By Russ Brown
NKyTribune correspondent
Lamar Jackson had already made a strong case for the Heisman Trophy. Saturday afternoon in the Piedmont, the University of Louisville’s splendid sophomore quarterback may have sealed the deal.
More importantly, he may have saved the Cardinals’ season.
After No. 5 UofL (7-1, 5-1 ACC) took over against Virginia (2-6, 1-3) in Scott Stadium in Charlotesville trailing 25-24 with 117 seconds to play, Jackson cooly directed a 75-yard drive and capped it by delivering a soft, perfectly-placed 29-yard touchdown pass to Jaylen Smith with only 13 seconds left to enable the Cards to survive the Cavaliers’ upset bid, 32-25.
What was on the line for Louisville?
“Everything,” Jackson said. “Our whole season.”
Talk about pressure if you want, but Jackson apparently doesn’t know the meaning of the word.
“I just stayed calm,” he said. “Me being the leader of the offense, just kept a level head.”
So did Smith, who had just one previous reception in the game. He raced down the right sideline into the end zone and cradled the pass against man-to-man coverage by Virginia cornerback Juan Thornhill.
“He threw it to a spot where only I could get it and the DB had no chance to get it,” Smith said. “Those are the little things that make Lamar the best quarterback in the country.”
Actually, it’s the big things, the TD pass being one of them. On the game-winning drive, Jackson ran for 34 yards, including a drive-opening 18-yard carry, and passed for 34.
“We knew what we had to do, get a touchdown,” he said. “I knew what time it was. Just get in the end zone and get this victory.”
Jackson saw his TD pass as a no-brainer.
“Automatic,” he said. “As soon as the ball hit my hand, I looked at the coverage, and I was going to Jaylen right away. To me, that was the only place I could go. That was the best option for us to win the game. All that matters is we got the touchdown. It’s fun being the quarterback and the leader of the team. You have to stay focused. If you get out of your element and let the crowd get to you and let the defense harass you, you’re not going to be able to play the game.”
UofL coach Bobby Petrino said Jackson not only put the pass on the money, but had a clear understanding of Virginia’s defensive alignment on the play.
“They went blitz and came up and pressed (the receivers),” Petrino said. “We had another option and Lamar made the right decision. Everybody on the field knew on that play, the first option was to throw the fade down the sideline. Jaylen knew he was going to get the ball.”
Until then, Jackson hadn’t had his usual Heisman-worthy performance, and the UofL offense as a whole had wobbled. Jackson was sacked five times, threw an interception, was badly off-target on several other occasions and receivers dropped passes as the visitors fell behind by 10 points in the third quarter. But any struggles were forgotten in the euphoria of the dramatic finish. And Jackson still finished with 361 yards passing for four touchdowns and ran for 90 net yards after the sacks were subtracted.
“Lamar was really calm, confident and focused,” Petrino said. “He’s a great competitor. He was upset with himself over the early interception, but he came over and told the offense, ‘Hey, that’s on me, here we go, let’s get back in the game.”
All the Cards needed at the end to pull out the win was a field goal, but Jackson had other ideas.
“The whole game, we’d been letting them stop us,” he said. “I didn’t want to rely on the field goal crew. I just gave it the best shot I could.”
While Jackson was the day’s hero, UofL may not have been in position to stage a successful comeback without the defensive play of another sophomore on the other side of the ball, cornerback Jaire Alexander. He had two interceptions, one deep in Louisville territory and another deep in Virginia’s side of the field, the latter setting up Jackson’s 10-yard touchdown pass to Reggie Bonnafon to give the Cards the lead for the first time. Alexander now has a team-best five picks on the season.
“Sometimes playing defense is like playing receiver a little bit,” Alexander says. “Back in high school, when the ball is in the air, you’re taught to go get it. I kind of just have that mindset when the ball is in the air, to just go attack it.”
UofL relinquished a 24-17 lead in the final minutes and Petrino said the defense, which played without starting injured outside linebacker Devonte Fields, may have gotten fatigued late. On its go-ahead scoring drive, Virginia converted a long fourth down, then got a two-point conversion to take its 25-24 lead with 1:57 left.
Petrino, after opening his post-game press conference with, “Wow, that was hard. It took all day long,” said he didn’t have to say much to his offensive players before they launched their two-minute drill that won the game.
“We said, ‘OK baby, here we go,” Petrino said. “I was really impressed with our players and their energy of, ‘Hey, let’s go win this game.'”
Said Virginia’s first-year coach Bronco Mendenhall: “Tough football game. They made one more play than we did today. It was great coverage. There’s really nothing I could tell our corner to do any better than what he did.”
Added Cavs linebacker Micah Kiser: “We threw our best punch.”
But Louisville survived and now we’ll see how that close call and the second unimpressive performance in the last three games affects their College Football Playoff standing when the first rankings are released Tuesday. The Cards have struggled to beat two bad teams — Duke and Virginia — sandwiched around a blowout of Wake Forest.