Louisville football: Defense impresses, blanks Eastern Kentucky

Louisville football’s defense impressed and their offense progressed in a week two domination of FCS Eastern Kentucky.

There were some glaring weaknesses to be improved upon and players Cards fans want to see step up a little more, but Louisville football looked impressive in its first win of the season on Saturday night.

The Cards entered week two looking for their first win in 51 calendar weeks. What better time for it than against FCS Eastern Kentucky? It was the Saturday debut for coach Scott Satterfield, as a solid evening crowd filled Cardinal Stadium with hopes of finally experiencing a win.

The Cards entered the game as a 21 point favorite, but it wasn’t always this way. Louisville opened as 27 point favorite, but the public was all over the Colonels from the moment the line appeared to kickoff.

Morale for Louisville fans was as high as its ever been after an 18 point loss. We saw more than we needed to see on Monday night to feel infinitely better about the Cards after somewhat hanging in there with the top 10 Notre Dame Irish. It goes without being said, but this game was a must-win in every sense. A loss today meant the end of hope this season, so while we may have wanted to see more, we saw enough on Saturday night.

The game couldn’t have started better for the Cardinals, forcing a three-and-out on EKU’s first drive. Louisville’s solid play calling transitioned from week to week, it took only two plays for the home team to find the end zone. Pass showed his new dual-threat ability with a 24-yard run followed by an immediate 50-yard shuffle pass TD to standout wideout Tutu Adwell.

The Cards’ athletic ability looked to be too much for the Colonels from the start. Atwell stopped running full speed with maybe 35 yards to go, as this play was a touchdown from the start.

The stout Cardinal defense forced three straight three-and-outs before UofL found the end zone again. Another Tutu Atwell play, a 35-yard punt return, put the Cards in the red zone to start the drive. A 5 yard touchdown pass to hometown Ballard high school product Marshon Ford put UofL up 14 for the first time in what feels like forever.

The half ended at 14-0 in an underwhelming fashion, a missed late 1st half field goal for the Cardinals left the game in reach for the FCS team from Kentucky. UofL’s defense was the MVP of half number one, allowing only 36 passing yards and 62 rushing yards.

The second half started as good as all of us hoped it would, Javian Hawkins had a 66 yard run on the first play from scrimmage to put the Cards in a great spot. Marshon Ford, who started the season as a walk-on, scored his second touchdown of the game on the next play. This 21-0 lead would be beyond safe for the rest of the way with this defense on the field.

The Cards’ defense got us the ball back immediately, which meant another 50-yard run for new breakout star freshman back Javian Hawkins. On 4th down from the 5, Satterfield was bold and went for it. Pass found a wide-open Dez Fitzpatrick, who we’ve all been dying to see make an impact, on a must convert fourth and goal. The Cards went up 28-0 here, putting us safely into the win column.

Another stop from the Louisville defense had the crowd ready for a goose egg, but the offense wasn’t done. A solid drive capped off by a Hassan Hall 1 yard touchdown run put the Cardinals up 35-0.

The passing defense was incredible tonight, the starting EKU QB had only 43 yards passing through 50 minutes of game time. The defense refused to let up in any sense, only allowing one first down on the next drive before forcing the 8th colonel punt of the game.

Jawon Pass’ night was over from this point, as Malik Cunningham took the field for the first time in the new year. Everybody knows Malik can run and he did just that, a 38-yard rushing touchdown put our beloved Cardinals up 42-0.

This put the offense at almost 450 yards on the game, which is beyond impressive considering our struggles over the last year. Regardless of the opponent, UofL looked beyond ready to turn the page on 2018, even more so than they did last week against the Irish. Louisville’s noted fumble issues also seemed to be in the past, as they had 0 fumbles total and 0 lost on Saturday night. Our lone turnover came on a pass from Pass that was far from being on him, so the turnover issues were at least fixed in the short term for Louisville football.

A balanced offense attack parlayed with as good of a defensive performance as we’ve seen as a Louisville fan base in two seasons provided a comfortable victory for Louisville against the Eastern Kentucky Colonels.

The Cards eclipsed 500 yards of total offense and kept the Colonels under 200 yards, which is beyond encouraging heading into another must-win against the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers next week.

This 42-0 shutout was the Cardinals first shutout since 2013 against Florida International, a game they won 72-0.

These games seem like we should win easily, and ultimately the Cards should. Louisville’s season rides on winning the winnable ones and it’s going to take much more than that with this schedule they’ve been dealt. But for the first time in almost a year, we’re in the win column, which should leave Cards fans excited.