Five Plays: Syracuse Third Quarter

For a quarter of football that didn’t feature a score, there was plenty of action in the third quarter of Louisville’s game against Syracuse on Saturday night. I added some thoughts to the plays that stood out to me.

Antonio Harris plays football like a guy who knows he has to make plays to stay on the field. He attacks this play from his corner position with such great effort, and that’s all it takes to beat the blocker to the outside before wrapping around him to clip Hatcher’s legs.

The worst outcome on this play for Harris is that he doesn’t get there and Kaleb Beasley and Jerod Smith have to make this play. If he allows himself to be blocked, there’s a good chance that Harris gets outside and gets good yardage.

The offensive line regressed back to what they looked like before the Florida State game on Saturday. Stretch runs are an absolutely vital part of the offense as a whole, so they can’t continue to get beat to the spot like we see here from Cason Henry at right tackle. They also can’t get blown off the ball, as we see from Lance Robinson at right tackle. There is not an offensive lineman on this play who executes their assignment.

So much of this is effort, in my opinion. These guys just do not explode off the ball on each snap. Just watch how quickly the Syracuse guys get over the line of scrimmage and watch how they are getting into the pads of the Louisville offensive line. I don’t know how they fix this, but they showed they can be much better than this the week before against FSU.

I don’t think I’ve clipped a penalty all season, but this is a bad call. Both the receiver and the defender have a right to the football. Harris is playing with his eyes in the backfield, so he sees where this ball is going before the receiver does. He breaks for the ball, but he’s punished because the receiver sees it after he does.

I’m obviously rooting hard for Harris to become a player for this defense, but this is the type of flag that leads to guys playing timid. Defensive backs should be able to play the ball.

This is a terrible play call. It felt like the equivalent of a heat check for Brian Brohm. It’s third and long, and you have a lead. You’re backed up at your own goal line with an offense full of very fast athletes, and you just call All Verts?

Kienholz has no option on this play outside a deep shot. As you can see from the coverage, he chooses the best option to throw the ball to. I would argue that any throw on this play would be picked off. This offense could be elite, but these types of calls are baffling to me.

I don’t know if this was an adjustment from Mark Ivey, but I believe Ben Perry would typically drop into coverage here with Clev Lubin rushing on the other side. I could be wrong, but from a numbers standpoint, that would make the most sense. Lubin ends up covering air here because there is only a tight end to his side with a receiver. Not totally sure here, but it is a play that made me think a bit about how they execute this play where they drop an edge player into coverage.

That’s really beside the point, as Perry ends up with a really nice pass rush on this play to force Malachi Nelson to step right into Jerod Smith’s rush. Smith does an excellent job of setting up the right guard on this play. He uses the guard’s natural body lean as he moves to his right to square him up quickly before getting inside quickly to blow by him. A very savvy play for a player who hasn’t played a ton of football in his career. It feels like he’s growing into things in front of our eyes.

Malachi Nelson throws a “YOLO ball” on this play because he thinks that Kaleb Beasley would get turned around on this post-corner route by his receiver. Instead, Beasley reads the route perfectly before catching what is essentially a punt. This is a poor decision by Nelson, but we’ve all seen this play end with the ball hitting the ground. Beasley leads the country in picks because he has made a play on the ball so often, like we see here.

A superb play by Tyler Thompson. The type of play that gets an audible response from me. He uses a very simple fake outside to get the left tackle off-balance. Then he swims to the inside to meet the running back after just a couple of steps. Some things you can coach, and some things take high-level athletes.

Antonio Harris looked very good for his first real action, but on this play he gets a good lesson. He’s in off coverage on this play, and he ends up being in between where he should be as he closes in for this tackle. As Umari Hatcher makes this catch, Harris doesn’t close on the ball quickly enough. Because he’s slow to close, he needs to break down and just get Hatcher to the ground.

Instead of doing this, Harris ends up outside of him, which is where he would want to be if Hatcher hadn’t already turned up the field. He’s looking to contain him so that other defenders can help him with the tackle. It’s what he’s coached to do, but he is out of position, and he doesn’t realize it. So, Hatcher is able to just blow by him while Harris is left diving for him.

You’re going to have some growing pains if you play young players, but sometimes it’s worth it if you can get better overall play.