Louisville QB1 Malik Cunningham has his bag of treats. How good has he been this season? Thrown for 1,684 yards good for 6 touchdowns on 63.4% passing while also leading the Cardinals in rushing with 480 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns this season.

Sadly his outstanding play has been ghosted this season by how poorly the defense has played at times along with some costly turnovers. Maybe he will break out of the shadows of darkness into a new light tonight by leading his team to a big primetime win.

This Louisville offense is not a skeleton crew and has some playmakers. Jalen Mitchell second on the team in rush yards behind Malik has 424 rushing yards of his own. While Hassan Hall and Trevion Cooley each have 200+ rushing yards on the campaign.

The ball has been flying thru the air like a witch on a broom for Marshon Ford. He leads the Cardinals in receiving with 30 catches for 313 yards. Four other Louisville receivers have joined the party and have at least 200 receiving yards this season.

Don’t think for a minute that this NC State team will be left bobbing for apples. Their offense has also been as hot as a witch’s brew. Devin Leary will be playing the role of gunslinger in this one. He has thrown for 1,844 yards, and 17 touchdowns on 65.6% passing.

He’s got some pretty solid guys catching those bullets. Emeka Emezie leads the Wolfpack’s receiving corps with 37 grabs for 452 yards while Thayer Thomas and Devin Carter each have 300+ receiving yards and another three NC State receivers have at least 100 receiving yards this season. They spread the ball around all over the field like a giant spider’s web.

The Treats… This Louisville defense started the season in quicksand. But has been a hoot to watch in the last few games. The Cardinals added to their interception total by picking off two more passes against BC to give them nine picks on the year.

The defense tallied three more sacks in Saturday’s win, upping its season total to 21 through seven games matching all of last season, and have at least three sacks in three of the last four games.

Trey Franklin picked off his second pass of the season and is just another guy on this defense along with C.J. Avery (46 tackles), Yasir Abdullah (6 sacks), and Kei’Trel Clark (3 interceptions) stepping up this season.

The Tricks…

For the second-straight game, the Cardinals’ offensive line failed to yield a sack, the first time not allowing a sack in back-to-back games since 2008. Leading to a season-high 331 yards on the ground.

Trevion Cooley, who recorded his first career 100-yard rushing game last week averaging 8.6 yards per carry adds a nice little touch to the backfield. Establishing a solid rush attack and being able to sustain drives gives the guys on the other side of the ball a chance to be better.

Louisville has moved into the top 25 nationally in total offense, averaging 452.0 yards per game. The Cards have totaled more than 500 yards of offense in three of the last four contests. If the story stopped here you’d think this team was rolling and fans were going into today’s game pretty confident about the outcome. But it doesn’t…

The troubLsss… has been on the other side of the ball. Louisville has given up 34 or more points in three of their last four, and the result is the Cardinals going 2-2 in that stretch. In the last quarter of football, this Louisville defense played they gave up 21 points.

Today is where the rubber meets the road for this Louisville Football team and the defense. Defensive coordinator Bryan Brown promised a much tougher brand of defense. At times you can see the light come on for his group. They have made some big plays.

Through the first six games of the season, the cardinals have surpassed their 2020 total of interceptions. The defense picked off two passes versus Virginia to give them seven interceptions on the season. And the big pick to beat UCF.

There is talent on the Louisville defense with young guys stepping up each week. I don’t think players are the issue. I think it’s about Coach Brown getting all of these guys in the right situation to win and finish ballgames. Maybe the 3 man rush, prevent defense should take a back seat.

Linebacker C.J. Avery is attempting to become the fifth player to lead the team in tackles, Linebacker Yasir Abdullah ranks 18th in the country and third in the ACC with 0.8 sacks per game, breakout freshman Ashton Gillotte is second with 3.0 sacks, Kei’Trel Clark leads the team in interceptions with three, and Jack Fagot leads the team in tackles with 42 after recording nine in the loss to Virginia.

Playmakers… Playmakers… Playmakers… too many for the Louisville Defense to be giving away games and that’s what they did two weeks ago. The defensive unit and staff will have all eyes on them today.

They’ve had an extra week to get ready for a Boston College team that hasn’t been an offensive juggernaut this season. They couldn’t do anything after halftime against NC State in their last time out. The Eagles ultimately collected just 291 total yards with 4.2 yards per play and 17 first downs.

Remember when our Cardinals beat Wake Forest to win the program’s first Orange Bowl?

Remember Coach Satt’s win over Wake Forest during his first season? I’m hoping history repeats itself today as the Cardinals travel to Winston-Salem to play the 4-0 Deamon Deacons. They are 2-0 in the ACC after beating Virginia last week.

Wake has had a solid start and been led by a defense ranked 5th in the country in turnovers gained with 11. The Demon Deacon defense also sees themselves inside of the top-25 in several other categories: Scoring D (9th, 14.2 PPG), Redzone D (5th, .545), TFL/G (7th, 8.5), Turnover Margin (4th, +1.75 per game).

They also have a pretty good QB. Dating back to last season, Sam Hartman has now thrown at least one touchdown pass in eight straight games. Over that stretch he has 18 touchdown passes to seven different receivers. He hung 270 yards and three touchdowns on Virginia last week.

Oh, and did I mention their kicker? Nick Sciba is on his way to becoming the most accurate kicker in NCAA history. During his time at Wake Forest, he is 64-of-71 (.901), the best mark for any kicker in NCAA and ACC history (min. 50 att).

Wake did show some chink in the armor giving up 506 total yards last week against Virginia including 407 through the air and 31 first downs. I think the Cardinals and Malik Cummingham could find similar success on Saturday. But we do have to mention the big red elephant in the room.

After a high octane first half against FSU, the Cardinals went silent in the second half last weekend, finishing on 395 total yards, 4.9 yards per play, and 21 first downs. If the Cardinals can’t get it going on the scoreboard early in this game it could be rough. I’m hoping that Coach Satt just took his foot off the gas last week and that we are going to see a lot of scoring from the Cards in this one throughout.

Cunningham is the leading rusher with 263 yards on the season which is good for 5th in the ACC. He also ranks 7th in the conference with 998 passing yards. He’s starting to spread the ball around thru the air. Louisville had a variety of receivers make contributions last game with Tyler Harrell leading the way with two catches for 61 yards. Meanwhile, team-leading receiver, Marshon Ford hauled in a team-high six catches for 52 yards.

The Louisville defense has stepped it up big time with guys like LB Jack Fagot who made a career-high 10 tackles last week. He now has 25 total tackles on the year and is currently the team leader. His 25 tackles have him ranked 24th in the ACC. The Cardinal defense is right in the thick of things ranking seventh in the ACC (18.5 points). They’ll have to come up big in this one against the very efficient Wake offense.

The game between these teams back in 2019 was the 2nd highest-scoring game in the history of the ACC. I don’t think we can win a shootout here. Just don’t think a high-scoring game gets it done for either side. This game is a tale of two defenses. What side breaks first and breaks the most. I like our defense. They’ve had to stand tough the last few weeks and came thru big and I believe they will today.

Should be a good game. Hope it’s another one of those “remember when”… With a win.