Louisville Bounces Back, Blows Out USF
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Coming off of their soul-crushing loss to Florida State last weekend, the Louisville football program was able to get back on track against former Conference-USA and Big East counterpart USF, coming out on top with a 41-3 victory Saturday at Cardinal Stadium.
The Cardinals set the tone early on both sides of the ball, resulting in nothing short of a complete and total domination over the Bulls. They out-gained their visitors 537 to 151 in terms of total yardage, including 283 to 41 rushing the ball. Just last week, USF ran for 286 yard in a near upset at Florida.
Louisville's offense was paced by fantastic performance from quarterback Malik Cunningham. He went 14-of-22 passing for 186 yards and a touchdown, while also collecting 113 yards and three touchdowns on the ground. With this performance, Cunningham became only the 8th player in FBS history to pass for 8,000 yards and rush for 3,000 yards in a career.
Running backs Tiyon Evans, Trevion Cooley, and Jawhar Jordan combined for 164 rushing yards on 32 attempts. Wide receiver Ahmari Huggins-Bruce had five receptions for 56 yards, Tyler Hudson had three for 53, and Jaelin Carter's one catch resulted in his first touchdown reception at Louisville.
Defensively, the Cardinals were just as crisp as the offense was. Not only did they severely limit USF's rushing attack, but Bulls QB Gerry Bohanon went just 9-of-17 for 62 yards and two interceptions. The Cardinals forced three turnovers - interceptions by safety Josh Minkins and corner Chandler Jones; plus a recovered fumble by linebacker Dorian Jones - and had three sacks and nine tackles for loss.
Jones had six tackles and two TFL's; linebacker Yasir Abdullah had five tackles, a sack, a TFL and a pass breakup; and defensive end YaYa Diaby had four tackles, two for a loss and a sack.
The offensive side of the ball had to punt on their first drive of the game, but that was then followed up by four straight scoring drives, all involving Cunningham. He got things started with a 40-yard touchdown run, found Carter for a 26-yard diving touchdown catch on the next drive, then ran for 35- and eight-yard scores later in the half.
On the other side of the line of scrimmage, the Cardinals' defense set the tone early. They got early pressure in the back field to force Bohanon to make bad throws, and also held the deadly USF run game in check. All three of Louisville's forced turnovers come in the first half, and they held USF's deadly run game to just 22 yards.
This combined to give Louisville a 28-0 lead at the half, which was their highest-scoring shutout first half in the Scott Satterfield era. It was their best since shutting out Boston College 38-0 at halftime back on Nov. 5, 2016.
It wouldn't be until the first play of the fourth quarter that Louisville's defense would allow any points, coming via a 37-yard field goal for USF. Outside of that one score, the Cardinals forced three punts and two turnovers on downs by the Bulls in the second half, and allowed only 74 yards with a vast majority of the backups in.
The offense called off the dogs in the second half, but were still able to put up some points and compound their lead. Kicker James Turner got in the action with a 29- and 25-yard field goal, and Evans punched it in from three yards out for a touchdown. Most of the fourth quarter, on both sides of the ball, was spent getting reps to younger players on the roster.
Next up, Louisville will head back on the road to face Boston College. Kickoff against the Eagles is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 1 at 12:00 p.m. EST.
(Photo of Malik Cunningham: Jamie Rhodes - USA TODAY Sports)
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