Brown: Louisville football has been haunted by mistakes. Beating UK could erase them all

The season hasn’t gone the way Louisville football wanted, but it will still be considered a success with a win over Kentucky in the Governor’s Cup.

All four of the Cardinals’ losses this season were by a touchdown or less. Their last-second loss to a last-place Stanford team effectively removed any statistical chance they could make the ACC championship game.

It took away their national shine, too, as they got booted from the College Football Playoff rankings and the Associated Press and US LBM Coaches polls.

Those facts sting.

Those things also pale in comparison to the past year of pain last season’s 38-31 loss to the Wildcats caused. The miscues still roll off U of L coach Jeff Brohm’s tongue as if he’s still making his postgame remarks from last season.

Louisville had arguably its best drive of the 2023 season — 75 yards in nine plays, consuming more than nine minutes to start the second half — erased in the 12 seconds it took UK’s Barion Brown to race 100 yards for a kickoff return touchdown.

The three turnovers stayed with Brohm, too.

“If you don’t win it, man, it puts a sour taste in your mouth, and we had that feeling last year,” Brohm said. “Man, it’s a bad taste, and it stays there for a long time. So you gotta work your butt off this week to try not to have that taste come back again.”

Louisville knows what disappointment feels like this season. A few plays here and there and it could have been a very different narrative heading into the final game. The Cards’ shortcomings that led to losses were all self-inflicted:

The Tyler Shough fumble and muffed punt that helped Notre Dame jump to a 21-7 lead in the first quarter.

The continued failure to convert short-yardage plays, including a fourth-and-1 with a chance to take a fourth-quarter lead on SMU.

The Isaac Brown fumble recovered in the end…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/brown-louisville-football-haunted-mistakes-101921610.html

Author : The Courier Journal

Publish date : 2024-11-27 10:19:00

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