FSU football: A glance at Louisville Cardinals by the numbers

No. 4 FSU football will look to continue its winning ways when they travel to Charlotte for the ACC Championship game against the No. 15 Louisville Cardinals. The game will air on ESPN at 8 p.m. The Noles are -2.5 betting favorites, with an over/under points total of 48.5.

Those odds imply a 26-23 FSU win.

The Cardinals lost to Kentucky as -6.5 betting favorites at home last week. Their last three games have been one score games against Kentucky, Miami, and Virginia (2-1).

Louisville is (10-2, 7-1 in conference play). Here’s how they stack up by the numbers:

• 33.0 ppg
• 20.0 ppg allowed
• 6.57 ypp
• 5.26 ypp allowed
• 4.85 ypc
• 3.26 ypc allowed
• 38.89 percent third downs converted
• 29.68 percent third downs converted allowed

-Offensive FEI(opponent adjusted with garbage time removed): No. 24

-Defensive FEI (opponent adjusted with garbage time removed): No. 21

Thoughts

Kentucky, Miami, and Virginia are not great teams. Kentucky and Miami have seven wins, and Virginia wasn’t bowl eligible. One thing that hurt the Cardinals in two of those games was losing the turnover battle. They force turnovers defensively (19), but the offense gives them up (16).

Louisville’s offense isn’t anything special, but their coach is good at scheming stuff open at times. Their quarterback is serviceable, not really mobile, and looks to get the ball to playmakers in space. FSU must tackle well in this game.

If they do, I don’t see Louisville scoring north of 24 points. Kentucky’s defense isn’t as good as FSU, and they limited Louisville’s playmakers. Louisville only averaged 5.3 yards per play.

Offensively will be where the game is won or lost for FSU. Kentucky’s QB, Devin Leary (who isn’t very good) threw for 206 yards and three touchdowns. Louisville’s secondary is a weakness that can be exploited by FSU’s passing game.

Tate Rodemaker torced the Cardinals in relief of Jordan Travis last season. A heavy dose of RPO’s and some explosive runs put the Cardinals away.

As you can see in the video above, Rodemaker was fine when they were ahead of the chains, which will be of the utmost importance Saturday night. Stay tuned to Chop Chat as we break this game down from every angle this week.