#18 Louisville Completes Shutout Against Duke, Wins 23-0
By Caleb Hall
Louisville Bullies Duke 23-0, Defense and Jawhar Jordan Remain Dominant
The Louisville Cardinals faced the Duke Blue Devils and dominated the game in every faucet of the game, as the Cardinals defeated the Blue Devils at home 23-0.
Duke came into the game at 5-2 and had not struggled with mostly any teams all season. They even led Florida State during the game last week even though they lost 38-20. Louisville started hot defensively and offensively, as they had multiple tackles for loss in the first half, and 2 rushing touchdowns for Jawhar Jordan in the first quarter.
Louisville held Duke to just 202 yards of total offense, and just 51 rushing yards overall. The Blue Devils are one of the best teams in all of college football that run the ball and the fact that the Cardinals were able to hold them to such low yardage is extremely impressive. They also had 4 sacks on the game, with Ashton GIllotte having 2 sacks in the game.
The Cardinals were able to completely dominate the line of scrimmage on the defensive and offensive end against Duke. They rushed for 234 total yards and Jeff Brohm seemed to lean into the run game more this week. Louisville didn’t run the ball too much against Pitt 2 weeks ago, and Brohm seemed to have learned his lesson as he ran the ball a lot more than he passed it. Jack Plummer went 11/16 for 117 yards with 0 TDs and interceptions, in a game where all he did was manage the football and do enough offensively to lead the Cardinals to a victory.
Jawhar Jordan was unanimously the MVP of the game for the Cardinals as he rushed 21 times for 163 yards and 2 touchdowns. Jordan was questionable going into the game, so seeing him dominate was good to see after not seeing him play against Pitt.
The Cardinals shutdown the Duke offense early and made Riley Leonard beat the Cardinals with his arm, and the quarterback simply could not do it.
The Cardinals move to 4-0 all time against the Blue Devils and marked their first shutout win vs a top 25 in Louisville football history.
Louisville moves to 7-1 on the season, while also moving to 4-1 in the ACC and getting closer and closer to a spot in the ACC championship game later this year.