This one had “trap game” written all over it for Louisville. Playing a Pitt team on the road, in bad weather conditions and with an injured offensive lineman in Renato Brown, whose injury occurred in warmups.

It got worse for the Cardinals when star running back Jawhar Jordan was reported to have some issues with his hamstring tonight, which limited his touches tonight. Louisville had to overcome adversity all night to escape with a win, and they couldn’t get the job done tonight.

Pitt hasn’t had much success this season starting 1-4 and naming a new starting quarterback Christian Veilleux (Vey-yuhr), making tonight his first start of the season. This also means they have nothing to lose and they would love to spoil the Cardinals quest to stay undefeated and that’s exactly what they did tonight.

Louisville started this game off strong with a touchdown to Chris Bell on their opening drive and after a strong start on defense, Pitt started to get a rhythm on offense, which resulted in them scoring a 46-yard touchdown to Bub Means.

The Cardinals answered back with another nice drive of their own, led by backup running back Isaac Guerendo, who had to step up tonight along with Maurice Turner to fill the big shoes of Jawhar Jordan. Louisville didn’t play its best football in the opening half, but they still were in control of the game, nonetheless. Pitt was a team whose offense was struggling the entire season, but somehow they were able to find success tonight and sustain drives that resulted in points.

Jack Plummer had a game to forget tonight, as he struggled all night to keep Louisville on the field. Plummer was driving Louisville down the field and got all the way to the red zone, but he fumbled the ball after a blindside defender came and strip sacked him. A huge miss for a Louisville team that needed every point they could get. Even after that, Louisville was up 21-14 at halftime.

The second half is where this game’s momentum shifted completely in Pitt’s favor. Louisville couldn’t get anything going at all and it was mainly due to turnovers. The defense wasn’t able to bail the offense out tonight, because they allowed 17 points in the second half. Pitt scored a total of 24 points in the second half though, the other seven coming from an 86-yard pick six that Jack Plummer wanted a penalty on, because a Pitt defender made contact with Jamari Thrash. He followed that drive with yet another interception off a tipped pass that hit the hands of Jimmy Calloway.

The Cardinals were in too tight of a game to commit multiple turnovers down the stretch, and this time they came back to bite them. Louisville shot them selves in the foot over and over again, capping the game off for Pitt. The Panthers couldn’t put them away until their last drive of the game, but their defense held Louisville’s offense in check for the last 30 minutes of the game so after the pick six, the score was out of reach. Louisville was without their best player tonight, but the best teams always find a way to win and Louisville was not that tonight.

The season is still looking great, despite the loss. Louisville will need to have a short memory for another ranked home matchup against a ranked opponent for the second time in 4 weeks.

Jeff Brohm and his team will have a week to rest and assess things and then they’ll host the Duke Blue Devils on Saturday October 28th at L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium (time TBD).