Louisville's defense really settled in in the second quarter against Clemson on Saturday night. The coverage was tight in the back end and the defensive line made play after play against the run and the pass. They also made timely plays that stalled drives and got the ball back to the offense.
As for the offense, they started to show that they were more physical and faster than Clemson and Jeff Brohm got into a groove with his play calling. Though they missed opportunities, it became obvious that UofL could win this game.
Not a lot of analysis here. This is just fun to watch. Tamarion McDonald treats Cade Klubnik like a child and tosses him around like a rag doll. Klubnik outweighs him by 15 pounds and it didn't matter. You just love to see this stuff from a defense that has had such a rough season.
Clemson ran a designed quarterback run only once after this play. The message was delivered.
Jared Dawson does something every game that makes me yelp. This is that play in this game. He not only uses his insane quickness to beat the right guard here but then he closes fast enough to get to the running back and stop him for a short gain. Just an unbelievable individual effort.
This ended up being one of the biggest plays of the game. UofL brings two linebackers on a blitz but Clemson does a good job to pick it up. Cade Klubnik is also looking to hit a slant route to the left side.
Antonio Watts does two smart things here. He realizes he's not going to get home so he looks to get his hands up to knock down the pass. The second smart thing he does is that he jumps backwards to avoid the offensive linemen knocking him down. Linemen are taught to push pass rushers when they jump like this but Watts is too far away and he can make the big play which forced a punt.
Tyler Shough did a great job on this play to change the call at the line. The tight end goes in motion from left to right and the defense adjusted by rotating a safety into the box and the middle linebacker slides over to the middle of the field. Shough sees it and makes the adjustment.
Louisville ends up with even numbers to the left which means that Brown will have to beat one guy based on how many blockers he has ahead of him. But, Clemson runs a stunt that takes out a defensive lineman. The free offensive lineman then does enough to take on the free linebacker and then Brown does the rest. All due to Shough making a heads up adjustment.
I absolutely loved this play call after UofL started moving the ball with some big plays and got a couple of big flags. Clemson was going to back off because they were getting gashed so Jeff Brohm runs a middle screen to get his best speed into space to make a play. Pete Nygra and Michael Gonzalez do a great job to get out into the play and give Duke Watson room to work.
UofL has a nice combination with Watson and Isaac Brown. They will both have a full offseason to work on their bodies, but it will be a lot of fun for the next few games to watch them keep doing stuff like this.
We really haven't seen a play like this since Malik Cunningham was here doing wild stuff with the ball in his hands. It also took me a while to realize the awareness Shough shows here to know that going over the defender was his only option. I really only clipped it to let everyone watch it again on a loop though.
This was a good play to illustrate how important run fits are. Run fits are best described simply as defenders "fitting" into their assigned gaps. You can see on this play that two linebackers end up running into the same gap. That's how they end up being taken out of the play by the same blocker.
TJ Quinn should be playing this inside the blocker which would have filled the gap Phil Mafah runs through. Mafah would then have to either stop his feet or try to blow past an unblocked Stanquan Clark. This was one of the longest plays of the game for Clemson and the defense did a great job to shut down their offense. Just wanted to show a good look at how big plays can happen.
I can watch plays like this from Ashton Gillotte all day. He plays this perfectly at the snap and he strings this play out much further than it is designed to go. You can see that he isn't even accounted for because the blocking scheme assumes the receiver will be able to blow by the defensive end. Instead, the blocker takes on the second-level player to try to spring the play. Gillotte blows up the plan and makes the play.
Antonio Watts was a star in this game and he made a bunch of plays like this that didn't end up in the stat sheet. He takes on the outside shoulder of this blocker from the inside out which is just not normal to be able to do. But, he gets there and he forces this play back inside. The little things mattered a lot in this game and Watts did a lot of the little things.