The House of Blue

Interested to see what you guys have to say.

Admittedly, I am not as up to speed on Louisville as I am UK. Nothing scientific or fancy here, but I think it will be a close game. ESPN audience will have folks fired up to have a good showing.

Not sure of the line, but my guess is Cards are favored by a TD. If that is the case, I think UK covers but might not win on the road.

What say you?

No kidding, the historical rewrite that so many have done over the last year is amazing. All the blame put on Morgan Newton for losing the game when the sad truth is that performace has been the only time in 3 seasons where he looked like the stud recruit we hoped he would be for us.

golfnut51, are you misremembering Western Kentucky as being UL or something?

Yeah - I do think that is a big line. I know that UL plays in the Big East and there is hype for them to win it...but that doesn't necessarily make them a 2 TD favorite over their SEC instate rival. I just don't see it. UK may not win, but I think our Defense comes to play and our offense will have a few surprises.

Going to be a 21-17 or 24-21 type of game imo....and really, I'm personally not set on UL beating us this year. I just haven't bought into the UL hype this year like I have in years past when it was warranted (Brohm years with Petrino as coach).

Yeah - Morgan actually played pretty well against UL last year. Gotta give him props were they're due. I even remember early in the game a dropped pass or two where our WR had nothing but the endzone in front of them, but of course, they dropped the ball. I feel like Roark had one of those.......

Pretty sure that most of the dirtybird writers picked ul to beat UK on the Final Four last year.
UK made too many mistakes in last years game. Fumbles and then just dropping TD passes. I look for this years games to be a battle. But I think one teams over confidence might hurt them early in the game and that might be the difference. Cats 24-Birds 21

We seem to have less homers like Howie around on message boards and in the media. Louisville people tend to have the little brother complex, especially Howie.

WR position killed us in last years game along with the DBs on the defensive side. I have no idea how many times they lost containment, especially when Bridgewater entered the game. He was the difference with his scrambling and hitting a couple of wide open UL WRs. Talent wise, to me, these two teams are dead even.

All those problems we had last year, Morgan getting sacked, only rushing for 5 net yards, all that can be directly contributed to our Oline being injured. They wouldn't healthy during camp thru the biggest part of the season.

If we stay healthy up front till the first game I believe we will run UL into the ground. They had a hard time stopping us with a rag-tag line and receivers dropping passes everywhere, I just don't think they're ready to get hit in the mouth like we're gonna do.

We didn't play overall well on either side of the ball. Our rushing totals was a +35 yards after losses for a 1.1 yd. average per rush. And after all of that we were driving the ball for the tie when we had the big fumble so ul shouldn't be all full of themselves over that game.

Roark dropped a TD in the endzone and we had to settle for a FG in the first quarter. Putting the UL loss on Newton alone is not warranted. As for Burden's play? Burden and Mosely were both picked on a bit because UL's rushing attack brought our safeties up in the box and allowed three big plays for touchdowns. Neither of them were superstars, but both were left on an island in a new defense with no safety support. Virtually anyone would have been picked on.

As for what I think will happen? It really depends. If Cobble/Simpson are stronger at the point of attack than McDermott/Guy were last year, our rush defense fares much better. If that happens, we get some pass rush, and our defensive secondary doesn't give up big plays, we can win. Of course, this assumes the offense executes at a much higher level than it did last year.

UL has three scholarship DTs with experience to play two spots. If we're able to keep the tempo high and keep UL's defense on the field, I think we'll have success rushing the ball later in the game. If the TEs can have enough success to hold the LBs at 7 yards, and find another WR or two to rely on, and our offense can move the ball.

UL could be the most overrated team in football this year.

I want the line to be 14.5. Easy money. and i want the hype on them and not us. That was one reason we lost last year. We hyped the team up like we were going to waltz over UL and we didn't. Now the tables are turned, with UL being over hyped. The result will too if we keep it humble and hushed. We know we are good, don't brag or trash talk with them, we need to prove it on the field. BTW, although it doesn't matter, they are only marginally better on NCAA 13 and our front 7 kills their OL, TEs, and Backs every game i've played.