Louisville Defeats Villanova, 59-13

I want to start by first giving credit the owner of this site, Mike Rutherford. I promise I’m not being a brown noser as I want to give Mike credit for calling exactly how this game would go. All week he said that he imagined this game would get off to an annoying start and it would take at least the first quarter for the team to wake up. I don’t like giving flowers to others, but that’s exactly how the game went.

The offense sputtered on their first drive, in what really should have been an opening 3-and-out, saved by a questionable roughing the passer penalty. And Villonva had no trouble marching down the field on easy screen and dump passes.

But even after Lincoln Kienholz’s back-to-back misses to Jaleel Skinner, Kienholz found him on the next drive for a sensational TD by the big guy. This was, of course, after he had scampered for his second rushing touchdown of the season.

But what followed was the most frustrating and disappointing part of the game when Villanova scored 2 plays later on a 65-yard strike by Pat McQuaide. I should mention that McQuaide played a great game as he went 18/31 for 166 yards and a touchdown.

He got off to such a strong start that many of us began worrying that the secondary’s problems were not limited to Ole Miss. But luckily it didn’t wake long for the defensive staff to start pressing the corners and dare ‘Nova to start throwing deep.

It was around this time that the offense really started humming as Lincoln (are we calling him “Lincoln” or “Kienholz”?) found Lewayn McCoy on a most ridiculous 61 yard escape and bomb TD.

Louisville continued to try and establish the run until they finally broke through a few drives later as Lincoln capped it off with another rushing touchdown.

The half could have ended normally, but once again Louisville was marred by bizarre clock management. Instead of calling a timeout on 4th down with 56 seconds left, Brohm let Villanova drain the clock down to the 31 seconds. I can’t explain it. It’s consistently terrible.

The second half started out with a UofL punt before scored on the remaining drives of the game. The team got to rotate through their backups, who also showed out. After Keyjuan Brown exited the game late in the 2nd Quarter and Isaac Brown never really got going (more on that later), Braxton Jennings hammered in for a touchdown on his first touch of the season.

Both Jennings and Marquis Davis impressed as they’d finish the night with a pair of TDs. Backup QB Davin Wydner and Briggs Cherry got to see some action and both performed exceptionally well as they went a combined 5/6 for 43 yards and a touchdown. The QB room appears to be as deep as hoped for, and it feels like it’s going to be in good hands in the future.

The biggest takeaways from this game seem to be that the team dominated an opponent as they should have once they woke up, the secondary was sluggish to start the game, and Isaac Brown was once again unable to break off any decent runs. The other thing that’s being mentioned is the continued concerns around penalties as UofL once again getting called for personal foul and unsportsmanlike penalties.

Brohm seemed to be losing it over these penalties and the team played a much cleaner second half. Hopefully whatever message was given at the half, I hope it sticks otherwise this team will be primed for an upset or worse with the completely preventable penalties.

As for Isaac Brown, it was once again odd to see him unable to break off any major runs. Between his slow start to the season and Brohm’s not so thinly veiled remarks towards his practice performances, we may actually have a running back controversy. Making matters worse is Keyjuan Brown showing out for a second week in a row, and Marquis Davis and Braxton Jennings impressing, too. There’s only one running back that hasn’t shown a spark this season and he also happens to be the highest paid player on the team.

Lastly, it remains to be seen what kind of secondary we have. Tayon Holloway had some great breakups in the second half, but in the first half there were all kinds of break downs and confusion as Villanova did a great job getting the ball out in under 3 seconds. It made the defense look rough until they finally started pressing and sniffing out screens.

Hopefully it’s just a matter of correctly adjusting and calling the secondary, but this unit absolutely cannot continue if they want to have a chance at slowing teams down like SMU.

The SMU game looms large in what could be a season defining game. For either team it’s win and you’re in the drivers seat to an ACCCG, or lose and you’re praying for chaos. It’ll be another great test for the defense as Kevin Jennings has been lighting up the stats sheet just like Trinidad Chambliss. He’ll likely be the second best QB UofL will face all season and the defense will need all hands on deck.

Hopefully the SMU game doesn’t turn into a shoot out, but if it does it’ll likely come down to whichever team has the ball last as these offenses appear to be unstoppable once they get going. For Louisville’s sake, hopefully the offense gets off to a hotter start and Kienholz gets going early.

We’ll see y’all next week.