3 and out. And not even thinking it was possible there, in a game where both teams have emptied the clip in going for it in any and every situation.
• This is offensive pass interference. It’s clear as day. And not called, allowing Louisville to tie the game.

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Team Grades

Offense: A+++

538 yards and 52 points on the road against a tough team with ACC Championship game aspirations. Cam Ward and company did whatever they wanted today, and it was a joy to watch. Efficient. Explosive. And, in the end, enough to win a shootout.

Defense: D-

The win keeps this from being an F, but whew BUDDY there are problems on this side of the ball. I know Brian Brohm can dial stuff up, but missed tackles and just low-effort plays are controllable items for Miami. 6 TFLs, 3 sacks, and 1 forced/recovered fumble (for a touchdown) were the key items. But this was nowhere near the kind of performance that gets a passing grade from me.

Special Teams: Kicking: A / Coverage: F

Borregales was perfect on kicks (FGs, 7 PATs), and Joyce was good at punter (45 ypp average). But Miami allowed 205 return yards to Louisville’s returner, including a 100 yard KR-TD after taking half the 3rd quarter to walk down the field to go up by 2 scores. Sure, there was an uncalled block in the back (right at the point of the returner breaking into open field) on the KR-TD, but still. AND Special Teams allowed a fake punt conversion. That unit was terrible today and it almost cost Miami the game.

Coaching: B+ / Defense/Specials: D-

Had to separate this one out again. Shannon Dawson was dialing things up. Mario orchestrated a hard fought win, and there were no game management issues to speak of. The defense was feast or famine with far too much famine for my liking. And special teams, in terms of coverage, was consistently bad, allowing a KR-TD and a fake punt to be converted. So, some coaches passed well today. Others will need to come to office hours to work on the many wrong answers seen on today’s test.

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