You’d think Brian VanGorder’s stock couldn’t get any lower after 2018, yet he’s still coaching at 60 years old and became Bowling Green’s defensive coordinator this off-season–a team the Irish will face in week 6, no less. The former Notre Dame defensive coordinator spent one devastatingly poor season at Louisville a year ago leaving behind a legacy of the worst defense in Cardinal program history.

Last year, Louisville set school records for most points allowed, total yards allowed, and yards per play allowed while being the first Power 5 conference team in the history of college football to allow 50 or more points in 5 straight games.

Notre Dame (-20) at Louisville

Cardinal Stadium
Louisville, Kentucky
Date: Monday, September 2, 2019
Time: 8:00 PM ET
TV: ESPN

With VanGorder gone now–and the second Bobby Petrino era also gone in favor of Appalachian State’s Scott Satterfield now in charge–the question isn’t if Louisville will improve it’s a determination of by how much. We saw the Irish literally improve the second VanGorder was let go in the middle of the 2016 season so it would make sense for Louisville’s defense to get better quickly in 2019.

Still, this is a program that lost 10 games last year and for all the talk about their porous defense also finished dead last in the ACC and third worst among all Power 5 programs in scoring from their offense.

Louisville’s Offense

Let’s start with the positives as there aren’t many coming off a year like 2018. Wide receiver Dez Fitzpatrick is really good, potentially a NFL caliber wideout who could be looking to enter the Draft this spring. After a redshirt season, he put up All-ACC numbers in 2017 and saw his numbers dip in 2018 largely due to the malfunctioning offense and quarterback situation around him. At 6’2″ 204 lbs Fitzpatrick has the type of size and athleticism that could give someone like Troy Pride some problems.

Additionally, Louisville is really high on sophomore running back Hassan Hall who offers a nice combination of speed and toughness that endeared him to the faithful through a trying year on the field for the whole team.

Beyond this, there’s not a lot to be excited about.

The situation on the offensive line reached near disaster levels following 2018 without the ability for a two-deep of scholarship players and a talent level that left a lot to be desired. This helped cause the ACC’s second worst rushing attack and a line that allowed the third-most sacks in the entire country a year ago. Obviously, Satterfield has focused on this issue but won’t be able to snap his fingers and make this better in one off-season.

Notre Dame was one of the early offers for quarterback Jawon Pass back in the spring of 2014 who would go on to get a look from several major powers before signing with Louisville to be the heir apparent to Lamar Jackson. He sat as a freshman during Jackson’s Heisman campaign, played sparingly in 2017, and made 9 starts in 2018 as the Cardinals offense began to crumble around him.

Current redshirt sophomore Malik Cunningham made 3 starts last year–leading the team with 497 rushing yards–but suffered a knee injury this August that effectively ended the quarterback competition. Cunningham is a very twitchy and quick athlete who if he can play would pose some problems with his running. Pass is very big at 6’4″ 239 lbs. and can open things up as a runner with enough time but isn’t very nimble. Paired with a shaky offensive line and an unusual, short throwing motion Pass was the lowest rated quarterback in the ACC last year and has struggled at times during fall camp.

Louisville’s Defense

What would happen if one of the worst defenses in Power 5 history switched to a 3-4 scheme with a lack of size to adequately run that system? We’re about to find out!

35-year old defensive coordinator Bryan Brown was the cornerbacks coach with Appalachian State for 6 seasons before rising to his current job last year while coming to Louisville this year with Satterfield from Boone, North Carolina. He will deploy a scheme that tries to make plays with speed above all else.

If you’re Notre Dame you have to be licking your chops that the running game will push Louisville around. Nose guard G.G. Robinson has some size at 6’4″ 295 but will be flanked by ends weighing 254 lbs. and 252 lbs. respectively. The Cardinals like their middle linebackers Dorian Etheridge (6’3″ 231 lbs) and C.J. Avery (5’11” 221 lbs) who bring some weight to the table but will be starting a converted corner Rodjay Burns at 6’0″ 197 lbs. at one of the outside linebacker spots. Based off Appalchian State’s history, Bryan Brown will be looking to those outside linebackers to wreak havoc as their starters accounted for 21.5 tackles for loss last year.

I’m not sure it’s even worth it to try and predict what the secondary will look like for Louisville. This team was so awful at both stopping the run and pass, so utterly broken down by Brian VanGorder, that they cannot be adequately assessed heading into 2019. All we know is they will be better than the 6.02 yards per rush and 6.88 yards per play allowed last year.

For reference, Notre Dame has allowed over 6.88 YPP in a game just once (Clemson last year, 6.89) over the last 3 full seasons. Louisville averaged that for an entire season!

Prediction

One common theme among Louisville fans this off-season has been that since Scott Satterfield’s teams were good at X, Y, Z with Appalachian State then they will be good at these things for the Cardinals. In truth, college football is rarely that simple in coaching transitions and even more rare for these things to turn around quickly in year one.

By Satterfield’s own admission expectations are very low.

The program welcomed 7 total transfers during the off-season but signed a very modest No. 69 national and No. 15 ACC ranked recruiting class. The top ranked recruit from 2018 was ruled academically ineligible last year and has since left the program while the second best recruit from the class put his name in the transfer portal before removing it and remaining at Louisville.

There just isn’t enough talent coming up for the Cardinals to be an average Power 5 program this fall.

The only worry for Notre Dame is Scott Satterfield coming up with an excellent gameplan after preparing all off-season for the Irish. Even then, it would mean making it closer than expected and not an upset. Satterfield has displayed phenomenal growth in his short head coaching career jumping from 4 wins, to 7 wins, to 11 wins to start out at App State while beginning at 67th in FEI from 2014 in his first FBS season to 19th in FEI last year.

Satterfield is good enough that it was a curious decision to head to Louisville where it will take 3 years to even get adequate ACC-level talent. This has the feel of him going 8-5 in 2021 and jumping to a place like Tennessee.

Everyone wants to know, will the Irish cover and win comfortably?

Over the last 2 seasons, Notre Dame has covered once (Miami, OH 2017), not covered twice (Ball State 2018, Pitt 2018), and pushed (Navy, 2018) when favored by at least 20 points. Yet, the Irish have beaten an impressive 10 Power 5 programs by at least 20 points since 2017. For what it’s worth, Louisville was a national-worst 1-11 against the spread last year. VanGorder.

There’s been a lot of talk about Notre Dame’s program building over the last couple seasons and when it comes to the weakest 5 opponents of 2019–of which Louisville surely is one–I think that program strength will shine through. Book shines early, Pass never gets comfortable in the pocket, and the Irish let off the gas in the 4th quarter nursing a large lead.

Notre Dame 40

Louisville 13

I pronounce it “Looey-ville.”