The 24-hour rule has been suspended at Louisville. Though football coaches customarily grant their players a full day to savor their successes, the home team could ill-afford to lounge on its laurels following Saturday’s 37-9 pounding of Pittsburgh.
Not with Kentucky next on the schedule. Not after five straight losses to Big Blue Big Brother. Not with a season of enticing possibilities and gut-wrenching reverses still in need of clarifying context.
At 7-4, U of L has both arguably underperformed expectations and narrowly missed consideration for college football’s first 12-team tournament. All four of the Cardinals’ losses have been by a single possession, three of them to teams ranked No. 6 (Notre Dame), No. 8 (Miami) and No. 13 (SMU) in the most recent playoff rankings. Yet having followed a stunning upset of Clemson with a stupefying loss to Stanford, Jeff Brohm’s second season has lurched toward rivalry week like a cliff-hanging television script.
Where, fans have wondered, do things go from here?
Dominating a seven-win Pitt team after the Stanford debacle provided a tantalizing glimpse of U of L’s possibilities when the planets are properly aligned, the play-calling is reasonable instead of reckless and dumb penalties do not spell disaster. Freshman running back Isaac Brown, formerly “questionable” because of a shoulder injury suffered in Palo Alro, was again making scalpel-sharp cuts en route to a pair of first-half touchdowns. Defensive end Ashton Gillotte’s first-quarter sack of Eli Holstein resulted in the Pittsburgh quarterback being carried from the field on a cart and the Panthers’ offense being mostly immobilized thereafter. U of L linebacker Stanquan Clark intercepted two passes and made or assisted on seven tackles, spearheading a defense that pitched a shutout until Pitt scored late in the third quarter while trailing by 34 points.
Yet though this was the Cardinals’ most lopsided conference game of the season and sufficiently thorough that most of an announced crowd of 49,441 had left L&N Stadium by the first minutes of the fourth quarter, count Card Nation as unconvinced without the confirmation of a victory over UK. Since the Cardinals last beat their Big Blue bane in 2017, the Wildcats have outscored them in five games by an average score of 43-17.
Of late, the series has been more of a reckoning than a rivalry. Kentucky had lost five of its previous six games when it upset the 10th-ranked Cardinals last year, 38-31. In 2016, Lamar Jackson’s Heisman Trophy season, U of L had been favored by four touchdowns before Jackson committed four turnovers in a 41-38 loss.
The recent history of the Governor’s Cup reflects the popular narrative of Southeastern Conference sycophants; that mediocre SEC teams are often superior to the cream of other conferences.
That conceit would be a lot less tiresome if it were a little less true.
“It’s a huge game,” Brohm said. “I’m from here, so I understand it. It means a lot to me. It is going to mean a lot to our team. We haven’t won this game in a long time now and we’ve got to go on the road and find a way to do it. Kentucky plays a lot of really good teams every year, so they’re battle-tested. And we’ll have our hands full.
“The weather will be cold. I’m sure it won’t be conducive to high-flying, airing it out all over the place. You’re going to have to weather the conditions a little bit. But we’re going to enjoy this (victory), but understand the biggest game we have on our schedule is coming up and we’ve got to treat it that way.”
This season, more than most, there’s no choice in the matter. Louisville has lacked the consistency to easily rationalize next Saturday’s scrimmage should things go badly. The Cards must end their losing streak against UK or be remembered as serial underachievers.
In the closing minutes of Saturday’s game, with the eventual outcome long since decided, the loudest cheer at L&N Stadium arose in reaction to the announcement of a final score from Austin: Texas 31, Kentucky 14. Then followed a boisterous “Beat UK” chant from the stragglers still in their seats.
“We’ve got to beat them ‘cause the score right now, it ain’t looking good,” said U of L receiver Cataurus Hicks. “We’ve got to change that, starting next week.”
Governor’s Cup has been more of a reckoning than a rivalry of late
This article appears in Nov 20 – Dec 3, 2024.