Louisville football game balls: Who shined against Notre Dame?

Louisville football took the field for the first time under Scott Satterfield against no. 9 ranked Notre Dame on Monday night. They walk away with a loss, but hope in the program has been restored.

A little over 12 hours after kickoff of Louisville football and Notre Dame inside of Cardinal Stadium in front of a record crowd, and I still have goosebumps.

In the words of my good friend and partner-in-crime, Presley Meyer, I COULD NOT HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP 100 TIMES IN A ROW THIS OFFSEASON AND DREAMT THIS UP! LET’S DO THIS. KEEP GOING CARDS!!!!!!! (his words not mine, sorry for the all caps).

No one knew what to expect when Louisville took the field against Notre Dame on Monday evening. A new head coach, a new staff, a new culture, a new style of play, just about everything was new (including the incredible intro) and Cardinal fans came into a unique season opener, against a team that the Cards on paper looked to have no shot at beating, just hoping to see a competitive game.

That’s exactly what we got. You can check out Will Reddington’s full Notre Dame recap here.

Despite an almost effortless six-play, 75-yard drive on the first series of the game that ended in a Notre Dame score, Louisville fans were into it. The tailgating, the Card March, pregame festivities, an incredible intro and an appearance from a few former Cardinals had the building rocking, and Cardinal fans were on the edge of their seats waiting to see what would happen.

I said on Tuesday during our most recent episode of the Big Red Louie Podcast (which you should subscribe to if you enjoy reading our site) that the Louisville crowd was a “sleeping giant” looking for a reason to get up and get loud.

Last season was tough, not only for the players but for the fans. Myself, along with plenty of other faithful Louisville fanatics, sat through hours and hours of blowouts last year just hoping that something would go right. It never did. It left a little part of me dead inside in fact. It was the first time in my entire life as a Cardinal fan that I witnessed my team get blown out weekly in such horrific fashion.

I have been blessed to see a lot of really good football during my teenage years now until adulthood, so 2-10 sucked. But I knew that with all of the hype around the team, whether it be from coaches talking to the media, players tweeting things like this, and all of the social media videos we saw throughout the summer, that fans were wanting to be enthusiastic about football again.

We saw that last night.

Whether you watched it from home or witnessed it live as I did, you could easily tell there was just something different about the game. There was a new feeling, a new type of energy. And that was never more true than the first offensive drive of the game for Louisville.

For me, I went into that thinking well we better score or else this might get ugly. I had no idea that we were going to witness what we did. 12 plays, 88-yards, and a score from Jawon Pass got the building ROCKING. I mean it when I say this – it was unlike anything I’d ever seen (sorry for complaining about my headache all night long, Alex. You are a trooper).

The rest of the night went sort of as we best guessed it would. Louisville was competitive for as long as they could be, showing real grit and determination in the face of adversity. But in the end, Notre Dame was too big and too strong, and ultimately wore the Cards down.

While typically you wouldn’t hand out a game ball after a loss, as my good pal DJ Bien-Aime points out (because of course, he points that out), but Monday nights loss is different.

Hope has returned and the collision course continues onward. With that said, we move past the notion that game balls are to be handed out only for wins, awarding five players/groups with the first of 12 series of game balls.

Let’s begin.