All Entries Tagged With: "Bilal Powell"

Froman, Louisville want best face on offense

By Paul Sykes

When you look back at the Louisville-Kentucky series, the list of quarterbacks is impressive.

Redman, Brohm, LeFors, Ragone and Cantwell for the Louisville. Couch, Lorenzen, Woodson and Boyd for Kentucky. This season’s starters don’t have  the name recognition and skills but neither coach is putting major pressure and responsibilities on them either.

Although this is his second season, Louisville fans really don’t know what to expect from Froman. He’s still pretty much of an unknown, as is Mike Hartline from the Lexington school. The coaches just want them to maintain, getting the ball to the running backs and wide receivers while avoiding costly turnovers.

• Louisville — Froman won a three way battle for the position over Will Stein and Justin Burke. U of L head coach Charlie Strong is looking for Froman to just operate the offense and get the ball to the right guys in the multiple options in Mike Sanford’s spread offense. Froman calls the Cardinal attack “fun” and likes the aggressive options available. He’ll have a strong, experienced offensive line and will help shape the “identity” that Strong says the Cards need to establish

• Kentucky — Mike Hartline returns as a starter, beating out Morgan Newton and Ryan Mossakowski for the snaps. His job will be to “feed the studs” like Randall Cobb and Derrick Locke…guys that are proven game changers. The debate on the Lexington campus is whether Hartline is the right call, and UK will probably use Cobb and Newton under center in certain situations. Joker Phillips defends his decision to go with Hartline, saying that he is “the experienced guy and he’s going fast, being more efficient with things we want to get done.”

Advantage: Kentucky. Hartline never lost to a Steve Kragthorpe-coached team, and the Cats have options in Cobb and Newton if Hartline is ineffective. Neither starting quarterback is a powerhouse.

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Powell the back to watch for Louisville against Kentucky

By Paul Sykes

The real question about Louisville’s running game is which Bilal Powell is going to show up for the Kentucky football game  Saturday.

Will it be the player who displayed dazzling speed and elusiveness as a freshman punt returner, the one who had U of L fans salivating for more of him, pleading that he be used as a primary running back.

Will he be the Bilal Powell who, during his sophomore and junior seasons, was only a shadow of himself, slow, injury prone, methodical, predictable and easily stopped most of the time?

Or will it be the Bilal Powell who, during spring and fall practice, has greatly impressed Charlie Strong’s new coaching staff, pushing Victor Anderson, a former freshman of the year, to a backup role?

Plenty of experience in the backfields of both U of L and Kentucky:

Louisville – Charlie Strong has sung the praises of Powell since arriving nine months ago. The slimmed down Powell still has the strength and power of a fullback and should be faster without the extra weight.  Anderson says has recovered from his shoulder injury. If he is back to freshman form, the Cards have one of the most explosive players in the Big East. Blayne Donnell has looked promising, but Jeremy Wright is recovering from an injury.

Advantage – Slight edge to Kentucky because of the question marks with U of L’s running backs. Derrick Locke’s career numbers are better than Powell and Anderson’s combined totals.

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Speed may be a potent ingredient in Louisville’s recovery

By Tom Stosberg

Sportswriters and opposing coaches think the University of Louisville football team will finish no better than eighth in the Big East this season.  Oh, the doom and gloom of it all.

But there is hope. I’ll tell you what it is as long as you promise to keep it a secret from anyone who roots against U of L.  You see,  the hope is based on one asset the Cards have that I have yet to hear a single soul mention.

Speed.

An interesting concept, and here’s how it could work.  First, Louisville’s new offense is designed to work mostly on speed. The passing game requires that the linemen hold the rush for no more than a couple of seconds because it’s a “speed” offense in which the ball is out extremely fast.  This could be lethal IF the Cards can master the execution before the first game.  And two speed backs, Victor Anderson and Bilal Powell, need only a few inches of daylight.

Now comes the critical part of the concept  – defense.  Success this season rests on the shoulders of four  rotating defensive tackles: Tim High, Randy Salmon, Greg Scruggs and one more yet-to-be-decided fourth D-Tackle.  If ( and that is a huge “if”) this group is successful at holding down the middle of the defensive line, then wonderful things can happen because of the aforementioned speed.

U of L has excellent speed at every defensive position but not a whole lot of depth. They could be dangerous from the edges. Rodney Gnat, Malcolm Tatum and William Savoy are three defensive ends with excellent speed. Moving Darius Ashley to cornerback was a great move.  Besides his raw speed, Ashley is both intelligent and teachable.

If the other CB, Johnny Patrick gets his head back on straight, the Cards would really be able to “bring it from the edge” for the first time in over three years.Linebackers Brandon Heath, Dexter Heyman and C.J. Peake all have experience and guess what else – speed.  At safety, Terrence Simien is the real deal and he can fly.

Defensive Coordinator, Vance Bedford, is well aware of how speed can cover a multitude of sins.  Bedford’s very young and inexperienced defensive backfield at Florida last year performed extremely well last year, proving that Bedford knows how to teach.

