Tavern Game of the Week: No. 10 Louisville vs. No. 2 Florida State

After a weekend of no top 25 matchups in week 2, there are a few noteworthy games between ranked teams this weekend. We ran a poll from the Tavern Twitter seeing which game should be the Tavern Game of the Week between: No. 10 Louisville vs. No. 2 Florida State, No. 19 Ole Miss vs. No. 1 Alabama, No. 18 Notre Dame vs. No. 12 Michigan State , or No. 14 Oklahoma vs. No. 3 Ohio State. The ACC matchup and the SEC matchup both received 35% of the votes, and I chose to go with the Louisville Cardinals hosting the Florida State Seminoles. It's nice to see a new face in the spotlight, so writing about Louisville seemed like a no-brainer.

Florida State is a team that has impressed everyone so far this season, mainly due to their 45-34 victory over Ole Miss thanks to a great second half comeback. The 'Noles trailed 28-13 at halftime before dominating the third quarter in which they prevented the Rebels from scoring while putting up 23 points of their own. In week 2, they spanked Charleston Southern 52-8, as you'd expect. The one glaring question in Florida State's offense, red shirt Freshman Deondre Francois, has not been a problem at all so far. Francois has totaled 681 yards and five touchdowns through the air, with 419 of those yards and two of those touchdowns coming against Ole Miss. And just to add to the positives for the Seminoles, Heisman hopeful Dalvin Cook has been playing well by running the ball for 174 yards on 34 carries (5.1 yards per carry) and getting into the endzone twice. Cook has also been doing some damage as a receiver, catching eight passes for a total of 110 yards. Cook's versatility is a crucial part of the 'Noles offensive attack.

Speaking of Heisman hopefuls, the Heisman frontrunner at this point in the season will be under center for the Cardinals.





The numbers do all of the talking for the sophomore QB out of Boynton Beach, Florida. Through two games, Jackson has thrown for 681 yards, seven touchdowns, and one interception. But the numbers don't end there as Jackson is lethal to opposing defenses on his feet too. Jackson has tallied 318 yards and six touchdowns on 32 carries. That's an average of 9.9 yards per carry! This kid is an absolute rock star. Louisville's chances of winning this game obviously come down to how Lamar Jackson performs, and if he can work his magic against the Florida State defense.

The Seminoles' defensive hopes of shutting down Louisville's human highlight reel became less realistic without standout defensive back Derwin James. The sophomore Florida native tore cartilage in his knee against Charleston Southern, which could keep him out anywhere from two to ten weeks. This defensive unit has allowed averages of 21 points and 337 yards per game, two stats that don't make the top 50 in the country of their respective category. So to put that simply, Florida State's defense hasn't been spectacular so far, they haven't had to go against the most explosive player in the country yet, and their best player is injured for this game. It's kind of looking like to me that Lamar Jackson will be able to put up some numbers yet again.

Taking a look at Louisville's defensive numbers: they've allowed an average of 21 points and 311 yards per game. Extremely similar numbers to Florida State's defense, except the Cardinals haven't had to play a team of Ole Miss' caliber like the Seminoles did week one. And as I touched on before, the Florida State offense is deep, experienced, and can light up the scoreboard. Now that Deondre Francois has two games under his belt, I think he'll start to gain some more traction and improve to a new level, which we'll start to see in this game. Louisville's defense might struggle to contain all of this for 60 minutes.

Vegas has the No. 2 'Noles as two point favorites in this one, with an over/under of 66. I don't think a ton of defensive stops will happen in this game, so I'd take the over. In regards to the spread, I think Florida State is going to come out on top and cover. Lamar Jackson will still have a field day, but the Seminoles are a much more complete team. I mean Jackson is undoubtedly amazing, but Florida State has looked like a damn good team so far. Plus, it's tough to expect legitimate home field advantage at a stadium sponsored by Papa John's. It's certainly an intangible factor, but it's absolutely a factor.

Florida State and Louisville will kickoff at noon on Saturday (it should be a night game) on ABC.

For what it's worth, Louisville will be rocking some handsome chrome red buckets on Saturday.

We will be debuting our new red chrome helmets this Saturday for @CollegeGameDay! pic.twitter.com/dqTp0atc0m

— Louisville Equipment (@UofLEquipment) September 14, 2016

I'm usually not that big a fan of chrome helmets; a lot of the time they come off as obnoxious. But I think Louisville did a great job balancing the trendiness of the chrome with a simple design. The solid red with a solely white logo makes me like these a lot more than I thought I would.

So there's the preview for the Tavern Game of the Week. As always, hit me on Twitter for some college football talk @CalebBlackmur