FSU football: Defense took the day off in a blowout loss against Louisville

FSU football has one of the worst defenses in college football and it showed against Louisville Saturday afternoon. Can it be fixed?

I wrote the first quarter would tell us a lot about the FSU football team. The offense took their first possession right down the field and scored a touchdown with a little bit of luck.

However, one play on Louisville’s first offensive possession was a foreshadowing of things to come in a 48-16 loss. The defense forced Louisville into a third and eight, right where you’d want to be as a defense.

However, Louisville’s Tutu Atwell caught a pass and went 66 yards for a touchdown. It was a common theme as Louisville broke off long runs and passes the entire first half.

They didn’t punt the entire first half and scored touchdowns on their first four possessions, and looked like they had their fifth straight, but a player was ruled down before he crossed the goal line.

Louisville settled for a field goal and missed another field goal on their final possession before halftime to lead 31-14.

It felt like FSU football was losing by 34 points instead of 17. The FSU offense couldn’t get anything going, and wide receivers couldn’t get open and dropped at least 10 passes.

Jordan Travis was lucky he didn’t throw three interceptions in the first half, and his luck ran out in the third quarter with a dropped pass from Ontaria Wilson was intercepted.

Louisville had 410 yards at halftime and 513 yards through three quarters. They owned FSU’s defense in every way, and it looked like they were playing against a high school defense out there.

I’m convinced they could have run the same fake handoff rollout play and gotten positive yardage every single time. I don’t know who’s to blame, because the players were in a position to make tackles for loss, and Raymond Woodie Jr could have intercepted a pass, and just watched the ball come down before breaking up the pass.

However, there were Louisville players wide open all game. Louisville put in their backup players early in the fourth quarter and still amassed 571 yards.

It’s going to be a long time before this defense is fixed, and there will not be many victories on the schedule until it is.