By Charlie Leffler
Memphis- It was not the ending the Cardinals wanted or expected, but they’ll gladly take it. The score read 38-33, but that does not say how close Memphis came to pulling of an incredible comeback against Louisville.
Louisville had just pushed out to an 18-point lead against Memphis at 38-20 on a 4-yard touchdown pass from Dave Ragone to Tiger Jones with 9:26 left in the game and they thought they had the game won. What they did not think was that Memphis was not about to fold up and go home… even though most of their fans did.
“We knew that they were going to give us their best shot,” said Louisville head coach John L. Smith. “It looked like we were going to pull away then they came back. We goofed a lot of things up, but then it looked like we were going to pull away again.”
Just as happened against Army three weeks ago, the second string defense entered the game with a big lead and through a rash of penalties allowed the opponent to march down the field and score. With the ball on the Memphis 49-yard line and less than six minutes to go in the game the Cards were tagged with a 15-yard pass interference penalty that moved the Tigers to the Louisville 36. Two plays later the Cards were once again flagged for the same thing, moving Memphis to the five. Then with 5:21 left in the game the Tigers Dante Brown broke into the end zone to cut the lead to 38-26 after a failed two point conversion.
Memphis then recovered and onsides kick on their own 46-yard line and began a rejuvenated drive as suddenly the fans came alive. Once again, Louisville was called for pass interference moving the
Tigers to the 30-yard line. Then with 3:54 on the clock the Tigers Danny Wimprine connected on a perfect pass to Gideon Tavares over Chris Johnson’s outstretched arm for an 11-yard TD to move UM within six.
Memphis hen kicked deep to the Cardinals and Louisville took over on their own 21-yard line. But after Ragone completed a pass to tight end Ronnie Ghent, he fumbled after a vicious hit and Memphis recovered at the 26.
The Tigers moved the ball to the 21 but were faced with fourth and five with 1:43 left on the clock.
As the teams came back onto the field after a Memphis timeout the rain began to fall, and the Cards were faced with an eerie reminder of their game against Florida State. Only this time it was their turn to face possible defeat. Louisville needed a big play and they got it from Johnson. After being burnt for a TD on Memphis’ last possession, Johnson reached out and knocked away a Wimprine pass that would have given the Tigers the win.
The game started off on a good note for the Cards defensively. Louisville stopped Memphis on three downs and forced the Tigers to punt from their own 23. But as has already happened three times this season the tall and lanky Brandon Johnson swooped in for a block on the kick. The ball was picked up by the Cards’ B.J. Steele who ran into the end zone for the score. At that point Louisville probably thought they were going to cruise. They were up 7-0 only a minute into the game and the offense had yet to touch the ball.
From there things went down hill as Ragone and the Cards’ offense proved to be ineffective.
Meanwhile, the Memphis offense came to life. With 4:26 left in the first quarter, Wimprine connected with Darron White for a touchdown, but Louisville’s Dewayne White blocked the extra point attempt to keep the Cards ahead 7-6.
Louisville pulled out to a 10-6 lead on a 47-yard field goal by Nate Smith with 11:53 left in the second but four minutes later Wimprine struck again, this time to Antoine Harden for a 32-yard TD to put the Tigers ahead 13-10, where the score remained for the rest of the half.
Ragone finished the first half 9-17 for 61-yards and no scores. The only positive was the hard running of Henry Miller who picked up 47 yards on nine carries.
“They definitely showed us some things that we didn’t think we were going to see,” said Jones, “but we just made some adjustments at half-time.”
Coming out in the second half the Cards struck early a Miller six yard run to regain the lead 17-13 with 9:13 left in the third quarter.
Eight minutes later Louisville struck again on a three yard pass from Ragone to tight end Richard Owens to give the Cards a 24-13 lead.
On Memphis’ next possession, Louisville Bandit Michael Brown picked off a Wimprine pass and returned it 22-yards to the Memphis 30. Four plays later, Miller was once again busting into the end zone to put U of L up 31-13 with 4:17 left in the period.
A Wimprine 14-yard pass to Taveres cut the Louisville lead to 31-20 in the final minutes of the quarter but at the beginning of the fourth Ragone connected with Jones to set up the final theatrics.
Memphis used a erratic rhythm on offense that seemed to disrupt the Cardinals. Wimprine would step up to the center and appear as if he were going to put the ball into play then stop and step back. He would then look to the sideline for a play and only as the play clock was running down would he proceed. Sometimes he would go through the motions rapidly, other times he would go much more slowly and Louisville had a hard time adjusting.
“They did a really good job of speeding things up,” said Smith. “And we’re going to stand and change some things after they give you their phony baloney crap. But they went to hurry up and that got us out of rhythm and then they slowed it down and got back into their rhythm. It took us away from a lot of our game plan so that we could call what we would have liked.”
For the game Ragone went 21-31 for 177 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. Ragone threw to ten different receivers but the Cards were led by Damien Dorsey’s five receptions for 70 yards.
Miller picked up a total of 80-yards on 21 carries while scoring two touchdowns. Miller has now scored in five consecutive games.
On defense, White appeared to move back into last season’s form by getting two sacks to move him into first place in career sacks at U of L.
