Louisville Cardinals Preview 2022: Season Prediction, Breakdown, Key Games, Players
Louisville Cardinals Preview 2022: Previewing, predicting, and looking ahead to the Louisville season with what you need to know and keys to the season.
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Louisville Cardinals Preview
Head Coach: Scott Satterfield, 4th year at Louisville, 18-19
10th year overall, 69-43: 2021 Preview
2021 Record: Overall: 6-7, Conference: 4-4
Offense, Defense Breakdown | Keys To The Season
Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Louisville Top 10 Players | Louisville Schedule & Analysis
Louisville Cardinals Preview 2022
Louisville might not have been cranking up ACC championships, but it went on a strong run of solid winning seasons from 2010 to 2017 and got the basketball-mad school even more into football.
Three losing seasons in four years just won’t get it done.
Scott Satterfield was able to pull the program up out of the nosedive when he took over in 2019, he deserved more of a break than he got in 2020 for a 4-7 season – it was 2020 – but last year was a problem.
2021 was when the ACC was terrible. Clemson was down, Florida State was still struggling, and there weren’t any superpower players in a year when Pitt and Wake Forest became the stars.
That was the opening. That was the shot Louisville had to rise up and rock, and the 6-7 season was just … meh. To be fair, the Cardinals lost four games by six points or fewer – win just two of those, and it’s a different narrative going into 2022.
The schedule is sneaky-nasty, but this is a veteran team that should be more explosive and more consistent on both sides of the ball.
Satterfield needs a big season after closing out with four losses in the last six games and six losses in the last nine. It all starts with getting even more from …
Louisville Cardinals Preview 2022: Offense
There were a whole lot of positives to the offense. The line was great in pass protection. Malik Cunningham looked and played like a big-time difference-maker, and overall the attack was careful with the ball.
The 446 yards and 32 points per game were fine, but the O failed to come up with more than 28 points in five of the last seven games and struggled to come through late in a few too many tight games.
The passing attack should be far, far better. Cunningham has the ability and experience to rise up and be a superstar among all the great ACC quarterbacks – he ran for over 1,000 yards and 20 scores, and threw for close to 3,000 yards with 19 touchdowns and six picks – and he’s got the receivers.
Braden Smith is back after missing most of last season, and transfers Dee Wiggins from Miami and Tyler Hudson from Central Arkansas are going to be huge playmakers with Jordan Watkins off to Ole Miss and Tyler Harrell leaving for Alabama.
Cunningham is the star of the ground game, but the Cardinals have the backs to take the pressure off. Tiyon Evans from Tennessee is too good to not get the ball on a regular basis, and Jalen Mitchell is a good-sized tough back who led all RBs with 722 yards and five scores.
Star center Cole Bentley is done, but four starters are expected back around First Team All-ACC guard Caleb Chandler. The league’s No. 1 line in pass protection and tackles for loss allowed should be every bit as good for a running game that will average over five yards per pop.
Louisville Cardinals Preview 2022: Defense
The defense had the misfortune of dealing with Ole Miss on national TV to start the season. Overall the group wasn’t great, but that perception from the opener stuck for a D that finished ninth in the ACC.
The pass rush wasn’t bad, but the run defense was gouged a bit too much and bad things happened when the Cardinals allowed over 500 yards of total offense.
There are holes to fill on the defensive front seven, but there’s a good base to work around. OLB Yassir Abdullah is one of the ACC’s better pass rushers, and Ashton Gillette is a good young pass rusher on one end. There isn’t a space-eater inside, but the rotation should be okay for the front three to hold up – getting 305-pound Jermayne Lole from Arizona State will literally be a huge help.
Former Ole Miss Rebel Momo Sanogo will step into an outside linebacking role as a disruptive force, and Monty Montgomery – who missed most of last year after finishing fourth on the team in tackles in 2020 – will try to take over in the middle for three-year leading tackler CJ Avery.
The secondary should be better. Kei’Trel Clark is an All-ACC corner who led the team with three picks, but he missed a chunk of last year. Kenderick Duncan earned all-star honors at safety after finishing third on the team with 76 stops, Chandler Jones is a veteran corner, and on the way are four good transfers – Jalen Alexander (Duke), MJ Griffin (Temple), Quincy Riley (Middle Tennessee), and Jarvis Brownlee (Florida State) – to make a push.
Keys To The Season
Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Louisville Top 10 Players | Louisville Schedule & Analysis
Louisville Cardinals: Keys To The Season, Top Game, Top Transfer, Fun Stats NEXT
Louisville Cardinals: Keys To The Season, Top Game, Top Transfer, Fun Stats
Louisville Cardinals: Key To The 2022 Offense
Be better in the second half of games.
It wasn’t the offense’s fault the D couldn’t do anything in the fourth quarter.
