Written by Bruce Feldman at FoxSports.com
Lamar Jackson was the biggest story in college football this weekend. Louisville’s sophomore QB absolutely shredded FSU’s defense in a 63-20 rout. Jackson made one big play after another, and as I said on our FOX pre-game show Saturday night, he made a very athletic Noles D look like he was playing against Syracuse. Last year, FSU allowed only one rush of 30 yards or longer in 13 games. On Saturday, Jackson broke off two such runs against FSU.
But we found out that Louisville is a lot more than just its dazzling young quarterback. The Cards’ defense looks legit now, too. Todd Grantham’s defense held the Seminoles to just 2-for-13 on third downs. For the year, Louisville has held its opponents to only 12-for-49 (.245) on third-down conversions. The Cardinals also bottled up FSU star RB Dalvin Cook, who managed just 54 rushing yards on 16 carries. That was priority No. 1 for the Cardinals’ defense.
“A lot of preparation went into it,” Grantham, Louisville’s DC, told FOX Sports Sunday afternoon. “Cook is tremendous. You gotta set the edge of the defense and build a wall inside to create less seams, because he can burst through and really accelerate and take it to the house.”
Grantham’s plan for short-circuiting FSU QB Deondre Francois also worked well. Grantham said Francois is very talented, but added that he’s also still a freshman. The key to slowing Francois was giving him pre-snap looks that changed significantly to his post-snap read, especially since Grantham made a point of mixing up coverages so Francois could never get comfortable between all the single-high safety and split safeties looks, where he never had a great feel for where Louisville’s pressure was coming from. It also helped that DT DeAngelo Brown is one of the strongest men in college football and typically commands double teams. Brown collapsed the pocket, getting in the 6-foot-1 QB’s face most of the afternoon.
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