Why Louisville football has no time to waste to address self-inflicted mistakes

SYRACUSE, New York — Louisville football’s hope of opening the season with a win for the second time in three years dwindled with every missed tackle and empty offensive drive Saturday night at the JMA Wireless Dome.

The Cardinals know exactly what they did wrong in a 31-7 beatdown at the hands of Syracuse and didn’t shy away from it. Offensively, the team had nine drives, only one of which ended in a touchdown thanks to a 36-yard run from Tiyon Evans. The team’s final four drives ended in a turnover — two Malik Cunningham interceptions, a Cunningham fumble and a turnover on downs.

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Not including the score, U of L only got into plus territory four times in the contest and the red zone once. The Cardinals were stopped when they tried to go for it on fourth-and-goal at the 2-yard line. Syracuse linebacker Marlowe Wax swallowed up Cunningham behind the line of scrimmage for a 2-yard loss, leaving points on the field.

The Cardinals added seven penalties for 50 yards, each of which were costly to a team that couldn’t get anything going offensively.

Cunningham was left without answers as to why the team couldn’t consistently capitalize on big plays like Ahmari Huggins-Bruce’s 45-yard reception or another 45-yard gadget-play connection between Braden Smith and Tyler Hudson. He acknowledged the team’s self-inflicted errors. Head coach Scott Satterfield credited Syracuse’s defense for being disruptive.

“Their defensive line, they do a lot of twists and stunting, but it wasn't just their d-line,” Satterfield said. “They bring linebackers a lot, whether it be one linebacker or two off the edge. … Early on, we were picking it up pretty good. Then I think maybe the second half there, when they probably knew we have to throw the ball a bit more, I thought they got a lot more pressure on us.”

The offense shoulders plenty of blame for putting up just seven points, even against a Syracuse defense that was among the ACC's better units in 2021, but the Cardinals’ defense wasn’t without fault, either. Louisville had multiple missed tackles that led to big plays, particularly from Syracuse quarterback Garrett Shrader, who contributed to three of the Orange’s four touchdowns.

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“Some of our guys tonight as I was watching — we'll know more when we watch the film, but — flying in with just a shoulder and not trying to wrap up, just get a shoulder tackle," Satterfield said. "You can't do that with these big runners, with Schrader, who's a big guy and (running back Sean) Tucker.”

U of L linebacker Momo Sanogo said they “need to improve yesterday,” though it wasn’t too much of a surprise to him in the season opener.

“Watching around the country, there's a lot of missed tackles. … A lot of teams around this country need to work on tackling yesterday, and we're no exception to that,” he said. “So that definitely needs to get better moving forward. We had the game plan schemed up. We knew what they were going to do. We were in the right place. We've got to make plays.”

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Unlike many other teams around the country, though, Louisville has a short window to improve on the many areas that proved costly. The Cardinals, who face a critical fourth season under Satterfield's command coming off consecutive losing campaigns, have another road game at UCF on Friday night. They return to Louisville early Sunday morning and head to Orlando on Thursday, which only gives them a few days to make the necessary adjustments.

“It's not conventional to do tackling all throughout the week, but we probably need that,” Sanogo said.

“It's a lot of mental (preparation),” Satterfield said. “We’ve got to do a great job of getting the guys back confident to know that we can go out and play well. Learn from these mistakes right here to go out and play a much better game on the road. It's gonna be a tough, tough place to go play.”

Reach Louisville football, women's basketball and baseball beat writer Alexis Cubit at acubit@gannett.com and follow her on Twitter at @Alexis_Cubit.