Week 10 November 4, 2006

I am not going to lie after Thursday night I didn’t find it to be a particularly great week of college football. Yes the LSU vs. Tennessee game was a good one, yes it was a huge win for Kentucky over Georgia and yes both Michigan and Ohio St were in relatively close games.

WVU and Louisville

I have not been a fan of West Virginia all season so last Thursday was great to watch for me. Take nothing away from White, Slaton and the wide receiver Renard, these are all very talented players with tons of speed and elusiveness. (I would love any of them to be at Notre Dame) However, this is a flawed team. When they get behind or are forced into long yardage situations they can not drop back and consistently complete passes for first downs. This has rarely been exposed during the 2006 season as WVU has not played anyone that could field similar athletes. The other thing that killed them was Steve Slaton’s poor performance and lack of heart in a big game. Slaton fumbled twice at the start of the second half, the second of which led to a Ville defensive score. Then he remained out of the game for several crucial series when his team needed him due to some sort of a hand injury. He later returned but it was too late at this point.

Why Rutgers will beat Louisville

The best part of Louisville’s win over WVU is that now the Big East has virtually no shot of getting into the National Title Game. Why you ask? Well because this Thursday in Piscataway, New Jersey the Cardinals dream season will come to a crashing end. I have spoken many times about how important emotion is in College Football. Louisville just played the biggest game in the history of their program and now they must go on the road to face a rested Rutgers team in exactly the same place. This game is the first meaningful football game in the state of New Jersey since the kick-off Classic ended a few years ago.
The Rutgers fans will be absolutely crazy and Rutgers will show the whole USA first hand how far they have come under Greg Schiano.

Let’s look at Louisville’s last 7 road games against major conference teams:

At Syracuse win 28-13 – Closer game than the score.
At Kansas St. win 24-6

Last season
At Uconn win 30-20
At Cincinnati win 46 -22
At WVU Loss 46-44
At South Florida loss 45-14
At Kentucky win 31-24 –UK fumbled inside the 5 yard line in the final moments.

My point is this is a much different squad away from Papa John’s field. We all know they score 50 something points a game at home…..again at home.


Thursday Night
Stolz came over to watch the Rutgers – Louisville game. He had taken Rutgers +7 in the LYA2. I let him read the first half of my blog before the game and he was with me. Pfeif on the other hand was confident that Louisville would win easily…..”By 20 points” he said. Of course he is picking at a 47% clip in the LYA so why should this worry me? I’ll tell you what worried me….The Ville’s first play from scrimmage looked exactly like they did last week against WVU. With sufficient time Brohm and the talented Louisville receivers will tear you apart. Luckily Greg Schiano is not like any other coach. He knows that Rutgers only chance is to pressure Brohm and keep him from getting into any kind of rhythm. Down 25 -7 Rutgers looks to be in serious trouble, but in 3 plays they make the score 25-14 going into halftime. I still believe in this Rutgers team. Their defense has not stopped Louisville but it certainly has provided more resistance then WVU did last week and I don’t see the Louisville Defense shutting down Rutgers.

Did you see Brian Brohm’s brother on the sidelines? He also happens to be his QB coach and every time Brohm comes off the field his brother is right there screaming at him. This doesn’t look like a pleasant relationship. If I remember correctly Brian Brohm is twice the QB his brother Jeff was…..

The second half is a completely different story than the first half. At one point Louisville has 4 straight 3 and outs. Rutgers is running the ball right at Louisville and their receivers finally step up and make some plays. Rutgers comes all the way back to tie the score at 25 and now Louisville faces a make or break drive. They get the ball with 7:30 left in the game and Brohm converts two key 3rd down passes against the attacking Rutgers D. With the game on the line Louisville doesn’t look like a team that wants to win this game. Rutgers stops the Ville on third down and now they will have their chance to win the game. Thanks to a huge 3rd and 6 screen pass to 5th year senior Matt Leonard the Scarlet Knights moves down the field controlling the line of scrimmage. It is unbelievable that Rutgers is about to be 9-0 and one of the top 10 teams in the country……but it is about to happen as Rutgers lines up for a very manageable field goal. The kicker Ito actually misses wide left but a Louisville defender is clearly offsides. Attempt #2 is right down the middle and now barring another kick-off return Rutgers is going to win the game. For some inexcusable reason they kick the ball deep to the same Ville player who earlier had a 100 return and who has been one tackle away all night. This is Rutgers night and nothing is going to ruin it.

Final score Rutgers 28 Louisville 25