The new era of Louisville football officially got underway on Monday night as the Cards fell short to no. 9 Notre Dame, but fans have much to be positive about.
The lights were on and the stars were out on Monday night at Cardinal Stadium as Louisville football prepared for a special night. The primetime season opener was the environment we had all hoped it would be. Former Louisville standouts Reggie Bonnafon and Harry Douglas were in the house to check out the new look Cards, even Dez Bryant was here to see the show.
Cardinal Stadium was at its literal best, as a record-setting 58,187 were in attendance.
We knew the first time we laid eyes on the schedule that head coach Scott Satterfield’s debut at UofL was going to be far from easy. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish came into Cardinal Stadium with a top 10 preseason ranking, several returning key players and not mention, fresh off of an undefeated regular season.
This was a tall task for a young and unproven Louisville team coming off of a season where they were only able to win 2 of 12 games. The oddsmakers had the Irish as a 20 point favorite on the road against a team with far more questions than answers. But when you’re in Cardinal Stadium and it’s a blackout…. you never know what’s going to happen. After watching this team just make their entrance, hope and fire echoed throughout a packed house.
Louisville has to walk through a night club to get to the field. #NDvsLOU pic.twitter.com/5XjEU8CTXz
— Steve (@therealspb) September 3, 2019
This game started how most of us expected it would start, with a very quick Irish touchdown. Notre Dame was up 7-0 before three minutes had run off of the clock and the thoughts of “here we go again” couldn’t help but creep their way back into my mind from the scars of the 2018 season.
But the theme of tonight was that this Cardinal team is different than the one we saw a year ago. After going down early to a team that finished in the nation’s top 4 last season, Jawon Pass calmly engineered an 88-yard drive to knot the game up at seven apiece.
The odd thing was, he did a lot of it with his legs. Pass ran for just 93 yards in the entire season last year. He had 32 yards rushing on just this drive, including an eight-yard rushing touchdown against what is perceived to be one of the toughest defensive fronts in all of college football.
The Cardinal defense was able to maintain the momentum, forcing a three & out on the drive following (which by the way, from everything I heard it was so loud you couldn’t hear the music, well-done fans). You could tell at this point that the level of focus and attention to detail on both sides of the ball was something that had done a complete 180 from this season’s past.
Now it was time to meet somebody who may be bringing happiness to Cards fans everywhere for the next few years, freshman running back Javian Hawkins.
Hawkins broke off a 44 yard run on a pivotal 3rd & 5 to put the Cards in a position to score. Hawkins ended the evening with 122 yards rushing, he’s the first Louisville freshman running back to tally 100-plus yards rushing in a game since 2014.
Javian Hawkins is the first freshman running back for Louisville to rush for 100 yards in a game since L.J. Scott in a 66-21 win vs. Murray State on Sept. 6, 2014, and the first vs. an FBS opponent since Darius Ashley in a 17-9 loss at West Virginia on Nov. 7, 2009.
— Kelly Dickey (@RealCardGame) September 3, 2019
Jawon Pass didn’t let it go to waste, even though people wanted to see him Pass, he continued to showcase his ability to run. A 17-yard rushing touchdown put the Cards up 14-7, just nine minutes after going down 7-0 to the battle-tested Irish.
But it wasn’t supposed to be easy and it wasn’t going to be. One of the best quarterbacks in the country, Notre Dame’s Ian Book led the Irish right back down the field for the equalizer on the following drive. But after 1 quarter of football, these teams were even in just about every way.
The pivotal moment in this game in my option came late in the 1st half. Louisville had the ball deep in their own territory with a chance to get to the half all tied up, but a Jawon Pass fumble looked to give the Irish a chance we couldn’t afford to give them. But on the next play, Dorian Ethridge fell on an Ian Book fumble to give UofL a much-needed mulligan. However, that wouldn’t be enough, as on the next play, we witnessed the very rare three straight plays with a lost fumble. A botched snap gave ND the ball back again, only 20 yards away from the Louisville end zone with just a minute to go in the first half.
You can’t give great teams this many chances, which was proven by an 11 yard Ian Book rushing touchdown to put Notre Dame up 21-14 going into the half.
21-14 going into the half? You tell me that before the game and I’m taking that 10 out of 10 times. But with how surprisingly good this Louisville football team was in the 1st half, it left us all wanting more.
Our fantastic running back duo of Javian Hawkins and Hassan Hall showed no signs of slowing down once we resumed play. These two got us all the way down to the Notre Dame 24 yard line with a chance to tie the ball game back up. But Jawon’s ball control issues resurfaced, as another crucial fumble ended a promising drive.
Satterfield: “We ran for 249 yards against one of the best D-lines we’ll see all season. That’s winning football. If we can do that, we’re going to be all right. We’ve got to do better in the passing game.”
— Eric Crawford (@ericcrawford) September 3, 2019
Both teams were able to get stops and then Ian Book started getting loose. A simple two-play drive with passing plays of 31 and 26 yards put the Irish back in the end zone, giving them their largest lead of the night.
From this moment the Cardinals could only cut the deficit to 11 before ND scored again to get the margin to 18, where it would stay when the clock hit 0.
Crucial turnovers mixed with just being slightly overmatched tonight are the main reasons UofL fell short in their season opener. But there is a lot to be positive about in the Ville. If you ignore the score and just look at the stats, the Cardinals played the Irish very evenly after winning 0 ACC games in 2018. UofL had 21 1st downs to Notre Dame’s 18. The Irish put up 423 yards of total offense while the Cardinals finished with 383. Satterfield’s squad had possession for more than half of the game and allowed an astounding 0 sacks.
The ways to improve are simple: five fumbles with three lost is not the way to beat a team with more talent and Dez Fitzpatrick and Seth Dawkins have to be more involved in the offense going forward. 1 catch respectively for each of these guys just isn’t enough when you think about the talent that’s there on the outside of this Cardinal offense.
The one thing I personally wanted out of tonight was to look forward to watching these guys next week, they beyond accomplished that. There was an abundance of things to be proud of tonight.
The Cardinals are back to being resilient, back to playing with heart, back to making us as fans feel like we always have a chance. Which is more than we could ask for against a team like Notre Dame. Here’s to 11 more like tonight and maybe a couple of surprising wins along the way.