Go to practice at 5:30 p.m. Friday and watch these kids. It’s the last open practice. Strong and Bedford have them flying to the ball. They might not be as skilled, knowledgeable or experienced as they are going to be, but they are incredibly focused on doing whatever it takes to please the coaches because the players like, respect and believe in them.

For now, that attitude and just plain speed might enough to do surprising things for our Cardinals.

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Downpour Dampens Turnout But Not Outlook

Gusting winds and driving rain an hour before the University of Louisville’s spring football game, the worst weather conditions since a tornado warning played havoc with this event at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium two years ago.

The drenching coming after a week or more of perfect weather, the kind that fills stadiums on Friday nights. In a community wanting to get behind a new coach, back to becoming competitive, on the road to winning ways.

Not to be this night, a steady and soaking drizzle putting a damper on Coach Charlie Strong’s public debut, attracting mostly hard-core football fans — somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 — for an event that attracted more than 15,000 last year.

• Good to see Doug Beaumont finally get to the end zone after three years. Would have been twice if he hadn’t been stopped on the one on a previous drive. He has the desire and talent, now the coaching and responsibility, to do so a regular basis.

• Bilal Powell moving the ball better, reminding fans of what made him a fan favorite during his freshman year.

• Jacques Caldwell is lightning quick, looks like he is going to have opportunities to put his 4.3 speed to work at last. A couple of impressive runs.

• Cornerback has always seemed to be a worry at U of L. Good to finally see a super athlete like Darius Ashley at that position.

• Quarterback Adam Froman doesn’t inspire confidence but he’s compared with a lot of great quarterbacks in U of L’s past. Still, one knows he going to be challenged quickly at that position in the fall.

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Victor Anderson’s Season Over

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Louisville Football Halfway There?

Thoughts going into the Louisville vs. Kentucky football game:

• Now we know exactly what Tom Jurich meant when he declared a little over a year ago that U of L football was in a rebuild mode, adding “I just hope we can get through it.” The negative talk directed at Louisville coach Steve Kragthorpe is off the charts in some quarters (i.e., messsage boards).
• Would anything be sweeter than force feeding the garbage talk down the throats of the haters? Some sound a lot like Alabama fans going after Mike Shula a couple of years ago. But Shula had one 10-2 season and Alabama had five decades of tradition.
• Louisville’s opening game was the longest, most boring game the observer has seen in all of his years of watching U of L football. Maybe there was a reason for that, as in showing absolutely nothing to a hated arch rival. One can always hope. Make that one must hope.
• There’s a lot of talk about Louisville’s explosive backs. Victor Anderson is, for sure. But Bilal Powell didn’t show anything last season. And Darius Ashley has yet to set foot in a college football game.
• If U of L’s wide receivers are a strong point, we have yet to see that either. Scott Long and Trent Guy have spent almost as much time nursing injuries as playing games. Josh Chichester is far from being a proven receiver. Doug Beaumont has yet to find the end zone. Troy Pascley shows only flashes.
• How will Justin Burke respond to the UK wall of noise. There has been at least one estimate that 80,000 people will show up a Commonwealth Stadium. That would be standing room only in a 67,600-seat stadium. If Burke was nervous against Indiana State, he could be a basket case in Lexington.
• Ryan Tydlacka, brother of former U of L kicker Wade Tydlacka, kicking for Kentucky when Louisville’s kicking game is among the needy.
• U of L has 21 players from the Ville. Kentucky has 15. How long will it take them to overtake U of L at the current pace?
• Tom Jurich said two years for the rebuild. We’re just a little over the halfway point.

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Special Teams & Redemption

By Paul Sykes

They get the least recognition on a football team, the players responsible for the kicking and return aspects of games. They are the special teams, and they can make you or break you.

Think about it.  Fans usually groan when we have to punt, hope our guy doesn’t fumble a punt, yawn through an extra point and argue about going for it on fourth down. We love the long breakaway runs when we create them, and shudder when the opponent does them.

Last season, remember, the University of Louisville football team created a lot of anticipation when special teams took the field. Not much of it borne from confidence.

Chris Philpott will likely handle the kickoff duties and placekicking in the game opener. The sophomore had less than a stellar season in 2008 but reports from practice indicate his leg is stronger. He’s also reaching the end zone on kickoffs with a little more regularity. Not much surveillance on his field goal accuracy, however.

Cory Goettsche, a senior punter, got off several boomers last year but needs to work on his coffin corner placement. At least Cory has experience and has played in front of all kinds of fan bases and in all kinds of weather.

Four different players may return kickoffs and punts. Speed burner Trent Guy and Doug Beaumont for punts and Bilal Powell and Vic Anderson on kickoffs. Guy is deceptive and dangerous in either role, the others quick enough to make something happen if blocking schemes work.

Fans likely won’t learn much about the effectiveness of the special teams against Indiana State, but there will be things to watch. How is coverage on the returner on punts? Are we reaching the end zone with consistency on kickoffs? Is the punt return team getting pressure on the punter? Is anything outside the 25-yard line a viable option for a field goal on fourth down?

Make it happen guys. Position is everything.

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Former Lady Card Kristin Mattox is one of six former athletes selected for U of L’s Hall of Fame. See Sonja’s commentary here.

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