Sorry about the title. I won’t do it again….until next time.
We all gushed about the offense all week, but it was the defense that won the game tonight. The Cards traveled to NCST & pulled off a 13-10 victory over the Pack. The explosive Louisville offense was stagnant in the first half as the Cards found themselves down 10-0. However, the defense showed up & was the star. The only opportunity for Louisville to score in the first half was a field goal to go up 3-0 to start off the second quarter. Then back-to-back turnovers led them to that 10-0 deficit. The one thing you don’t have to worry about with Coach Brohm is adjustments. After the game, he refreshingly took responsibility for some of the issues playing at a sold-out Carter-Finley posed. We are not used to coaching accountability. Normally a hug would have fixed what our halftime issues were, or not.
In the second half, the defense piled on as they amassed 8 tfl & 2 sacks (seemed like way more) to hold up their end of the bargain. On the second drive of the second half, Plummer found Chris Bell in the corner of the end zone for a beautiful TD to cut it to 10-7. Coach can say what he wants, but I think the halftime adjustments worked. This drive took less than a minute and only 3 plays. The next possession we tie the ball game up after a horrible no TD call & force NCST to a 3 & out on their next possession. Everything felt good at this point because we drove all the way down the field to have 1st & goal from the 5. But a hurried throwaway turned into an interception and NCST still had life. The defense had to step up and answer & they did on the following drive. The Cards ran 5 minutes of clock off and got a field goal to take a 13-10 lead. It was a school-record 53-yarder by Brock Travelstead. At this point, you felt like victory was up to the defense and if you had watched any of the game you knew there was nothing to worry about. The Cards forced a 3-and-out and the defense gave them a little hope before QR3 takes it right away and the Cards win 13-10 in a game I was truly never concerned about.
Yes, i talked all week about how this wouldn’t be close and I bet for my first time ever, which i will not be doing again, but this game was never in question for me. You can ask the group chat lol. I will admit that I am not a skeptic and once we hired Brohm I stopped worrying about in-game adjustments and preparation. That’s why I was not worried. We were the better team playing a gimmick game on the road & maybe looking ahead to ND a little. I am not sure. Plummer played like the first 3 games Plummer and still got the job done collecting 286 yards passing to go along with his single TD pass. The Cards forced 3 turnovers which they needed to combat our 3 turnovers, all by QB1. The rushing game never got going either as Jaws only got 32 yards rushing. Credit that to NCST who seemingly only prepared to defend the run this week and it paid off. They pressured Plummer into throwing the ball and making mistakes. Kind of like our blueprint for beating Armstrong. Chris Bell was the beneficiary of the defense keying in on Thrash & AHB as Bell caught 3 balls for 85 yards and a TD. TJ Quinn led the Defense with 11 tackles & right behind him was Ashton Gillotte who had 6 tackles and added a sack. They said last night Ashton led the country in QB pressures. I love it. Good teams find ways to pull out a tough victory when they aren’t playing well. The Cards cannot afford back-to-back performances like this as the Fighting Irish come to town Saturday for a primetime battle.
Go Cards!
PS-Listen to us predict the outcome correctly even though some us had the wrong margin. Lol
Cardinal Sports Zone Podcast Episode #183: From Blackouts To Sold Out With Preston Brown
Recap & highlights from the Cards 13-10 win over NC State.
Recap: https://t.co/WE2ZN0Xekc#GoCards pic.twitter.com/ZLhmvYiIjq
— Louisville Football (@LouisvilleFB) September 30, 2023
