Bobby Petrino explains the play call that cost Louisville a 99 percent chance to win

In a game that used to feel a lot bigger than it does now, Louisville lost to Florida State on Saturday. The final score was 28-24, and FSU’s game-winning drive came in the final two minutes after Louisville looked poised to put the game away up 24-21.

The Cardinals had just converted on a third-and-2 as they faced first-and-10 at the FSU 21. The Noles took a timeout before the third-down conversion, and just by sitting on the ball, the Cardinals could have drained the clock down to a shade more than one minute. Then they could have kicked a field goal to maybe go up 6.

Or they could have tried to run for a first down, guaranteeing that, in the worst case, the Seminoles would be pinned deep with no time outs if the Cardinals didn’t fumble.

At any rate, ESPN estimated the Cardinals’ win probability at this point at 98.8 percent.

Jawon Pass threw to the right flat. FSU’s A.J. Westbrook was right there and picked it.

Maybe this was just a run/pass option that turned into a pass when the numbers looked good? Probably not. Pass was in drop-back mode immediately, his running back was in pass-blocking mode immediately, and Pass didn’t appear to do any scanning to see if he could do anything other than throw the ball where he did.

“I wanted to run the ball and finish the game, but I made a bad call,” he said after the game. “I knew they were blitzing. I knew what the coverage was. I thought we would catch it and get inside the 10-yard-line. I need to do a better job.”

Louisville’s attempt to burn a blitzing FSU backfired. Five men rushed the passer, but Westbrook sat back in a zone and jumped right in front of the tight end.

It seemed like Pass locked onto that tight end, Micky Crum, pretty quickly, but he waited a beat too long to throw. Westbook was already breaking on the ball well before it left Pass’ hand, and Crum didn’t have a chance to get in the DB’s way:

That’s about 50 more seconds than the Noles would have had if Louisville had just tried to drain clock and not run for a first.

Anyway, FSU moved quickly. It turned out that it took five plays and 43 seconds for Deondre Francois to march the Noles 81 yards for a go-ahead score. The last 58 of those came on a pass over the middle to Nyqwan Murray, who shed a tackler and went off to the races, finally weaving into the end zone:

To put this gut punch into a uniquely Louisville perspective, think of it like this:

Louisville might have found a way to mess this up even if Petrino hadn’t made a weird decision to throw on that late first down. But the Cardinals’ win probability was basically 100 percent until the Westbrook interception. His pick on a needless pass attempt opened the door, and Louisville squandered what should have been straightforward win.

Louisville’s offense was always going to decline after Lamar Jackson left for the NFL. The Cardinals don’t have any great options for closing out games. The running game is lousy, ranking in the 90s in Bill Connelly’s marginal efficiency and explosiveness stats. The passing game has been terrible, sitting at worse than 100th in marginal efficiency, explosiveness, and completion rate. Given the overall dire state of the offense, there’s a decent chance that Louisville would have had to settle for a field goal, anyway. Maybe that attempt would have missed, and maybe FSU would have had a shot to win in some other fashion.

But throwing the ball offered the Noles the best chance they could have asked for to get the ball back with both time and timeouts. Petrino took a big risk for a reward he didn’t really need, and he wound up getting burned.