CFB Week 5 Preview: Notre Dame Fighting Irish VS Louisville Cardinals

A positive data story going into the Irish’s week 5 game against the Cardinals.

Notre Dame football is set to face off against Louisville for its Week 5 game of the 2024 season. And I’m going to jump out early and say that the data paints a promising picture for what we can expect on Saturday.

Season Overview

The Louisville Cardinals will be coming into South Bend 3-0 (they caught their first bye during Week 3).

Louisville’s wins have been decisive.

They shutout Austin Peay 62-0 to open the season. Then they beat Jacksonville State 49-14, and last week they pulled off a 31-19 win over Georgia Tech. A key point about this overall trend for Louisville is the point differential. They were +62 to start the season but that’s incrementally crept down to +12.

Offensive Summary

Louisville is averaging 502 yards of offense per game. They hit a season high of 610 yards in Week 2 against Jacksonville State. The Cardinal’s passing production falls into a pretty neat Bell Curve. Production hit its peak of 377 yards in the Jacksonville State game.

But their rush game is where the biggest story about offensive production lies. Louisville recorded 293 rushing yards in Week 1 against Austin Peay. There was a slight downtick in Week 2 but in their last game against Georgia Tech they hit a rough floor of 57 rushing yards.

The Cardinal’s passing accuracy through the season’s 1^st three games has been pretty solid. They peaked at 79% in Week 1 and have since stuck around 65-68%. Once again, the really story sits on the rushing side of the offense. Louisville went from an average of 10.5 yards per carry against Austin Peay to 2.1 yards per carry against Georgia Tech.

Some roster details.

Rushing

Louisville has mainly spread its rushing carries around five running backs. They have one transfer, Donald Chancey Jr., who sits on the low end of the group. But the rest of the active running back group is home grown. Isaac Brown and Duke Watson have been more explosive but Keyjuan Brown gets the most utilization. In general, the run game hasn’t been successful, though.

Receiving

The Cardinal’s have thrown a lot of pieces into the receiving mix. And it leans heavy towards transfers. Alabama transfer Ja’Corey Brooks leads the group with 17 receptions so far and 297 yards. Jadon Thompson (Cincinnati transfer) and Chris Bell are the other two main receivers. Two of the top producing tight ends for Louisville are transfers, Mark Redman (San Diego State/Washington) and Izayah Cummings (Kentucky). The pass game is what’s been the main driver of their offense up to this point.

Defensive Summary

The stat trends for Louisville’s defense can be misleading. As they’ve gotten deeper into their schedule, yardage allowed has increased consistently.

They allowed only 106 yards of total offense in the season’s first game but that total crept up to 290 in game 2. The real blow up came against an abnormally good Georgia Tech team. The defense blew up last week, statistically and allowed 410 yards of total offense, 50% of all yards allowed so far. The main caveat is that when they allowed 290 yards, Jacksonville State only put up 14 points. Even when they allowed 410 yards Georgia Tech only scored 19 points and the offense was more than potent enough to cover. The Cardinal’s defense allowed 312 passing yards by Georgia Tech, along with 98 yards on the ground. Their toughest day in terms of run defense came against Jacksonville, though, when they allowed 130 rushing yards.

The Georgia Tech is probably the most interesting data point about Louisville’s defense but it’s also too early to really know what it means for this weekend. In an ideal world these trends for an opposing defense would be good news but the situation is what the situation is.

Final Thoughts

I’ll make the claim that this is a highly winnable for Notre Dame.

As Louisville’s competition has gotten tougher, it has reflected negatively on both sides of the ball. They’re similar to Miami (OH) in their tendency towards throwing the ball which is kind of worrisome considering how the Irish defense performed last week. The defense is elite enough to handle it but a constant attack against the secondary is just a really stressful way to live.

And there’s a real possibility that Louisville’s defense is ideally suited to force a low scoring affair for Notre Dame. But points will be necessary or else things can go in a very dark direction. I’m more confident than last week that the Irish offense can deliver whatever is the bare necessity. But again, the stress.

It’s finally kind of fall in Texas and the return of livable temperatures is helping my mental out a lot. I’m going to stick with that vibe and be optimistic about how Notre Dame will look this weekend.

Cheers and Go Irish!!