The Clemson football team came away with a 45-10 victory over the Louisville Cardinals Saturday. Here’s our defensive grades for the Tigers.
The Clemson football team traveled up to Louisville and dominated the Cardinals Saturday afternoon, coming away with a 45-10 victory.
The Tigers covered the spread for a second-straight week and improved to 7-0 on the season. With the win, Clemson football extended its impressive winning-streak to 22 games.
Here are our defensive grades for the Tigers after taking a look back at the film from Saturday.
Defensive Report Card vs. Louisville:
The Clemson football offense got off to a bit of a slow start. The Tigers scored just 17 points in the first half and they struggled to get things going, especially in the passing game.
While the offense may have had a few miscues early on, the defense was absolutely dominant.
The defensive unit held Louisville to just three points for the majority of the afternoon until the Cardinals scored a touchdown in garbage time with the second and third-string defenders in the game.
Isaiah Simmons was the leader of the defense, totaling eight tackles and two sacks. James Skalski led the Tigers in tackles, with nine and one sack.
The defense got after the quarterback and did an excellent job limiting a Louisville offense that scored 62 points against Wake Forest just two weeks ago. Overall, the Cardinals were held to just 263 yards of total offense and they turned the ball over three times. Louisville had just 10 first downs for the entire game.
Defensive Grade: A
The only complaint you could have with the defense was that the backups gave up a touchdown when they were getting playing time late in the matchup. When the game was close, the defense played absolutely lights out. The unit did an excellent job limiting an explosive offense and not allowing the Cardinals to get anything going.