It’s back to action for the Cardinals football team after a bye week. It will be Friday night lights this week as the Cards travel to UCONN for an end of the week battle on ESPN2 at 8:30pm. Louisville leads this series with UCONN 5 to 4 but the Huskies have won the last 4 out of six including that three overtime stunner last year at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium 23-20. This will be the last meeting on the gridiron between these teams for the foreseeable future. The Cards enter this game ranked No. 20 in the Associated Press poll and No. 17 in the USA Today coaches’ poll. The Cardinals have a 7-1 record and are 3-1 in the American while the Huskies are 0-7 overall and 0-3 in the American.
Coach Strong previews UCONN:
(Video courtesy Courier Journal) Not available on mobile devices
The Huskies entered the 2013 season looking to put two consecutive 5-7 seasons behind them and make a return to post-season play. But that isn’t going to happen and once again they are a struggling football team. And the program faces a total rebuild after coach Paul Pasqualoni and associate head coach George DeLeone were fired and offensive coordinator T.J. Weist took over as interim coach. The Huskies are last in the AAC in rushing offense (76.3) and second-to-last in total offense (293.3) and scoring offense (16.4). Weist has already made some big changes to his offense by simplifying some of their blocking schemes in an effort to kick start a running game that ranks dead last in the FBS, averaging just less than 46 yards. And he took the red shirt off highly touted freshman quarterback Tim Boyle. Boyle has run the Huskies no huddle offense for the last three games and has 506 yards with 5 interceptions. Leading the Huskies rushing attack is Lyle McCombs. A former freshman All-American McCombs has rushed for 466 yards and 4 touchdowns this season. Anchoring the receiving group is junior Geremy Davis who has 544 yards on the season and the other top target Shakim Phillips has 314 yards with 3 touchdowns on the season.
Louisville’s #2 ranked defense is looking to keep things rolling and after practice on Tuesday Preston Brown said the Louisville Defense pays lots of attention to the coveted Michigan State defense. “We’re shooting for that number 1 spot.” I don’t think they’ll have any hiccups in that quest this week.
The UCONN defense was one of the best in the country last season but moves into a rebuild mode of sorts. Although they may have the most talented line-backing corps in the AAC this season with consensus all big east first team Yawin Smallwood and his 79 tackles leading the way. He was named as a semi-finalist for the 2013 Butkus Award. The Huskies have given up just 78 points in the past 17 games in the first quarter, including the six games this season and 35 of those points coming in the last four games. Their group this year isn’t as good as the group last year but they are tough and have shown signs of a very good defense.
The Louisville offensive group had a week to get some of their nagging injuries healed up and Teddy and company will be hungry to get their shot to shine in the prime time again Friday night. They won’t push this UCONN group around I don’t think, but they shouldn’t have much of a problem with them either. I look for big numbers.
Yawin Smallwood Previews The Louisville Game:
The last time the Huskies were on national TV, they gave Michigan a scare on ABC before losing 24-21 at Rentschler in the third game of the season. UConn led 21-7 at the half. This Huskies group has nothing to lose and their interim coach is playing that card. He has tried to light a fire under this team and is hoping to use the nationally ranked Cards and national TV as their springboard into the off season. Coach T.J. Weist on using Louisville to motivate the team: “I think there is a lot of hype for it and a lot of players are fired up. It’s a nationally covered game and a Friday night game. I tell them the same things; if we can make more plays than them, we’re going to win the game. That’s got to be our focus. You have to use that hype, that momentum and intensity on the football field to make good decisions, to be physical, and to make plays. That’s what it comes down to.” They won’t go to a bowl game so the game Friday is a big one for them. If they can force turnovers they may have a shot. I don’t think it will happen but I do think they’ll use the electric atmosphere of this game to keep it interesting for a while. In the end Cards have too much talent on both ends of the ball and will prevail.
The Beak Prediction:
Louisville 45 UCONN 10