– The Beak Preview: Louisville vs. Florida International University
This Saturday is where the rubber meets the road for our Louisville Cardinals. Literally. The Cards leave to comforts of Papa Johns Cardinal Stadium and take to the road for a month. The road has been very good to Coach Strong’s teams as the Cards are 7-4 and were 4-2 last season with a very impressive win on the road at West Virginia. It will be very important for them to continue that success during the next 4 weeks.
Coach Strong: “This next month is going to be a really good challenge for us,” “We are going to see just how strong of a football team we are.”
The Cards have been rolling as they take a 3-0 record down to Florida to face the FIU Golden Panthers Saturday. Ironically, the last time these two teams played FIU beat the Cards 24-17 to go to 3-0 on the season. The Cards will bring in an offense that has had its way over the past three weeks as Teddy Bridgewater is currently leading the nation completing his attempts at a nearly 90 percent rate while Senorise Perry and Jeremy Wright are ranked third and fourth respectively in the Big East in rushing yards, combining for 528 yards this season. FIU enters the game off a road loss and have a 1-2 record. They are lead by senior running back Darian Mallary who has scored a team-best five touchdowns this season, including back-to-back games with two rushing TD’s.
The FIU football program has enjoyed success during Mario Cristobal’s tenure as coach. When he arrived at FIU, he inherited a program that had never posted a winning season and didn’t have a weight room or meeting rooms. Now coming off back-to-back bowl appearances, the Golden Panthers boast solid facilities and will play this season in a newly expanded stadium that seats 28,000.
Coach Cristobal on his team: “I think we have a very well-rounded, motivated, explosive football team that really wants to get things started,” Cristobal said. “They’re a very humble team that knows that this conference is as crazy as it gets. It is anybody’s to win. And we want to make sure that we’re in it, and that we’re in it to win it.”
Even though this will be considered a road game, it will be a homecoming of sorts for some of the Cardinal squad as 34 of the 104-man roster are from the Sunshine State. . 21 of the 34 Floridians hail from the South Florida tri-county Region. Miami Northwestern will be a featured high school as both teams have a combined 12 players from that high school on their rosters. This will add a new dimension to the competition as some of these guys played with each other in high school.
Coach Strong: “It will be nice to have the extra fan support while away but this is a business trip.”
Louisville will have revenge on their minds Saturday as this two game series with FIU ends. No doubt in my mind that Teddy QB and company want to return the favor of that loss they suffered last year on national TV to the Panthers. They will also have that dismal second half performance last weekend fresh on their minds. I look for our Cards to have a big day and they will roll to their first 4-0 start since 2006.
The Beak Prediction:
Louisville 38 FIU 14