By Tyler Bright and Derek DeBurger

The No. 19 Louisville Cardinals embarked on a cross-country journey only to lose in heartbreaking fashion. The trek was 2,350 miles from the Derby City to the West Coast to face the Stanford Cardinal.

Off a red-eye

It seemed as if Louisville suffered from some jet-lag getting off to a slow start. The Cards forced a punt on Stanford’s first drive of the game, but only after five minutes of game time and nine plays.

Then, Tyler Shough threw an interception on Louisville’s opening drive, setting up an easy field goal for the Cardinal.

Early in the first quarter, star freshman running back Issac Brown suffered a injury. Many of Brown’s teammates visited the tent to make sure he was doing alright. Brown was seen wearing a sling on his right arm, and would not return to the game.

The momentum continued for Stanford as they would force a three-and-out and follow it up with a 62-yard touchdown pass from Ashton Daniels to Emmet Mosley V to take a 0-10 lead.

Following another three-and-out from the Louisville offense, Corey Thornton hauled in a highlight-reel interception, giving the Cardinals excellent field position. Capitalizing on the turnover, Donald Chaney Jr. powered into the end zone for Louisville’s first touchdown, narrowing the score to 7-10.

During a time-consuming 15-play, nine-minute drive in the second quarter, the Louisville defense stood strong, bending but not breaking. The Louisville defense allowed just a field goal, extending Stanford’s lead to 7-13.

Louisville responded quickly with a five-yard rushing touchdown, this time by Duke Watson to take their first lead of the game.

Finally getting a three-and-out on defense, the Cards added on to the score with a Shough passing touchdown to Chris Bell moving the score up to 21-13.

The score would stay this way going into the half.

Blew it

The second half opened with stagnating offenses, as Louisville turned the ball over on downs and punted, while Stanford punted twice.

After Stanford’s second punt, The Cards took just one play to add another touchdown with a 68-yard run from Watson to give the Cards a 15-point lead.

As the Cards began to pull away, Stanford was determined to keep the outcome in doubt. Daniels led a four-and-a-half-minute drive that ended in star wide receiver Elic Ayomanor catching his first pass of the day for a touchdown. Stanford would get a two-point conversion to make it a seven-point ball game.

On the following drive, Shough would attempt to put the game away for good. He went 6-for-6 on the drive, leading to a five-yard rushing touchdown from Watson. This was Watson’s third rushing touchdown of the game, more than doubling his season total.

On the ensuing drive, Ayomanor would get his second and final catch of the day by way of a 55-yard bomb to put the Cardinal in the redzone. After getting into a goal-to-go situation, Louisville forced a fourth-and-goal but came up just short when Mosley V make another touchdown grab.

Louisville would fail to run out the clock and gave the ball back to Stanford with four minutes to operate.

Stanford would yet again move the ball down the field, but find themselves in a fourth-down. With a second-consecutive chance to stop the Cardinal on fourth-down and end the game, Louisville not only came up short but gave up a touchdown to tie the game at 35-35.

Louisville tried to get into field goal-range to win it in regulation, but came into a fourth-down of their own. With just 11 seconds remaining and too far to try a kick, Jeff Brohm made the decision to try a Hail Mary. The try came up empty, and Stanford got the ball at midfield with five seconds remaining.

The Cardinal ran a quick play that took up only four seconds, but after the play Tayon Holloway shoved a Stanford player and drew an unsportsmanlike penalty. The flag gave Stanford 15 yards and put them on the edge of field goal range. Before they could even test their kicker’s leg, Quincy Riley jumped offsides, giving the Cardinal an extra five yards.

From 52 yards, Emmet Kenney would nail the kick and shock the Cards 35-38.

Stupid mistakes

Louisville could not get out of their own way, drawing penalty after penalty on easily fixable mistakes. The two penalties at the end stand out the most, but Louisville was flagged a total of 13 times in the game.

The game was also just another in a long list this season where the Cards come out flat. There should be no excuse for a team to not give maximum effort, especially when they have proven themselves not capable of sleepwalking through a victory.

The result gave Louisville their 4th loss of the season and officially eliminates the Cards from the ACC Championship game and playoff contention.

Louisville is now 6-4 on the year, and 4-3 in the ACC. They will take on the Pitt Panthers in their final home game of the season.

Photo Courtesy // Stanford Athletics