Florida State Seminoles

FSU Football: Breaking Down The Louisville Offense And Lamar Jackson

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 4:26 p.m. ET

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Oct 24, 2015; Louisville, KY, USA; Louisville Cardinals quarterback Lamar Jackson (8) hands the ball off to quarterback Reggie Bonnafon (7) during the second half against the Boston College Eagles at Papa John

FSU football will be taking on the Louisville Cardinals who have featured one of the most explosive offenses in college football this season. We give you an idea of how they’ll look to attack.

The Louisville Cardinals are one of the best teams in the country according to the polls. They come in at No. 10 after defeating Charlotte and Syracuse.

Quarterback Lamar Jackson has won the Walter Camp National Player of the Week award in back-to-back weeks, and the Cardinals are averaging an astounding 66 points over the first two games.

They return a number of starters on offense and defense to compliment Jackson, and will hope their home crowd at Papa John Stadium can fuel them to an upset win over No 2. Florida State.

College Gameday will be in attendance, and this game will have ACC Conference title implications with the winner having leaped a huge divisional hurdle with Clemson in the distance.

The Cardinals hung with the ‘Noles a year ago, leading 7-6 at halftime and taking a 14-13 lead in the third quarter before FSU football scored 21 straight points to put them away late.

Here we’ll take a look at what the Cardinals will try to do on offense and what FSU football can do to make them unsuccessful.

Dec 30, 2015; Nashville, TN, USA; Louisville Cardinals quarterback Lamar Jackson (8) looks to pass against the Texas A&M Aggies during the first half of the 2015 Music City Bowl at Nissan Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports

Breaking Down Lamar Jackson

Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson has been playing at a ridiculous level in the first two games of the season. He’s a dual threat quarterback that looks improved over his true freshman season.

Jackson is 37 of 62 for an eye-popping 697 yards and seven touchdowns. He has also rushed 32 times for 318 yards and six touchdowns on the season.

Those are video game numbers, but they have come against two terrible teams in Charlotte and Syracuse.

Those two teams do not have the athletes that FSU football has, and Saturday’s game will let the world know if Jackson is for real or not.

Jackson is a shifty runner with a strong-arm. He throws a good deep ball, but has struggled on shorter routes that require timing and touch. That’s typical of a lot of dual threat quarterbacks.

He benefits from playing in Bobby Petrino’s offensive system. Petrino likes to attack all areas of he field from tunnel screens, intermediate slants, posts and vertical bombs like we saw against Syracuse on the opening drive.

That passing game is opened up with Jackson’s legs as Petrino will use variations of the read option or Run Pass Option plays coupled with designed quarterback runs.

How Did Louisville Attack FSU Last Season?

Jackson can be erratic at times on the short throws as evident on the play in the video above. The ‘Noles have upgraded at linebacker this season, so the coverages should be somewhat better here too

Louisville ran this play below or variations of it at least three or four times last season. It’s virtually an extension of the traditional running game which Louisville hasn’t run a lot of this season.

Look for Petrino to attack with the short passes early to try to open up the downfield stuff, especially with Derwin James not in the FSU secondary.

How Will The ‘Noles Defend?

The game plan will be similar to how FSU Football defended Ole Miss and Chad Kelly. It will be extremely important to collapse the pocket, but maintaining the rushing lanes.

The key to shutting down Lamar Jackson is making him process information quickly, and not allowing him running lanes to escape. FSU football was able to do a good job of it last year, and we’ll see who has made the biggest improvements on Saturday.

Sep 10, 2016; Tallahassee, FL, USA; Florida State Seminole cheerleaders celebrate a first half score against Charleston Southern at Doak Campbell Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Glenn Beil-USA TODAY Sports

Conclusion

There’s no doubt Lamar Jackson has improved, and we’re sure Bobby Petrino and Louisville have had this game circled for a long time.

I do think Lamar Jackson will put up some very good stats. In fact, he did so FSU last year in a losing effort.

FSU will look to pressure him while keeping him in the pocket. They should make the Louisville offense dink and dunk down the field. That erratic arm of Jackson should rear its ugly head enough that they can’t consistently go up and down the field to score touchdowns.

I don’t believe he’s improved enough to consistently make throws into windows smaller than he has faced earlier in the year. In fact, he still only has a 59 percent completion rate against two terrible teams.

I understand his receivers have had some drops, but that’s still somewhat suspect.

The ‘Noles will have to win on first down and put Louisville in obvious passing situations. If they can do this, I think they’ll be able to get a huge road win.