Louisville football: The 50 greatest Cardinals of all time

The “most complete ballplayer” Frank Camp ever coached makes the list at No. 26. He is perhaps the best two-way player to ever suit up for the Cardinals.

Linebacker Doug Buffone was one of the more insane talents to ever come through the University of Louisville. From 1962 to 1965, Buffone played both ways serving as the center on offense and as a tenacious linebacker on the defensive side of the ball.

The 6-foot-3, 230-pound animal was ahead of his time, particularly from the standpoint of how unsuccessful the Cards were overall in the 1950s and 1960s.

Buffone is Louisville’s all-time leading tackler with 495, has the first and second-most tackles recorded in a season in school history with 177 in 1964 and 201 in 1965 and recorded the most tackles in a single game from a Cardinal with 35. To put that into perspective, no Cardinal since 1998 has even recorded more than 20 tackles in a single game.

After his college career, Buffone was drafted in the fourth round of the 1966 NFL Draft and the ninth round of the AFL Draft that year. He wound up signing with the Chicago Bears where he became the organization’s all-time leader in games played.

Famously, in one of his first games as a Bear, Buffone intercepted fellow former Cardinal Johnny Unitas. He went on to become of the greatest players in Chicago history, notching seven seasons with more than 100 tackles.

Buffone was inducted into the Kentucky Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2015.