Doug Beaumont finally catches the first TD of his Louisville career and Charlie Strong his first win as a head coach. Feels good, doesn't it?
Louisville scored all 23 of their points in the 2nd quarter, including Doug's 42 yard TD grab. Froman was an average (expected?) 15-23 for 213 yards, with 1 TD and 1 INT. The pick six Froman threw could be blamed partly on Andrell Smith's route running and partly on Froman staring him down a couple seconds too long. If he can avoid big turnovers, I still believe Froman is our best game manager option at QB. Would we still like to see what Dominique Brown can do for us? Yes. Is the offensive execution underwhelming at times? Obviously.
The bright side on offense is Bilal Powell's continued emergence at running back and Victor Anderson's explosive returns on special teams. Several times last season, Trent Guy was our lone gamebreaking threat so it's nice to have two potential stars step up this early in the season. The field is certainly big enough to share with Josh Bellamy as well, who we all hope gets healthy enough to return to his hyped offseason form next week as the Cards travel to Corvalis to play a talented Oregon State squad.
Huge credit to the Cardinal defense, who played like men today. The Cards recorded 8 total sacks, including four by DE Rodney Gnat, the most by a Cardinal since Elvis Dumervil recorded 6 in 2005 against Kentucky. Vance Bedford's defense only conceded one touchdown against EKU which is a huge confidence-builder for such a young side. The late injury to Johnny Patrick was very concerning. Need him. Badly.
Charlie Strong's post-game press conference: