By Russ Brown
NKyTribune columnist
LOUISVILLE — Louisville’s football team will get its 2016 season underway when it travels to Syracuse Friday night for a game under the lights in the Carrier Dome.
Oh wait, you say the Cardinals have already made their season debut? Well, sort of. Now it’s time to get the campaign underway for real.
As exciting and stress-free as it was for the sellout crowd of 53,127 in Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium, Thursday night’s entirely predictable 70-14 romp past Charlotte was nothing more than a glorified scrimmage, coming against a hapless team competing in only its second year in the Football Bowl Subdivision and an outfit USA Today tagged as the worst team in the FBS.
Syracuse, although not one of the toughest opponents on the schedule, will obviously provide a better measurement, and we’ll know even more about the Cards’ long-term fate after the three-game stretch that follows, with a home appearance against No. 4 Florida State, and visits to Marshall and No. 2 Clemson.
And in case you’re wondering about future opening foes that might fall into the same cupcake category, UofL’s first opponents the next three seasons represent a quantam leap, including Alabama in 2018 in Orlando, Fla., and Notre Dame in PJCS in 2019. Next year, the Cards will play Purdue in Indianapolis. The Boilermakers, of course, aren’t in the same league as the latter two, but are still eons better than Charlotte.
As for now, it’s difficult to draw any conclusions or consider any questions answered because the 49ers were ill-prepared to offer any resistance on either side of the ball.
Still, it was another impressive showing for sophomore quarterback Lamar Jackson — his third in a row — and the Cards took care of business and did what a No. 23/19-ranked team should do to an outmanned opponent: dominate from beginning to end. How lopsided was it? With 6 1/2 minutes left in the second quarter, Louisville had already covered Vegas bookies’ 40-point spread and could have named the score the rest of the way.
Jackson, picking up where he left off against Texas A&M in the Music City Bowl last December when he had 453 all-purpose yards, was once again the show. He accounted for eight touchdowns, passing for six and rushing for two as UofL rolled up 663 yards of total offense. He completed 17-of-23 passes for 286 yards and rushed 11 times for 119 yards. And that was in the first half; he didn’t take a snap in the second half, with Kyle Bolin taking over to start the third quarter.
Jackson, who connected with 12 different receivers, broke Chris Redman’s 1998 record for combined rushing and passing touchdowns and tied Redman’s mark for passing TDs against East Carolina in ’98.
Of distributing the ball, Jackson said, “That’s a quarterback’s job. Know every target and try to get everybody the ball. Then you don’t have a lot of unhappy players. I feel like everyone can make any play any time. Just try to hit everybody.”
Although the game was only shown on regional TV (Fox Sports Ohio), the hype around Jackson as a darkhorse Heisman Trophy candidate is bound to pick up steam. That is, if he comes up with another big game at Syracuse. In a postgame call, Jackson was interviewed by ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt on “SportsCenter” and ESPN reported that Jackson was the first player in modern college football to throw for six TDs and run for two more in the first half of a game and only the second overall (Rice QB Chase Clement did it in 2007 against UTEPT, but in a full game).
UofL’s offensive line looked shaky early, forcing Jackson out of the pocket, but he made them pay and capped a 75-yard drive on the first possession with a 36-yard touchdown run. After that, the floodgates opened and UofL wound up scoring on eight of the first nine times it had the football.
“I was trying to get after them fast,” Jackson said. “I had to calm down because I was too hyper at first.”
“I thought Lamar really settled in after he scrambled around a couple times and made some plays with his legs,” UofL coach Bobby Petrino said. “Maybe he wasn’t having his vision downfield like he should have early, but I thought the game was great for him to be able to concentrate and focus and come to the sideline and take coaching and then go out there and do it.”
Petrino said a couple of Jackson’s first-quarter runs were called, either handing the ball off or keeping it, and a couple were “scrambling around and making plays.” Then, in the second quarter Petrino said Jackson took the right drops, receivers or running backs were where they were supposed to be and the QB delivered the ball on time and accurately.
“He can make you look bad in a hurry,” Charlotte coach Brad Lambert said. “He’s a heck of a player.”
As you might expect, Jackson insisted he didn’t know about breaking and tying Redman’s records and doesn’t care.
“I don’t try to dwell on anything like that; I just try to win games,” Jackson said. “Try to put me team in a good position.”
Jackson was asked what he is going to do for an encore next week and replied,” “I don’t know yet. Just, when the game comes I’ll deliver.”
He added, “We haven’t made our statement yet. When we do, it’s going to be pretty crazy.”
Of course, Florida State and Clemson will have a lot to say about that, and perhaps someone should remind Jackson that the Cards are 0-4 against those two juggernauts since joining the ACC.