Notre Dame had a tough time adjusting to Louisville early in its 35-17 victory, but the Irish defense ultimately settled down and kept the Cardinals in check.
Louisville scored touchdowns on its first two possessions, but it could only muster three points in the final 49 minutes of the game. The Cardinals racked up 163 yards on its first 18 plays, which led to Louisville taking a 14-7 lead. Over its next 12 possessions, the Irish defense held Louisville to just 220 yards on 57 plays, which is just 3.9 yards per play.
The grades came out yesterday, but not let's take a deeper dive into the numbers.
DEFENSIVE ENDS
Notre Dame's defensive ends are expected to carry the defense in 2019, and Louisville knew that, so the Cardinal coaches developed a game plan intended to limit their ability to take over the game. For the first three and a half quarters they were able to do that, and the numbers for the Irish ends for the game aren't overly impressive.
But when the Irish took a double-digit lead into the fourth quarter the Cardinals offense had to open things up, and the ends - along with the rest of the line - were able to make their presence felt.
Let's first look at the run stop rate for the Irish defense.
