Three things to like and dislike about Louisville football’s bowl match-up
Like: The revenge factor
It’s great to hate Mississippi State (I wrote a couple hundred words on this a few years back. You can check that here if you’re into that sort of thing.)
I’m only kind of kidding. It feels weird but if there’s a school that has owned Louisville as an athletic department, surprisingly enough MSU comes to mind.
State beat Louisville in four sports in a matter of months back in 2017 and 2018. The men’s and women’s basketball team, football, and baseball teams all saw their season’s end at the hands of the Bulldogs. Seriously.
Lamar Jackson’s final game as a Cardinal was in a lackluster Gator Bowl loss to the Bulldogs.
Louisville’s women’s squad infamously went to overtime after a no-call in the waning seconds of the final four that cost the Cardinals a chance at the 2018 national championship, and Jeff Walz was forced to sit out a game in the 2019 NCAA tournament.
Look, we just don’t play well in the postseason against Mississippi State, okay?
The most inauspicious of opponents has given Cards fans a number of clunkers in the last few years.
It’s time to turn the tables and end the 2019 season the right way.
Dislike: The SEC hasn’t been good to Louisville
Since moving to the ACC in 2014 the Louisville football schedule has seen an increased number of games against SEC opponents, and unfortunately for the Cards, it’s not been a good thing.
Louisville has played a total of 12 games against SEC schools since 2014, including the annual contest with Kentucky (that makes up five total) and four bowl games. In that stretch they’ve gone 4-8, including 1-3 in bowl contests and 2-3 to Kentucky, and have lost four of their last five, beginning with the bowl loss to Mississippi State in 2017.
I could go on and on with the particulars of each matchup, but the bottom line is Louisville’s been kind of poo poo against the SEC. Give credit to Kentucky, who has improved significantly over the last couple of seasons under Mark Stoops, but at one point in time, Louisville won three games in a row against SEC opponents, including two over Kentucky.
The 2015 bowl win over Texas A&M proves that Louisville can play with really good teams, but other than that there’s a lot to be desired. The majority of these games have been played under Bobby Petrino, so hopefully, Scott Satterfield will be able to right the ship and get the Cards back on course, starting with Mississippi State.
If the ACC is ever going to get back into contention for being one of the top conferences in college football, they’ll need Louisville to start winning games like these. You can’t be an elite member of your conference, one that wants to be in the conversation with the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, etc. and continue to get beat by the middle and bottom of another conference.
Next. 50 greatest Louisville football players of all time. dark
Louisville’s not played in a New Years Six bowl since they played Florida (which is obviously not included in these numbers), which means they’ve primarily been facing up with middle-tier schools in postseason play. They have lost games to no. 1 Alabama, no. 13 Georgia, no. 6 Auburn, and no. 20 LSU, so there have been challenges at the top (although Louisville’s lost those games by a combined score of 90-47.