Louisville Football: Games to watch on the bye week
By Caleb Hall
Louisville Football is on a bye this week, here are some games to keep on eye on:
Pittsburgh At Wake Forest, 12:00 PM Kickoff
Pitt is coming against a win off of our own Louisville Cardinals last week and they will face a struggling Wake Forest team that looks lost without Sam Hartman. It will be interesting to see how Pitt will fare in this game and if last weekend was just a fluke, or if they really are getting better. As a Cardinal fan you would want to hope for the latter, and this game will give us a clue to how bad of a loss last weeks was.
If Pitt wins it will make Louisville look better, and if the Cardinals opponents win more conference games they will have a better chance in the ACC standings at the end of the year. It is a game to check on if you want to see how the one team is doing that somehow beat Louisville last week.
Baylor At Cincinnati, 12:00 PM Kickoff
The game between Baylor and Cincinnati on Saturday will be a battle between the bottom dwellers of the BIG 12 conference, and there’s only one reason some Louisville fans might want to pay attention. That reason is Cincinnati head coach Scott Satterfield. Satterfield’s first season was going good with the Bearcats after a 2-0 start, until they lost 4 in a row. That streak starting with a 31-24 loss to the Bearcats rival Miami of Ohio. That is not a good look for the guy who “never wins rivalry games”
Louisville fans want to pray on the downfall of Satterfield and some want to watch him succeed to wish an ex coach good luck. Whichever way you sway, you might want to check on Satterfield’s new team to see what we are missing, or being glad that we don’t have to run the ball up the middle on 2nd & 10 for 2 yards.
Even if you don’t care about Satterfield, it’s always nice to check up on an old rival who is struggling.
Virginia At #10 North Carolina, 6:30 PM Kickoff
The Virginia Cavaliers are having one of their worst seasons in recent memory, and I would be surprised if the Tony Elliott head coaching experiment comes to an end in the offseason. However, for North Carolina they are coming in at 6-0 and tie Florida State in the ACC standings right now. If Virginia can somehow pull off the biggest upset of the college football season then it would be very beneficial to the Cardinals. While that is extremely unlikely, it is still a game worth checking in on throughout the night. Louisville also plays Virginia in late November, so it would be nice to see them have more than 1 win on the season.
#16 Duke At #4 Florida State,7:30 PM kickoff
Duke will take on Florida State in what will be a big game in deciding how good Duke will be perceived when the Cardinals face them next week. Duke is 5-1 on the year with their only loss to Notre Dame, who is not an ACC team. Duke is still in line to possibly play for the ACC Championship, but a night game in Tallahassee will be difficult to overcome. If you’re a Louisville fan you’ll want to cheer for Duke here. Not only will it make a possible win over Duke look better if they are ranked higher, but it could give Louisville a chance to jump the standings.
If Duke beats FSU then that will put them in the top two of the ACC standings, and if Louisville beats Duke they will jump FSU and Duke because Louisville beat a team FSU lost to. Since they would all have one conference loss Louisville would jump all of them. The Cardinals would just need to win out in conference play to make the ACC championship, since they won’t play FSU in the regular season this year.