Louisville football debuted the newly expanded stadium looking to bounce back from a rough opener last week. What should have been an easy win used to iron out the mistakes and build some confidence ended up being a flood of disappointment.
We expected some bad weather when Louisville football squared off against the inferior Indiana State Sycamores on Saturday night. Right before kickoff, the skies opened and rain started coming down in waves. Both teams started with 3 and outs that included bad snaps showing the weather was going to be a factor. Then Rodjay Burns returns a punt for 55 yards and a touchdown to get the Cards on the board early. That is when things changed.
The Delays
The first weather delay due to lighting was 50 minutes. After the players warmed back up and play resumed, the Louisville offense seemed like it stayed back in the locker room. Another stalled drive and a punt was all they could get in before another lightening delay.
This one took 70 minutes and included the end zones flooding so bad a team full of squeegees had to push knee high water in to the drains. But the field drained, lightening stopped, and Louisville came out flat again. Louisville has to restart after being pinned it at their own 2 yard line. RB Jeremy Smith got his first run for a first down to give us a littler room, but Puma Pass looked off all night including throwing behind and too high for multiple receivers.
With the Cardinals still backed up near their own end zone, Pass threw a terrible ball over the middle that was picked off. The defense came out with equally no energy and proceeded to let ISU’s tiny running back, who could have been mistaken for Pat Day’s nephew, run it up the middle for an easy TD to tier the game up at 7 all. Then ANOTHER lightning delay.
We're on our 3rd weather delay and the campus is flooded. Everything is fine. 👎 pic.twitter.com/7cMnscqhFR
— Garett Wall (@GWallSID) September 9, 2018
Sloppy Weather, Sloppier Play
The third and last delay lasted 33 minutes, and the Cards never got anything going to finish the first half. At the half, ISU had 105 yards rushing with only two pass attempts. Louisville’s defense played soft even when we knew they were just going to run.
Worse yet, our offense had ZERO points and we had few first downs. This is an FCS team that has lost 14 of their last 15 games.
While I blame Bobby for much of the effort in this game, he made the right move to put in QB Malik Cunningham in the third quarter. The team needed something to wake them up and Malik provided the spark.
The Cards started controlling the line of scrimmage and dominating the over-matched Sycamores. Cunningham led the Cards on 4 scoring drives in the second half. The 4th quarter looked like the game we all came to watch as Louisville kept extending the lead.
I think you can look at this game one of two ways: Either we throw out the first half, chalk it up to crazy weather and not being able to get in rhythm after 3 delays. Or we continue to see some glaring issues like poor tackling and the lack of an effective run game that may come to haunt the Cards as the schedule gets tougher. My fear is that after two games we have more questions than answer as to how good this team could be.
The good: I’m going with the special teams unit. After a terrible game last week they really stepped up. Rodjay Burns had two big punt returns with one taken all the way to the house. Blanton Creque was put on kickoff duty and was much more consistent, plus he nailed his FG.
The bad: The entire first half. I know the weather was a factor, but there is no excuse for our defensive line to get pushed around so much by this caliber of a team. Conversely, we couldn’t run the ball ourselves in the first half even with using like 13 RBs.
LVP: Puma Pass. I don’t blame him for the entirety of the bad play and I’m not opposed to him keeping his starting job. But after being one of the lone bright spots last week, he never looked on the same page with the receivers.
MVP: Malik Cunningham. He didn’t come it and start slinging TDs but the offense responded with him at the helm. They ran the ball better, he made some good throws, and he led the Cards to 4 scoring drives when we couldn’t get anything going.
Stat of the night: OL/RB Mekhi Becton – 1 carry, 1 yard, 1 TD. Oh yeah, it happened. And it was marvelous.
Tweet of the night:
That was an all-around ugly night. Let’s get some sleep this week, Cards fans.
Louisville welcomes their neighbors to the south to Cardinal Stadium next week when Western Kentucky comes to town.