{"id":70725,"date":"2024-12-26T13:00:11","date_gmt":"2024-12-26T18:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=70725"},"modified":"2024-12-25T14:45:08","modified_gmt":"2024-12-25T19:45:08","slug":"washington-look-ahead-to-louisville-sun-bowl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2024\/12\/26\/washington-look-ahead-to-louisville-sun-bowl\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington Sun Bowl Look-Ahead: Louisville Personnel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Washington kicks off in El Paso at the Sun Bowl<\/a> in a little over one week. The Huskies’ opponent, the Louisville Cardinals, will look a little different than they did throughout the 2024 season. With a handful of personnel changes and NFL opt-outs, we take an early look at Louisville ahead of the Sun Bowl next week.<\/span><\/p>\n

Louisville’s Personnel Changes Ahead of the Sun Bowl<\/h2>\n

Change at Quarterback<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The biggest news out of Louisville is starting quarterback Tyler Shough<\/a>\u2019s decision to opt out of the Sun Bowl to prepare for the NFL Draft. Shough attempted 389 passes this season as the Cardinals’ starter. He completed 63% of his passes for 3,195 yards, 23 touchdowns, and six interceptions. Shough was a class of 2018 recruit, the same class as Trevor Lawrence. After committing to Oregon in 2018, he played two years for the Ducks, three seasons at Texas Tech, and one at Louisville. Shough totaled 56 touchdowns, 20 interceptions, and over 7,300 passing yards in his six-year collegiate career.<\/span><\/p>\n

But in the Sun Bowl, the starting quarterback will be fifth-year senior Harrison Bailey<\/a>. He has also played for three different programs in his career. Beginning at Tennessee in 2020, he also played for UNLV in 2022, and the last two seasons at Louisville. Bailey has attempted just 13 passes in a Cardinal uniform, with eight passes this season. His sample set is very limited, never having attempted more than 90 passes in a single season. Bailey was listed as the first-team quarterback in Louisville\u2019s most recent depth chart.<\/span><\/p>\n

The quarterback room gets even thinner behind Bailey. Backup Pierce Clarkson entered the transfer portal. Clarkson was a redshirt freshman with only six career attempts. Behind him, Brady Allen entered the transfer portal on December 9th. But after a few weeks in the portal, he withdrew his name and remains on the team. Allen transferred from Purdue, following Jeff Brohm in 2023, and didn\u2019t take a snap in 2024. This attrition leaves Deuce Adams as the backup alongside Allen, a true freshman with no collegiate experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

Shuffle at Wide Receiver\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

After his fourth game appearance this season, wide receiver Caullin Lacy<\/a> used his redshirt, maintaining a year of eligibility. Lacy was one of the top wide receivers in college football in 2023. With over 1,300 receiving yards and seven touchdowns at South Alabama, he transferred to Louisville ahead of the 2024 season. But a collarbone injury during the final practice of Fall camp delayed his start to this season. He returned to the field in late September to play four consecutive games. Lacy grabbed just 15 catches for 179 yards and no touchdowns. Lacy elected to redshirt the remainder of the season. However, post-season games do not count towards games played in a redshirt season. As such, Lacy is listed on Louisville\u2019s latest depth chart as a starting wide receiver. This indicates Lacy is healthy and available for the Sun Bowl.<\/span><\/p>\n

But even with Lacy\u2019s return to the field, the Cardinals will be without their leading wide receiver. Ja\u2019Corey Brooks<\/a> has opted out of the Sun Bowl to prepare for the NFL. The Alabama transfer wide receiver caught 61 passes for over 1,000 yards and nine touchdowns in 2024. Brooks is not listed on Louisville\u2019s latest depth chart.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Chris Bell<\/a> is one starter at wideout who was the team\u2019s second-leading wide receiver this season with 677 yards and four touchdowns. Cataurus Hicks<\/a> is the other starter listed, he caught 12 passes for 150 yards in 2024. In addition, tight end Mark Redman<\/a> caught three touchdowns for Louisville this season and will play in the Sun Bowl. The Cardinal tight end originally committed to Washington in the class of 2020. He transferred to San Diego State in 2021, and to Louisville in 2023.<\/span><\/p>\n

Defensive Updates<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Louisville will be without one of its most productive defensive players in the Sun Bowl. Ashton Gillotte<\/a> has opted out of the game in preparation for the NFL Draft. The senior EDGE rusher recorded 10 tackles for loss this season, four-and-a-half sacks, and 10 quarterback hurries. All three of those numbers were team-highs. Ramon Puryear<\/a> figures to be the next player up in place of Gillotte. Puryear had two tackles for loss, one-and-a-half sacks, and six pressures this season playing in all 12 regular season games.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the back end of the defense, cornerback Quincy Riley<\/a> has opted out of the Sun Bowl. The senior tallied 13 pass breakups this season with two interceptions playing over 550 snaps. Corey Thornton<\/a> played the most snaps at cornerback this season and is listed as one of the starters for the Cardinals. Thornton also had two interceptions this year and added nine pass breakups. Tahveon Nicholson<\/a> is listed as the other cornerback starter in place of Riley. Nicholson played in all 12 games this year with 313 snaps and an interception.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington kicks off in El Paso at the Sun Bowl in a little over one week. The Huskies’ opponent, the Louisville Cardinals, will look a little different than they did throughout the 2024 season. With a handful of personnel changes and NFL opt-outs, we take an early look at Louisville ahead of the Sun Bowl […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3944,"featured_media":70897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,5,7361],"tags":[34630,34631,1235,90,5709,34629,4441,3450,509],"class_list":["post-70725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-acc","category-bigten","category-bowl-games","tag-brady-allen","tag-deuce-adams","tag-jeff-brohm","tag-louisville-cardinals","tag-louisville-football","tag-pierce-clarkson","tag-sun-bowl","tag-trevor-lawrence","tag-washington-huskies"],"modified_by":"Maggie Yarnell, Senior Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3944"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70725"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70898,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70725\/revisions\/70898"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}