Louisville Cardinals @ Kentucky Wildcats Football Recap

Louisville 24, Kentucky 17

This was a win for bragging rights, a win that earned a year of relief, a win that took a lot of heat from a program that was sagging under the combined weight of poor performance and a fan base hungry for high achievement.

The Louisville Cardinals once ruled the roost in the Big East, and not too long ago at that. The team that won the 2007 Orange Bowl slid to the bottom of the college football world, and started the 2011 season in a whole heap of trouble. After losing at home to Florida International, the Cardinals needed something, anything, to create a different vibe in their locker room. They haven’t solved all of their problems by a longshot, and their game against the Kentucky Wildcats was anything but a work of art. However, the only thing Louisville really needed in this game was the only thing it truly wanted: a victory – somehow, someway, by hook or crook.

In a game that head coach Charlie Strong called a “program changer” for Louisville, the Cardinals went on the road and beat their in-state rival Kentucky 24-17. The win was the Cardinals’ first over Kentucky since the final year of the Bobby Petrino era in the 2006 season. Freshman quarterback Teddy Bridgewater came in for an injured Will Stein and threw two touchdown passes to lead the Cardinals offense to its best game of the year. After struggling to run the ball or protect the quarterback in its first two games, Louisville used a rotation of running backs (and sometimes “wildcat” quarterback Dominique Brown) to rush for a season high 181 yards and control the line of scrimmage for much of the game.

While the offense came to life for the first time in 2011, the Cardinals’ defense was the dominant unit on the day. After missing three starters from a year ago for portions of the first two games, Louisville played Kentucky with its full complement of defensive linemen and sacked Kentucky quarterback Morgan Newton six times while holding Kentucky to just 35 yards rushing. The win revives the Cardinals’ hopes of returning to the postseason while leaving Kentucky with the possibility of four consecutive losses as the next three games are Florida, at LSU, and at South Carolina. More importantly, Louisville doesn’t have to hear Kentucky – a program at low ebb in its own right – retain superiority in this Commonwealth clash. The Cardinals aren’t going to light up the Big East in what might be the last year of the conference’s football existence; they now know, though, that they don’t have to play second fiddle to their foremost rival for the next 12 months.

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By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer