FSU football: Analyzing Adam Fuller’s defense against Louisville

From An Analytics Standpoint

Louisville had 14 offensive possessions and only scored on five of them. They scored four touchdowns, a field goal, and one of the possessions where they scored a touchdown was on a short field after the FSU offense threw an interception.

Louisville was 5 of 14 on third downs (35 percent) and 1 of 2 on fourth downs (50 percent). They allowed a robust 6.34 yards per play(495 yards on 78 plays). However, 95 yards came on two huge explosive plays. Malik Cunningham had a 40-yard run and had a pass for 55 yards.

We can’t discount those plays because they happened, but if you remove those two plays, the yards per play decreases to a much more respectable 5.26 yards per play.

So on a down-to-down basis, the FSU defense wasn’t terrible, especially considering they played without three starters most of the game. They only had two sacks and four tackles for a loss, but that was by design based on the game plan to try and contain Malik Cunningham in the pocket.

This game plan is why Louisville’s running backs likely ran the ball better than expected as well. It’s very much picking your poison against Malik Cunningham, and the FSU defense did enough to get the job done. He only completed 61 percent of his passes, averaging 7.1 yards per pass.

He did much of his damage on the ground, which is the trade-off when playing against him. Some folks will say UCF held Louisville to 20 points, and that’s true.

However, the turnover UCF had resulted in a touchback, not giving Louisville the ball at mid-field, plus Louisville missed a field goal in that game. That’s a 10-point swing.

I should also note the FSU defense buckled down on the second FSU turnover, which gave the ball to Louisville at the Louisville 42-yard line with 28 seconds remaining in the 1st half. That was huge not to go into halftime down 10 or 14 points instead of only seven.

If we remove the touchdown allowed on a short field, here’s what the defense did after allowing touchdowns on back-to-back possessions in the first quarter: forced fumble, punt, forced fumble, punt, punt, punt, TD, field goal, turnover on downs, interception.