Louisville allowed just 45 points in the third quarters of games and got rocked for 126 in the fourth. In too many close games the team came up just short, but the offense also has to do its part to finish.
The O wasn’t bad late, but it scored 176 points in the second half after rolling up 235 in the first. The attack will move, but for a team that struggled to put the biscuit in the basket over the second half of the season, consistently getting at least 35 points is a must.
The scoring has to come over a full four quarters.
Louisville Cardinals: Key To The 2022 Defense
Get nastier in the red zone.
Generating more pressure would be nice. That would help with the massive problem of allowing way too many first downs, but overall the defense should be better with the transfers coming in to boost the starting 11. Now the D has to be better at coming up with stops inside the 20.
Offenses scored 90% of the time on the Cardinals when they got in the red zone. That’s not the end of the world, and the 32 touchdowns on 49 drives wasn’t that awful. The problem was allowing teams to get into the red zone in the first place, and then allowing touchdowns in bunches.
Kentucky went 5-for-5 on scoring TDs inside the 20 in its 52-21 win. Ole Miss started out the season with five touchdowns inside the red zone, and Virginia won 34-33 helped by four scores after getting inside the 20.
Louisville Cardinals: Key Player To The 2022 Season
DT Jermayne Lole, Sr.
The Cardinals are bringing in several good transfers who’ll play big roles right away – watch out for WR Tyler Hudson from Central Arkansas – but the defensive front got itself a star in Lole.
The former Arizona State All-Pac-12 performer missed all of last year with a triceps injury, but he’s back and ready to roll. He’s the 300-pounder the Cardinal line is missing, and he can get in the backfield with 11 career sacks and 20 tackles for loss to go along with his 122 stops. He’s one of the key transfers, as is …
Louisville Cardinals: Key Transfer
LB Momo Sanogo, Sr.
The Cardinals need more help at outside linebacker, and in comes Sanogo from Ole Miss.
A star in 2018, he made 112 tackles and 6.5 tackles for loss, missed almost all of 2019, came back and was strong in 2020, and was out of the mix for most of 2021 with just 25 tackles. Now the 6-1, 227-pounder should step right in for the Cardinals and lead them in stops.
Louisville Key Game To The 2022 Season
Florida State, Sept. 16
Louisville starts out the season at Syracuse and at UCF – neither of those are sure things, and 0-2 right out of the gate wouldn’t be a shocker. The home opener is against Florida State, and it’s this simple – lose, and the season is over.
Why?
The next two ACC games are on the road at Boston College and Virginia, and the second half of the season is tougher than the first. The Cardinals can win a few of the later games, but a loss to FSU would be a big, big problem.
Louisville Cardinals: 2021 Fun Stats
– Average Yards Per Carry: Louisville 5.4 – Opponents 4.4
– Sacks: Louisville 33 for 219 yards – Opponents 20 for 102 yards
– 3rd Quarter Points Allowed: 45 – 4th Quarter Points Allowed: 126
Offense, Defense Breakdown
Season Prediction, What Will Happen
Louisville Top 10 Players | Louisville Schedule & Analysis
Louisville Cardinals Season Prediction, What Will Happen NEXT
Louisville Cardinals Season Prediction, What Will Happen
This is going to be one of the weirdest teams of 2022 to figure out.
Louisville should be much, much better. As pointed out earlier, the 2021 team was way too close in way too many games – it could’ve easily have been 9-4 instead of 6-7. But that’s life in an even ACC.
Do you believe the Cardinals can win the 50/50 games? That’s every week for an improved team that has a nasty schedule without a whole lot of layups to count on.
There’s no Duke or Georgia Tech on the slate to make things a bit easier, and there isn’t a 100% rock-solid lock tune-up game in non-conference play, either.
But let’s set the bar a tad bit higher than it should be only because the team should be just that good. To put it another way, it would be a major disappointment if the win total was any lower went under …
Set The Louisville Cardinals Regular Season Win Total At … 7
USF, James Madison. Those are as close to sure-wins as the Cardinals have on the slate. Other than that … uh oh.
Syracuse, UCF, Boston College, Virginia are all on the road. Those are the biggest 50/50 games, and Louisville has to take at least two of them. It also has to win the early home game against Florida State.
How’s this for the finishing kick after a week off in the middle of the season? Yeah, Pitt and Wake Forest are home games, but those are the two programs that played in the ACC Championship last year. Then comes James Madison, and then …
At Clemson, NC State – who’s LOADED – and at Kentucky.
It’s going to take a few upsets to get to 7, but Louisville football should be ready to come up with its share of those.
Offense, Defense Breakdown | Keys To The Season
Louisville Top 10 Players | Louisville Schedule & Analysis
