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The Cardinals are going to the Orange Bowl to play Wake Forest and junior Brian Brohm hinted that he may not return for next season.

The Bowl game was officially announced Sunday night after the Louisville Cardinals’ football team defeated the University of Connecticut Huskies on Saturday, and when West Virginia beat Rutgers in a three overtime classic. Rounding out regular season play, the Cards finished off the Huskies in a 48-17 win that ended what has been one of the most successful seasons for Cardinal football. They finished with an 11-1 regular season record and a 5-1 Big East record.

Louisville will go on to the Orange Bowl to face the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, this year’s ACC Champions; however, before it was announced there was still some doubt about where Louisville would go. To get to the Orange Bowl Louisville had to beat UConn and West Virginia had to beat Rutgers late Saturday night, both of which happened.

U of L performed well against the Huskies. To open the UConn game, Louisville received on the opening kickoff and marched the ball downfield. A few plays later, Harry Douglas was stopped six inches from the endzone, but Anthony Allen brought it home off of a one yard run.

In the next series, the Cardinal defense came out and stopped the Huskies, but on their punt, JaJuan Spillman fumbled the ball in an attempt to pick it up after it rolled 20 yards. The Huskies hustled and recovered on the Cardinal eight yard line. As the Huskies threatened to score, the defense came out and shut down the UConn offense. Coach Randy Edsall was forced to call for a field goal. The 21-yarder from Tony Ciaravino was a cheap price to pay for Spillman’s error.

In the next series the Cards marched it down the field again, but were stopped by the Huskies’ defense down in the red zone. Art Carmody came out to put an extra three on the board.

“I think it went both ways,” said senior Amobi Okoye of who played better, the defense or the offense. “We were pretty proud of our performance last week and we just wanted to come out and elevate our performance [this week].”

It took until the second quarter for the Cards to score again. After a Malik Jackson forced a fumble on UConn’s Dan Murray, Louisville recovered on their own 33-yard line. Two plays later, Brohm threw deep to Douglas who then ran it 67 yards for the touchdown.

UConn took the ball back and Donald Brown took the helm. Brown rushed for 78 yards in a combined four plays, bringing them to the one-yard line. Tailback Lou Allen finished off the drive with a rush down the middle.

“It was entirely scary to me that we let them hang around for a while,” said Louisville head coach Bobby Pertino. “The seniors really showed up today.”

From there, the offense was unstoppable. The offense racked up an additional 31 points with Douglas, Mario Urrutia, Brock Bolen and Kolby Smith getting marks in the touchdown column. Coach Petrino even put Hunter Cantwell in at quarterback, and let Brohm take the rest of the game off.

After the game, however, Brohm was the story. In the post game press conference, he even surprised Coach Petrino in saying that he will return for his senior year. Every player seemed excited about his decision.

“Brian Brohm just doesn’t play football, he has the knack,” said Nate Harris. “Some people just come out and play football, but when you have the knack you see things and feel things differently.”

Carmody, the nationally ranked kicker, also played well. The Groza Award Finalist did miss one field goal attempt, however, it is doubted that it will hurt his chances of getting the award, going to the best kicker of the year. Carmody made all of his extra point attempts and logged one field goal.

With the win, the Cards are going to the ________ Bowl for their final game of the season, to represent the Big East in what will be one of the biggest games in all of Cardinal football history.

With the win and West Virginia beating the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers, Louisville will be offered a bid to the Orange Bowl, in sunny and warm Miami Florida. The January 2, 2006 game is one of the major BCS games. For Louisville to go to the game, being in their second year of Big East conference play, is a major step forward for the football program and shows just how far the program has come since Coach Bobby Petrino took over from John L. Smith.