5 takeaways from Louisville football’s win over Western Kentucky

The special teams did not show up for the game

Now that we got the good out of the way, let us talk about the bad. In more accurate terms, let’s talk about the horrendous unit that was Louisville’s special teams unit.

On the very first possession, new starting punter Logan Lupo dropped a perfectly snapped ball by Mitch Hall following a three-and-out. It was Lupo’s very first opportunity to punt. The Cardinals turned the ball over at their own one yard line after the drop and Western Kentucky immediately cashed in.

That was just the start. Later in the game, Lupo had a punt blocked after a free runner ran right up the middle and got a clean block on a seemingly unaware Lupo. Western Kentucky took over on downs at the Louisville four yard-line and also cashed that in for a touchdown.

The math checks out. Western Kentucky had two drives totaling five yards and 14 points directly off of Louisville’s punting blunders. It still did not end there.

Lupo also had a couple of low hanging punts that lacked distance and hang time. That could put the team into even more trouble in future games if that part is not cleaned up.

Louisville did not have any impact in their return game as Hassan Hall had a couple of questionable (and delayed) decisions when bringing the ball out of the end zone that resulted in minus field position for the offense.

The good news: kicker James Turner went 5/5 on PATs in this one.

The Cardinals could have easily won this game by three or four touchdowns if special teams play was better. But, because of multiple punting miscues, Louisville only gets the two touchdown win and was forced to play Micale Cunningham for the entire duration of the game despite lingering injury issues.