By Derek DeBurger

Louisville ends their season on an ugly upswing as they pull off a win against the Toledo Rockets in the Boca Raton Bowl.

One per person

After getting the opening kick, Louisville marched down the field with ease, taking advantage of Toledo’s top three defenders being out.

They put seven points on the board with a 17-yard touchdown from Miller Moss to TreyShun Hurry.

On the Rockets’ first drive freshman quarterback Kalieb Osborne was stripped from behind by Clev Lubin and the Cards recovered in great position.

Louisville could only muster up a field goal, but their attempt was blocked near midfield. After getting the ball back, Osborne was able to completely shake off the last drive and lead Toledo to field goal range.

The kick was good and the score was brought to 7-3.

From there the game got uglier and uglier.

Back-to-back drives ended in punts.

Then with the Cards feeling the pressure of their faltering offense, they tried a trick play. The result was awful from the start, as the backwards pass to Caullin Lacy was dropped and scooped up by Toledo.

However, that’s where the tragedy would end, as the rest of the half would turn up nothing.

Louisville went into halftime up 7-3.

Boca brawl

Toledo got the ball to start the second half and went right down the field. They drove about 70 yards before getting stopped, but their field goal attempt went wide right.

On the ensuing possession, Moss and the rest of the offense found their groove again. Moss picked apart the Toledo secondary, then Keyjuan Brown found some rhythm in the ground game.

The drive capped off with another score through the air to Antonio Meeks to make it 14-3.

After a Rockets three-and-out, AJ Green blocked a punt to give the Cards a short field. An 11-yard run from Isaac Brown put the Cards up 21-3 and gave them all the momentum.

With only one quarter to play and the game all but wrapped up, Louisville just needed to kill the clock.

Toledo and Osborne were happy to take the softer coverage as they slowly drove down the field. After 13 plays on fourth-and-11, Osborne hit his tight end for a 26-yard touchdown.

The Rockets tried a two-point conversion and failed, but a questionable defensive pass interference gave them another try. On the second attempt, Chip Trayanum scampered into the end zone to cut the lead to 21-11.

With seven minutes left and an offense that had struggled most of the day, momentum was clearly against the Cards.

With the momentum leaving them, Louisville put together a three-and-out.

Louisville’s defense finally had some nice plays, but Lubin was ejected for targeting on a hit to a Toledo player’s shoulder. The Cards tightened up and forced a field goal, but the loss was huge nonetheless.

The lead cut to 21-14 and their backs against the wall, Louisville finally got something going on offense. Lacy started the drive with an 11-yard rush, then Brown had rushes of 11 yards and 53 to get Louisville back into the end zone.

But again there was disaster on special teams as the extra point was blocked and returned all the way for two points for the defense. Instead of a 28-14 lead, the score was 27-16.

To make matters worse, Osborne shredded the Lubin-less defense to pieces. Toledo took only six plays to get back in the scoring column. Fortunately for Louisville, the two-point try was no good and Louisville was up by five points.

With just over two minutes left Louisville needed multiple first downs to end the game. Keyjuan Brown the proceeded to take three carries for three first downs, draining the clock, using two Toledo timeouts and taking Louisville to the two-minute timeout.

Out of the pause, Isaac Brown took a carry six yards but got thrown down out of bounds well after the play was over. That sparked a massive fight on the sideline and a number of unsportsmanlike penalties that all canceled out.

On the next play Moss drew an offsides, giving Louisville the last first down they needed.

But the fun—or terror—wasn’t over quite yet, as Moss fumbled the snap on one of the kneel downs and Toledo recovered. But the snap was swatted away by a defender, which is a delay of game penalty and possession for Louisville.

Louisville escaped another bowl game with a 27-22 win.

Fitting

For a season that felt far more negative than it ended up being, that was the perfect bowl game to cap it off.

Moss had only 153 yards and two touchdowns, but still managed to have some great passes and crucial conversions via QB sneaks.

The ground game was fantastic by the end of the game, with Keyjuan Brown and Isaac Brown rushing for 112 and 102 yards, respectively.

However, Louisville likely was only in a position to win due to Toledo’s lack of discipline. The Rockets had 14 penalties, which is already a Boca Raton Bowl record but many more penalties against them were declined by Jeff Brohm.

Louisville advances to 14-13-1 all-time in bowl games, and is 2-1 under Brohm.

It might have been frustrating, but Louisville ends their season at 9-4.

This was their third consecutive season winning nine or more games, their third time doing so in program history and the first such streak since 2012-14.

Photo by Raegan Baymer / The Louisville Cardinal