Louisville CardFile: Pittsburgh

CardHelmetOn a topsy turvy college football weekend, full of upheaval, when Final Four projections were jarred out of focus, the quality of the 2015 Louisville Cardinals became crystal clear.

As if it already wasn’t, at least to those with a reasonably objective perspective.

U of L surrendered 35 second quarter points in a 45-34 loss to Pitt.

The Cards will end the regular season schedule either 7-5 or 6-6, depending on the outcome of next Saturday’s High Noon battle with arch-rival Kentucky. They will finish the campaign at bottom level bowl against a similarly less than successful opponent in Shreveport or Detroit or some such Styxian site.

This Louisville team, as we should have realized all along, despite the recent successes against lesser foes, is middle of the pack. A smidge above mediocre. Maybe. Definitely a several shelves below the top.

That’s the fact, Jack.

There’s little to be gained by breaking down Saturday’s performance with any specificity.

The flaws evident yesterday are the same ones that have been apparent all year.

The offensive line gave up 10 tackles for loss, 7 sacks. Which porous play nestles them at the bottom of the pack nationally. The Cards rushed for 63 positive yards, and 64 negative yards. I’ll do the math for you. That’s minus one on the ground.

The same adjective — porous — applies to yesterday’s play by the usually better defensive line. Pittsburgh netted 244 yards on the ground, 5.4 yards per carry.

The secondary’s woeful coverage made Panther QB Nathan Peterman seem a Heisman candidate, former Panther Dan Marino for the Day.

Kyle Bolin is just okay. Not quite as good when constantly under pressure as yesterday.

Lamar Jackson is a supreme athlete, but not close to being a QB of consequence.

Bad OL play. Bad secondary play. Lack of leadership.

Stop me, if you’ve heard all of this before.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I have no desire to go further, to dive into any details.

 * * * * *

It’s difficult to conjure up visions that Cards vs. Cats will be any sort of classic tussle.

But, it should be a fascinating watch. At least for the denizens of the Commonwealth.

UK is hungry for bowl eligibility.

U of L is hungry for respectability. Hopefully.

The Cats will start Drew Barker at quarterback.

The Cards will start, uh, they don’t know yet.

It’s hard to say that bragging rights will be on the line. Neither of these squads, truth be told, have much to brag about.

Pride will be.

— Seedy K

5 thoughts on “Louisville CardFile: Pittsburgh

  1. a Quick ending to the regular season, and the hope that the added practice time before the Embarrassment Bowl will allow for some Quick changes. Amazing how much some of these kids seem to try to avoid contact, in a contact sport

  2. On a brighter note, how soon might the student section at the YUM! break out a duo Big Head of our Spalding and Ray Romano, ’cause “Everybody Loves Raymond”

  3. A pounding of the Kitties Saturday will make it a very successful season for me, but it has to be a beatdown that will keep them in misery for another eight months.

  4. The second quarter against Pitt and the second half vs. FSU were so bad in comparison to the rest of the season, a reasonable mind might suspect that, uh, shaving a few points might have been involved. Now, I am not a conspiracy theorist, but damn, these 2 games contained outliers that boggle the mind.

    The Harvey-Clemons that showed up in those 2 tilts was so far from the monster that I witnessed in the spring game (and Auburn, too, for that matter) that it just doesn’t make sense.

    Has Kat Powell also invaded our Football squad? Inquiring minds want to know…..

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