Louisville football: Demon Deacons offense too much for reeling Cards

Louisville football dropped their fifth straight, and seventh consecutive game against FBS opponents in a throttling to lowly Wake Forest on Saturday.

The bye week was absolutely no help as the woes continue for the Louisville football team. Wake Forest hangs 56 points, behind 243 yards rushing from running back Matt Colburn, moving the Cards to 2-6 (0-5) on the season.

It looked like a promising start for the Louisville football team as the Cards offense marched down the field, leading to a touchdown on a 52 yard run from sophomore running back, Trey Smith. That touchdown was the first score on an opening drive for the UL offense this season.

However, that was then quickly answered by an up-tempo Wake Forest offense that took just 6 plays to go 81 yards resulting in a 28 yard strike from freshman QB Sam Hartman to his tight end, Jack Freudenthal for a touchdown.

After a couple of three and outs by the Cards, it was back at it for the Deamon Deacons. A name all too familiar to Louisville fans, Greg Dortch, who torched UL for 4 touchdowns last year in Winston Salem, came up with 2 big catches as Wake Forest had its way on another 8 play 80 yard drive.

Wake Forest continued its offensive dominance with another quick 7 play drive ending in a 12 yard run from Matt Colburn- who was a long time commit to the Cards that switch his pledge to the Demon Deacons 2 days before signing day after Bobby Petrino asked him to grey shirt. It’s no surprise that this game was a personal one for him and he made the most of it, no doubt.

Just like that, it was 21-7 Wake Forest with 2 minutes still to play in the first quarter.

With a little help from the special teams, Louisville did take advantage of an opportunity with good field position after a 45 yard punt return from Rodjay Burns. Puma Pass used both his feet and his arm to move the Cards down the short field, leading to a 1 yard TD run from Trey Smith.

But then it was back to more of the same thing we have seen all season. The offense turning the ball over and the opposition taking advantage of it.  A questionable called reverse, to say the least, saw Marcus Riley cough the ball up only to be scooped by Wake’s Carlos Basham and taken to the house for 6. With that fumble return, the Cards have now been outscored 80-17 this year on turnovers.

The second half issues for Louisville also continued. Wake Forest kept its foot on the gas and continued to score with 4 more touchdowns while the Cards could only muster up 2  to match them. So what is the issue and why can’t the coaching staff make those adjustment needed at halftime to change things around? This has been a consistent problem all year long, with UL looking worse in the second half and absolutely no answer.

MVP: Its hard to pick an MVP when getting drilled by 3 touchdowns at home on Homecoming weekend, but I guess if there was any bright side, it would be the offense. Trey Smith and Hassan Hall did combine for 143 yards rushing and 4 touchdowns, while Puma passed for 358 yards and 1 touchdown.

LVP: The UL defense. An absolute abysmal day for Brian VanGorder and his defense as Wake Forest racks up 591 yards of total offense on their way to scoring 56 points. This defensive unit that is missing a few pieces, mainly captain Jonathon Greenard, just cant seem to stop anyone.

Stat of the day: The Deamon Deacons rush for 368 yards and 5 touchdowns.

A game that started with 2 teams looking for their first ACC win, ended with one team looking like it didn’t even belong in said conference. There is no way around, this Louisville football team is bad and its weaknesses continue to get exploited week in and week out, mainly on the defensive side of the ball. They make mediocre/decent offenses look like national title contenders. They continue to miss their assignments and look completely unprepared every week.

The offense stepped up today and showed improvements against a bad Wake defense, but there are still clear signs of huge misses on throws to the outside and on deep balls, showing the lack of confidence and just how under coached UL’s pocket passer is.

With players looking as if they were already defeated when running out of the tunnel, I think its safe to say this team is completely lost. The players and coaches continue to preach that they are moving on from past losses, only to look the opposite on the field. There is absolutely no spark.

Things get even tougher as the Louisville football team heads to death valley to face the #2 Clemson Tigers next week, who beat this same Wake Forest team 63-3.