Despite all of the odds working against them, Louisville football rode a shocking performance from its defense to a win at Central Florida in primetime in front of a sold-out crowd.
Central Florida was 31-2 at home over the last 6 years entering Friday’s matchup against Louisville football.
They are now 31-3 in the last 6 years at home.
In 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2021, the Knights went undefeated at home. Their lone losses in that stretch came to Tulsa and No. 7 Cinci.
There is a reason they call FBC Mortgage Stadium the “Bounce House”. The Knights boast the second-largest student body in the United States. 44,412 of those students and fans packed the stands on Friday night showcasing one of the better home field advantages in the country.
It didn’t matter.
Louisville’s defense best in the Satterfield era
I still cannot believe what my eyes saw here.
The Louisville football defense, after receiving very loud public criticism at times in the last 4 seasons, absolutely put the team on its back.
Hours after learning that it would be without one of its best defenders, DT Jermayne Lole, UofL’s defense stepped up in a way we really have not seen in the Scott Satterfield era.
The Cards made impressive stops early and continued to build momentum after being put in tough positions over and over.
Take a look at this possession chart from the second half.
Punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, interception, turnover on downs.
We will get into a much deeper breakdown of this performance this week. However, it’s important to point out that UofL’s offense has put the defense in awful positions for eight quarters and they just never, never broke.
Bryan Brown definitely deserved that game ball tonight.
Save UofL’s surprising showing at Notre Dame in 2020, this has to be the best defensive performance in the Brown era.
Fun Malik is back
After looking totally out of sorts in the season opener, Louisville football QB Malik Cunningham seemed much more himself on Friday.
201 yards passing. 121 yards rushing and a touchdown.
More than just statistically, Cunningham made the right plays at the right times, including some impressive runs.
A stunning overturned targeting call and a hold on a long play prevented this from being a top-tier statistical game.
Scott Satterfield showed some fire(?????)
I have had many a conversation with former Louisville football players who will candidly tell you that Scott Satterfield is not afraid to get in that ass in private.
Satt is a “love ’em up” guy for sure, but he (ALLEGEDLY) shows some fire behind the scenes.
The maddening part about this is that Satt never, ever shows much passion on the sidelines or when speaking in public. This leads to some discontent among the fanbase. We are used to Bobby Petrino, Rick Pitino, Chris Mack, Charlie Strong, etc. etc. Feeling like a coach is showing less emotion than you is a difficult reality to adjust to.
That seemed to change on Friday night. Satterfield was often animated and borderline emotional at times.
Fans love to see that stuff, and it feels like the players kind of fed off of it. I hope he continues to show that passion on the sidelines.
The offensive play-calling HAS to be better
Maddening. Infuriating. Sicking. Pathetic.
I don’t want to halt the positive energy right now, so we will get into this later this week.
However, the Louisville football offensive play-calling pretty much all night was just tough to watch. Even Cunningham’s long touchdown run to take the lead was on 2nd and long.
Louisville runs the ball at the most inopportune times. And there is no rhyme or reason behind deciding to go for it vs. punting it or run the ball vs. passing. It feels almost like Satt is thinking “what would logic tell us to do here?” and then doing the exact opposite every time.
Louisville football won on Friday despite the offensive play-calling, not because of it.
This has to improve moving forward.
Overall, I could not be more pleased
There are plenty of things to correct. The Cards won despite a ton of penalties, poor offensive playcalling, and untimely mistakes.
However, going into a max capacity crowd. After getting torched week one. After losing perhaps your best defensive player for the season. After one of your defensive linemen learned of the passing of his father the night before. Playing on a shortened week when the opponent had 9 days at home to recover…
The odds were stacked against Louisville football.
Nobody outside of the program truly believed UofL was winning that game at kickoff.
Hell, I didn’t think Louisville would win this game before the game one debacle in Syracuse.
To go into that place and get a win with your coach on the hot seat is massive, and hopefully, a tone setter going forward.
What did you think about the Cards’ victory over UCF? Let us know in the comments below.
