Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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38 SEPT. 28, 2024 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED GAME PREVIEW: LOUISVILLE BY JACK SOBLE LOUISVILLE RUNNING GAME VS. NOTRE DAME RUN DEFENSE Louisville's schedule through two weeks — de- feating Austin Peay and Jacksonville State by a combined score of 111-14 — makes it hard to evaluate the Cardinals, aside from noting they take care of business when they're supposed to. That said, they've combined for 8.2 yards per carry, with four backs running the ball at least 10 times so far. Notre Dame can realistically expect a solid to very good offensive line from Louisville. The Car- dinals added three graduate transfers in junior left tackle Monroe Mills (Texas Tech), redshirt junior center Pete Nygra (Northern Illinois) and redshirt senior right tackle Jonathan Mendoza (Yale) to complement two returning starters, including All- ACC honorable mention and senior left guard Mi- chael Gonzalez. Louisville burned Notre Dame in the run game last season, with Jawhar Jordan rushing 21 times for 143 yards and 2 touchdowns. Jordan has moved on to the NFL, though, and with him went the Cardinals' decisive advantage in speed. The Irish also got faster on the back end, replacing DJ Brown with sophomore Adon Shuler and introduc- ing some speedy linebackers — chief among them sophomore Jaiden Ausberry — to the party. Up front, it's been a mixed bag for Notre Dame. The defensive line got its tail kicked (45 carries for 190 yards) in the loss to NIU in Week 2, but it al- lowed nothing (25 for 38) in the blowout win over Purdue in Week 3. The Irish need the latter version to show up, which means they need graduate student defensive tackles Rylie Mills and Howard Cross III to hold the line so their linebackers can do their job. Said linebackers blowing up pulling guards like they did in West Lafayette, Ind., will help the cause as well. An underrated factor here: The loss of graduate student vyper Jordan Botelho, who had done a ter- rific job setting the edge in the first three weeks, is out for the season with a knee injury. Can sopho- more vyper Boubacar Traore and company fill that role as well as Botelho did? We shall see. Advantage: Even LOUISVILLE PASSING GAME VS. NOTRE DAME PASS DEFENSE It is nearly impossible to know what to expect from Louisville redshirt senior signal-caller Tyler Shough. Despite 2024 being Shough's seventh year of college football, the most passes he's thrown in a single season is somehow 177 in 2022. Injuries have kept him off the field for much of his career. While Shough's stats through two games were excellent (10.2 yards per attempt with 6 touch- downs and 0 interceptions), Purdue quarterback Hudson Card completed 24 of 25 pass attempts in Week 1 against Indiana State and proceeded to connect on only 11 of 24 throws against the Irish. We know how well results against FCS competition translate to facing Notre Dame: They don't. Weapons-wise, Louisville has some intriguing pieces, but WR1 by far has been former Alabama wide receiver Ja'Corey Brooks. He tallied 13 recep- tions for 172 yards and 1 touchdown in the first two games. The Cardinals suffered a big injury loss here, though: South Alabama transfer Caullin Lacy broke his collarbone in fall camp, which reportedly sidelined him for six to eight weeks. That gives him an outside shot at being available for the Notre Dame game. Wideouts who will scare the Irish secondary are few and far between, but Lacy might be one of them. The 5-foot-10, 190-pound slot receiver led college football with 842 yards after the catch amid a 1,305-yard season in 2024. Even if Lacy can go, he'll likely be rusty. Also, graduate student nickel back Jordan Clark would be responsible for him, and Clark has been ter- rific so far this season. The Arizona State transfer allowed only 3 receptions — two of which were third-down passes that he tackled short of the sticks — on 7 targets for 17 yards in hist first three games with the Irish. Tackling is a strength of his, which will help him slow down Lacy after the catch. On PaPer Freshman Isaac Brown was one four ball carriers that had at least 10 rushing attempts during Louisville's first two contests when it averaged 263.0 yards on the ground. Brown led the way with 13 carries for 166 yards (12.8 per rush) and 1 touchdown. PHOTO COURTESY LOUISVILLE