Louisville's Offense Preparing for a 'Great Challenge' Against Notre Dame's Defense

The biggest game of the season for the Louisville football program, and their biggest home game in seven years, is now just a few days away. When the newly-ranked No. 25 Cardinals take to L&N Stadium this Saturday at 7:30 p.m. EST, the No 10 Notre Dame will be waiting for them.

When looking at the Fighting Irish, it's easy to focus on their offense and the weapons they have on that side of the ball. After all, quarterback Sam Hartman has already thrown for 1,458 yards and 14 touchdowns with no interceptions, and running back Audric Estime leads the FBS in rushing with 672 yards.

However, a large reason that Notre Dame has had the season that they have had so far this season has been due to the efforts of their defense. Louisville head coach Jeff Brohm knows that, despite his team's early success on offense, they will have their hands full when they have the ball.

"This will be the most talented defense we've played to date without question," he said. "They've got talent and size and athleticism at all the positions. ... This is going to be a great challenge for us on offense to be efficient, move the ball, get points."

So far this season, Notre Dame has the No. 11 defense in the FBS with 271.0 yards allowed per game, and the No. 14 scoring defense at only 13.0 points allowed per game. This unit isn't exclusively feasting on cupcakes, either. While they ultimately fell at home to Ohio State, the Buckeyes were limited to just 17 points and 351 total yards of offense. Last week at Duke, the Blue Devils were held scoreless in the first half, before putting up only 14 points and 382 yards.

Where the Irish really make their hay on defense is in their secondary. They've limited opposing quarterbacks to just 146.8 passing yards per game, which ranks No. 4 nationally, with their passing efficiency defense rating of 91.30 coming in at 3rd. Safety Xavier Watts already has 27 tackles, a pair of interceptions and four pass breakups, while cornerback Benjamin Morrison has a team-best four PBUs on top of 11 tackles and a pick.

Sure, Notre Dame has faced teams like Navy and Tennessee State, which greatly inflates that number, but they have shown the ability to play well against high level quarterbacks. Ohio State's Kyle McCord did go 21-for-37 for 240 yards, but had no touchdown passes. Duke's Riley Leonard was limited to 12-for-27 for 134 yards, a touchdown and an interception.

"In the secondary, some really, really good players led by a dominant corner on one side," Brohm said. "They don't give up many yards in the passing game, so they're going to guard you and man you up and going to apply pressure at the same and not give up a lot of easy completions."

That's not to say that Notre Dame is lacking in the front seven. While they a lot of their pressure doesn't get home (106th in sacks per game at 1.50, 122nd in tackles for loss per game at 4.2), they do a solid job at limiting the run, with their rushing defense of 124.2 yards per game coming in at 50th nationally.

The advanced stats also show how talented this area of the field is for the Fighting Irish. According to Pro Football Focus, their five highest graded defenders are all in the front seven. Nose tackle Howard Cross III leads the way for the defensive line with a team-best 35 tackles, 3.5 for loss and two forced fumbles, while linebacker Marist Liufau is all over the field with 23 tackles, 1.5 for loss, a forced fumble and a PBU.

"They got good personnel," offensive coordinator Brian Brohm said. "They play a lot of one-on-one football. They're gonna play quite a bit of man coverage, and let their pass rushers rush the passer. They're very good in the interior. 56 (Cross) and 99 (Rylie Mills) inside are two really good defensive tackles that have some explosion, that have some quickness, that have been trouble so far the season. Centers and guards have had trouble blocking them, so we definitely gotta be keyed into those guys.

"Number 27 (J.D. Bertrand), the middle linebacker, runs to the ball. They've run to the ball fast. Number eight (Liufau), he's got some speed. He's running down guys on the film."

Fortunately for Louisville, their offense isn't too shabby. The Cardinals are putting up 494.8 yards and 37.0 points per game, with the latter ranking 21st in the FBS and the former coming in at 11th. Like Notre Dame's Sam Hartman, Louisville's Jack Plummer is in the top-20 nationally in both touchdowns and yards with 11 scores and 1,406 yards. Running back Jawhar Jordan isn't too far behind Estime on the national rushing leaderboard, coming in at 12th with 510 yards.

That being said, the Cardinals' offense has had some serious ebbs and flows. They're had moments like the first half against Indiana, the second half against Georgia Tech and the entire Boston College game where everything is clicking. Then they've had instances like the second half against IU, the first half against GT, and last week's game at NC State where the offense struggles to get going.

If this offense is going to have any semblance of success against one of the best defenses in the nation, they are going to haver to be locked in and on the same page from the jump.

"I think we've shown what we can do when we're locked in, everyone's doing the right thing, everyone's on the same page and we're gelled together," Brian Brohm said. "So we need to make sure that that's happening most of the time, if not all the time. We had a little slower game last week, so I think guys know that we can play better. Hopefully they come out this week in practice and make it happen this week."

A key factor in Louisville's offensive capabilities against Notre Dame will be the performance of Plummer. While he is nationally ranked in key stats, he has been very hit or miss this season. Against BC, he put on a clinch, going 18-for-21 for 388 yards and five touchdowns. The very next week at NC State, he went 21-for-35 for 286 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions.

Admittedly, both Brohms believe Plummer's struggles weren't entirely on him. The protection up front was inconsistent, the running gam couldn't get going, and there were a couple times where receivers flat out ran wrong routes. Still, Plummer did have a handful of decisions against the Wolfpack that were head-scratching.

Fortunately, he does have the benefit of experience against ND, having faced them twice in his collegiate career: last season with Cal then in 2021 with Purdue. In those two games combined, he went 41-for-73 for 371 yards and two touchdown, with 16 rushes for 31 yards and a score.

Plummer will have to perform much more consistently against the Irish if Louisville has a chance to upset them. 

"We got to protect the football. We can't have some of those turnovers, definitely down in the red zone. He knows that, and he understands that. He's aware enough to where he knows that before I tell him. I think he's gonna come out and have a great week of practice. He's gonna be fired up.

"This is his third time playing Notre Dame, so he's gonna be fired up and ready to go. He's looking forward to trying to finally get over that hurdle and beat these guys."

Kickoff between Louisville and Notre Dame is set for Saturday, Oct. 7 at 7:30 p.m. EST.