Louisville football: Cards vs. Miami game day central
By Jacob Lane
After a bye week, Louisville football will look to get bowl eligible on the road against the Miami Hurricanes. We preview the Cards’ most important game yet.
Prior to the season, you may have pegged Louisville football as a sleeper team to make a bowl game. But never in one’s right mind could even the most impassioned Cardinals fans have conceived Louisville one game away from bowl eligibility in game nine against the Miami Hurricanes.
Entering the season, both teams were on the mend. It would be unfair to say these teams were broken, but the Cardinals and the Hurricanes both lost their head coaches in 2018 and replaced them with exciting head coaches looking to rebuild.
Like Louisville, Miami has looked just “okay” at times and has dropped some real head-scratchers along the way. However, the Hurricanes are coming off of a monumental win at rival Florida State on Saturday and are looking to ride the momentum of their biggest victory of the season into their toughest challenge yet against a high powered Louisville offense.
A surface-level view of this game leads one to believe that Miami should be the heavy favorite, but those are the games in which Louisville has looked the sharpest this season.
The Cardinals pulled off a ranked win at No. 19 Wake Forest- which is still the Demon Deacons’ only loss- and most recently kept ACC Coastal leader Virginia at bay in an upset victory. Louisville held its own against Notre Dame, Florida State, and Clemson- all teams with far superior talent.
So now, the question remains: Can the Cardinals pull off perhaps their biggest victory yet against a stout Miami defense on the road? Let’s break it down.