By Andrew Hornback
Friday Oct. 2, Starting quarterback Justin Burke was replaced by junior Adam Froman for the Cardinals’ Big East opener due to injury. This was the first start of Froman’s career at Louisville.
The Cards led Pittsburgh 10-7 at halftime, but gave up 28 unanswered points to the visiting Panthers in the second half. In the end U of L lost their conference opener 35-10.
Joe Tronzo gave the Cards a 7-0 lead in the first half with the first rushing touchdown of his career, a1-yard touchdown run.
Pittsburgh immediately answered as quarterback Bill Stull led the Panthers down the field and finished off a 58 yard drive with a 5 yard pass to receiver Dorin Dickerson.
A 32 yard field goal from Ryan Payne gave the Cards a 10-7 lead at the half.
“We had some good plays,” head coach Steve Kragthorpe said. “Doug [Beaumont] made a good pass on the reverse pass and we took the ball down the field and scored. Then got down there [the red zone] at the end of the first half and had a penalty on Doug and got knocked right back out, and then we did a good job getting the field goal to go up 10-7.”
The Panthers opened the second half with a 37 yard pass from Stull to Dickerson that gave the Panthers a 14-10 lead.
“Bottom line is we can’t give up a deep pass on the first possession of the second half”, Kragthorpe said.
On the following Cardinal possession, quarterback Adam Froman fumbled the ball on third & 8. The Panthers quickly capitalized with another deep passing play, this time for 71 yards from Stull to Jonathan Baldwin.
The Cardinal offense was unable to respond to the Panthers air attack, gaining only 134 yards total in the second half. The team also failed the convert on their only red zone trip of the half.
The offensive line for the Cards gave up a season high 6 sacks against the Panthers, who average 4 per game on the season.
Penalties also hindered the Cards throughout the game, as they racked up 98 penalty yards total. Louisville also struggled on 3rd downs, going only 3 for15. The Cardinals entered the game last in the Big East in red zone offense and sixth in 3rd down conversion percentage.
Up next for the Cards will be former Conference USA rival Southern Miss on October 10th at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium. The Cards won the last meeting with the Golden Eagles in 2002 on the road.
