By Russ Brown
NKyTribune correspondent
LOUISVILLE–“It was a party.”
University of Louisville senior safety Josh Harvey-Clemons was talking about the jubilant celebration in the Cardinals’ locker room in the Howard L. Schnellenberger Fooball Complex around 3:45 Saturday afternoon. But by that time the party for UofL had actually been going on for a couple of hours.
And it isn’t over, not by a long shot, because the Cards should have a lot more to celebrate the rest of the season.
“We feel like we can do great things here,” Clemons says.
Hard to argue with Clemons’ opinion. After No. 10-but-rising fast UofL (3-0) had jumped on No. 2 Florida State (2-1) at the outset and kept the pedal to the medal the rest of the way in humiliating the Seminoles 63-20 on national TV and in front of a record Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium crowd of 55,632, the sky looks like the limit for this entertaining, talented and confident group.
College football analysts and fans may have snickered earlier when the Louisville players and their coach, Bobby Petrino, talked about their goal of competing for the national championship. Not now.
The beat-down of the Noles, who were as helpless against UofL as were Charlotte and Syracuse, stamped the hosts as a legitimate contender for one of the four playoff spots, and another electrifying performance by sophomore quarterback Lamar Jackson, this time against elite competition on a big stage, made him the Heisman Trophy favorite after starting the season at 100-1 odds.
After the game, former Virginia Tech star quarterback Michael Vick, Jackson’s favorite player, tweeted: “Lamar Jackson 5x better than what I was at V Tech. Enough said!”
Watching the Cards not only dominate, but manhandle, one of the two traditional powerhouses in the Atlantic Coast Conference, it wasn’t difficult to imagine the Cards — with their explosive offense and aggressive defense — playing for the title on Jan. 9 in Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla.
It was the signature win Petrino has been seeking after going 0-5 against ranked teams in his first two seasons, with four of those losses coming against Clemson and FSU and the other to Georgia in the 2014 Russell Athletic Bowl.
“It’s obvious that Louisville comes to play,” running back Brandon Radcliff says. “We’re a serious football team.”
The unexpected lopsided victory by the two-point underdog set up another huge showdown in two weeks, when UofL travels to Death Valley to take on the other ACC bully, Clemson (3-0, 0-0) on Oct. 1. If the Cards, who will tune up for that game against Marshall Saturday night in Huntington, W.Va., can beat the Tigers they will have a clear path to the Atlantic Division title and a berth in the ACC championship game against the Coastal champ.
“As soon as we got in the ACC we had a hump to get over,” Radcliff says. “And that was Florida State and Clemson. We know those are the big teams in the ACC, and we were looking forward to this. We will never quit or back down from anyone.”
“We know everything (in the ACC) has to go through Florida State and Clemson,” Petrino says.
So he and his staff spent hour upon hour during the winter, spring and summer analyzing the Noles (and probably Clemson, too) and preparing an early game plan.
“We spent a lot of time on it,” Petrino acknowledged. “You pick out a few games each year you’re going to focus on over the winter, over the spring and summer and make sure that you get well-prepared for it. And this was one of those games we picked out.”
It showed early and often. On Louisville’s first offensive play, Radcliff burst around left end for a 30-yard gain and UofL went on to score on Jackson’s 2-yard run. FSU was briefly in the game and actually looked as if it might make a run when Auden Tate caught a 20-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Deondre Francois to make it 14-10 early in the second quarter.
But the Cards responded by scoring three more quick touchdowns before halftime on their way to 49 unanswered points. In their meetings the last two years, the Noles had scored 35 points in the second half of each game to rally for victories, but the UofL defenders had vowed that wouldn’t happen this year and it didn’t. The Noles went down without a whimper.
Louisville sacked Francois five times, hurried him another five times, intercepted a pass and recovered a fumble while holding the visitors to just 284 yards total offense. Running back Dalvin Cook, who had rushed for nearly 300 yards in FSU’s two wins over UofL, was limited to 62 and a 3.4 average.
“Our defense did an unbelievable job of stopping the run, pressuring the quarterback and getting the ball back for the offense,” Petrino said. “Just played with a lot of great effort and toughness and concentration.”
Clemons said defensive coordinator Todd Grantham emphasizes being very aggressive with the opposing quarterback, the Cardinal defenders could see that they had Francois rattled and they smelled blood.
“Coach Grantham loves to get after the quarterback and we were getting after him all day,” Clemons said. “And when we noticed he was getting rattled we kept coming and kept coming. That’s our mindset as a defense. You could tell he was rattled when the blitz was there but it wasn’t all the way there he starts shuffling his feet a little bit or tucking the ball too early and stuff like that. We noticed that, we smelled it and went after him.”
While Jackson was again the star of the show, accounting for 362 yards and five touchdowns while scoring four rushing TDs on runs of two, 14, one and 47 yards, totaling 147 yards on the ground and passing for another 216 yards and a touchdown, his supporting cast was brilliant too.
Besides the defensive effort, the offensive line protected Jackson well and opened running lanes for him, Radcliff, who finished with 118 yards, and third-string running back Jeremy Smith, who scored on two short runs. And the special teams also did their part, with the highlight being a 69-yard punt return for a touchdown by sohomore Jaire Alexander, who also had another return for 61 yards before a cramp enabled him to get caught at the FSU 17-yard line.
UofL controled both lines of scrimmage and had receivers running wide open all day, James Quick leading the way with seven catches for 122 yards.
“We practiced hard, worked hard and our guys took the field with a lot of confidence,” Petrino said. “I really like the way we went about our business and everything leading up to it. You can see they have confidence in each other and they trust each other, and that’s what gives you a chance to be a good team.”
Not surprisingly, it was the most points UofL had ever scored against a ranked team — surpassing the 27-point margin in the 34-7 win over No. 25 Alabama in the 1991 Fiesta Bowl — and the most against an ACC team since beating North Carolina 69-14 in 2005. It was also Florida State’s worst loss in 35 years and the most points ever surrendered by a Seminole team.
Don’t expect a letup from the Cards’ offensive juggernaut any time soon.
“We aren’t taking our foot off the gas, and that goes for anybody we’re playing,” Jackson says.
By midseason, the Cards could be looking at a college football trifecta: a No. 1 ranking, Jackson as a prohibitive Heisman favorite and an excellent shot at the playoffs.