The similarities between 2012 and 2006 have been discussed in hushed whispers around these parts for awhile now. A good season the year before that ended in a bowl loss to an ACC team where our young QB kept getting pounded but kept getting back up? Happened in 2005 and 2011. Opening game with UK? Check. Big Thursday night road game towards the end of the season at Rutgers? Check. Big ACC opponent on national ABC at 3:30 on the third week of the season.
Check.
The players and coaches have been talking about this game as a statement game, just like in 2006, and no one play made more of a statement than the Brohm-to-Mario TD. Go ahead, without even trying you can fill in this sentence in your head, can't you? "Play action. Brohm, deep middle, he's got a man and it's....." To relive it, over and over, go to 3:19 in the video.
Yup. Still never heard or seen PJCS so loud. It was just absolute bedlam. Because with that play, we took the Jump. We belonged with the big boys. That play, along with the Bush run against UK, are the two plays you think of when you think Louisville football under Bobby Petrino.
So which player will make the statement this game? What kind of play? DeVante Parker making a leaping catch over two guys in the endzone? Teddy going 20-25 with 2 TDs and no INTs? Maybe Dom Brown trucking someone on the way to the end zone. Maybe it's on defense - I can see Calvin F'in Pryor making a hit-stick tackle and finally getting some national recognition.
What say you? Who on this year's team makes a statement play like Mario? Or do the 2012 Cardinals make a statement as a team?