LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – I feel for Jeff Brohm and the Louisville football coaching staff this morning. I only had to watch the replay of Louisville’s 38-35 loss to Stanford one time. They had to break it down all night.
I missed the football on Saturday while covering the annual Louisville-Kentucky women’s basketball rivalry game in Lexington. I was looking at my phone on the baseline in Memorial Coliseum when Stanford made its game-winning field goal. I did not witness the parade of inefficacy that preceded it.
Not going to lie, I quit following when Louisville went up 35-21. I pulled the old Dr. Evil routine. “No, no, no. I'm going to leave (Stanford) alone and not actually witness them dying, I'm just going to assume it all went to plan.”
Mike Myers as Dr. Evil in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.
What?
I wish I had watched because I am fascinated by failure. One of my favorite podcasts, seriously, is called “Fail Better,” in which host David Duchovny talks to people about their greatest professional and life failures, and what the experience taught them.
He could do a group episode with Louisville after Saturday.
I do know it’s easy to watch on TV the morning after and say, “Well, they should’ve done this.” And yet, that is the job with which I’ve been entrusted, and perhaps the only one for which I am qualified. So, let me do the job.
Slow Start, Failure to Finish
I will grant you Louisville’s slow start in this game. I expected it. Coming off that big win at Clemson. Coming out of a bye week. Traveling across the country. Louisville fell behind 10-0 and I was unconcerned at having picked the Cards to cover. Tyler Shough’s interception was on a tipped ball and a good play by the defense. Things happen.
Louisville responded the way you would expect. The Cards were up a touchdown at half, and pushed out to a 35-21 lead with 9:44 left in the game and that needs to be that. You play some defense, burn some clock, collect your win and head to the In-N-Out Burger.
Some burgers, some beers, a few laughs, your (expletive) troubles are over, Dude.
John Goodman as Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski.
Instead, in my inexpert viewing of all this, Louisville’s problem – in addition to the glaringly obvious defensive dereliction of duty, which I will get to – was its inability to put the game away on offense.
Let’s face it, nobody likes complimentary football, but sometimes you have to play it. Louisville’s drive after Stanford scored to pull back within 35-28 consumed just 2:34 of the clock. Louisville got the ball with 6:37 left, and got the clock rolling with a Duke Watson run and a couple of short passes. The clock is still running, and it’s approaching 4 ½ minutes.
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
Then Louisville decides to throw the ball. Shough is pressured and throws in complete to stop the clock with 4:21 left. Then he throws incomplete on third down seven seconds later. Maybe, if you run the ball, Stanford burns timeouts after those plays. Maybe not. Either way, you left at least 40-45 seconds on the clock, and you didn’t make Stanford use a timeout.
Also either way, it’s not like you’re just punting and then leaving the game in the hands of the Monsters of the Midway. You’re one breakdown away from a tie game.
And you’re hemorrhaging defensive penalties. So the predictable, at that point, happens, and Stanford scores to tie it up (with 45 seconds left in the game, mind you).
And even then, Louisville has a nice completion on its first offensive play inside of a minute, and you’re playing for field goal or overtime. Louisville hits a short completion for a first down, then spikes the ball with 20 seconds left. Then it throws another incompletion. Then another. Then Brohm calls his final timeout, and after initially figuring he’d punt it, decides to go for it.
There are 11 seconds left. I have no problem with that decision. But if you’re going to go for that fourth down, don’t you just go for it with the clock killed from the incomplete pass? Doesn’t calling that timeout limit your options to touchdown or bust.
The play was a bust. No matter, no way Stanford is going to get anything from its own 45 and just four seconds left. Unless Louisville’s Tayon Holloway gets an unsportsmanlike conduct after a Stanford pass. That sets up an improbable 57-yard field goal attempt with one second left.
Then Quincy Riley jumps offside. That sets up a much more makeable 52-yard field goal, which of course, Stanford made.
Said Brohm: “A very disappointing loss, and that falls on me. A lot of silly things happened throughout the game, and they cost us. They really happened throughout the entire game, not just at the end. Of course, the two penalties at the end were devastating. Still, that's on me. . . . We’ve got to have more discipline. We’ve got to make sure that those things never happen again. You’ve got to be able to focus and lock in the entire game, and play football and compete, whether things are going good or not. We gave in at the end and did some really dumb things. We didn't deserve to win. It was bad day for us."
Big Win Blues?
Is there something to the whole Brohm-after-the-big-win critique? I’m not sure what it is, but if it keeps happening, yes, it bears examination.
“We addressed the fact that, you know, coming off a big win, you're always going to possibly let up slightly, and you can’t allow that to happen or you’re going to get beat,” Brohm said after the game. “It’s happened to us. We brought up the Pittsburgh game last year, brought up numerous games throughout the history of us playing. And anytime you go on the road in conference, you’ve got to play well. So, we couldn't talk about any more. That part, I think we addressed over and over and over again. Of course, the mistakes, which can be summed up with a lot of silly offsides calls and dumb penalties cannot happen. So that is something that as a head coach, that's my responsibility, and that needs to get fixed now.”
Just as bad, however, is that Louisville continues to be susceptible to quarterbacks who are good at reading the defense and capitalizing on errors. Stanford’s Ashton Daniels managed that on Saturday.
And the Cardinals made Stanford freshman receiver Emmett Mosley V look like an All-American. He came into the game with 22 catches on the season. He had 13 for 168 yards and three touchdowns against Louisville. He was targeted five times one-on-one against Riley, and caught all five passes. He caught 13 of his 14 targets on the day.
From Pro Football Focus, Stanford receiver Emmett Mosley V's day against Louisville defenders.
Riley also gave up a 55 yard catch to Elic Ayomanor. He got hit for six catches in nine targets for 120 yards, five first downs and a touchdown.
I’ve heard complaints about the pass rush. Louisville was credited with six sacks and a pair of quarterback hurries. The stats at ProFootballFocus.com credit Louisville with 22 hurries on 28 total rushes. For 33 total pass attempts, that’s not terrible. The problem more is in coverage than pressure, at least from a data standpoint.
Of course, the penalties were so bad, all manner of good things were negated. The sad listing of those is included here. Three sacks were negated by penalties. Two interceptions.
What now?
The air, now, has been drained from the rest of the season. Louisville was looking at an opportunity to win 10 games. Now I’m not sure what the excitement level is for next weekend's game against Pitt.
And all the marbles, likely, are in the season finale at Kentucky, a game that – I’m just warning you now -- will not be easy. Kentucky has underachieved a good bit this season, which now is something Louisville knows about after Saturday’s loss. Kentucky is a more talented team than it has shown.
And now, Louisville is trending toward the same place.
If you’re looking for hope as a Louisville fan, I’ll offer just a bit. Any criticism toward Brohm to this point has been couched in support and delivered with love. After Saturday, some of that changed a bit from fans I heard. But it’s worth remembering this.
I’m thinking of an NFL coach who had been fired after going to four straight league championship games, even a Super Bowl. He was criticized as a bad game manager, for his clock management mistakes, for his misuse of timeouts. He had a team lose a 28-point lead in the playoffs.
Of course, Andy Reid is not so much criticized today. Guys learn and evolve and, well, it helps if you get a guy like Patrick Mahomes, but yes, there is luck involved.
Ja’Corey Brooks was open in the end zone on Louisville’s final offensive play Saturday. The throw just went long.
“Men are not data,” Sally Jenkins writes in her new book, “The Right Call,” which I enthusiastically recommend to any sports fan.
In it, she points out, that sometimes the best call to try to win a game isn’t the best call to help a coach keep his job.
Brohm will have this job as long as he wants. And he’ll keep evolving, too. He cares too much about it not to.
It sounded like he was already examining his own performance pretty hard in the game’s immediate aftermath.
“We pretty much handed them an easy field goal,” Brohm said. “. . . It’s the same penalties. It’s jumping offsides. The fact that we did it that much is a complete lack of discipline. The fact that I allowed that to happen – have a team do that – is embarrassing. So I need to do a much better job, and that needs to be a complete focus of making sure we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot like we did.”
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