U of L falls to UGA in Belk Bowl, 37-14

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Something was wrong Tuesday night, and Keith Kelsey noticed.

The University of Louisville football team had packed its nine wins and its heralded defense and its us-against-the-world mentality and traveled to Charlotte, to the 2014 Belk Bowl against the University of Georgia.

But when the 20th-ranked Cardinals took the field here at Bank of America Stadium, things that had come so naturally to them all season somehow seemed harder.

They dropped interceptions. They jumped offside on a critical fourth-down play. They couldn't get their substitutions into the game at the right times.

The tumbles led to a 37-14 thumping at the hands of UGA, Louisville's most lopsided loss since Oct. 24, 2009.

"Those are plays we'd usually been making all year," said Kelsey, a linebacker who was Louisville's second-leading tackler this season.

"We just let them off the hook."

It didn't help that Georgia (10-3) had freshman running back Nick Chubb, whose 266 rushing yards set a bowl-game record for UGA and made it awfully tough for U of L to get any traction after tying the game at 7-7 in the first quarter.

Chubb took 33 carries and averaged 8.1 yards per attempt, bullying his way to two touchdowns and setting another record with a Belk Bowl-best 82-yard run in the third quarter that set up Sony Michel's 2-yard scoring sprint.

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His rushing total surpassed that of every team Louisville faced this season, and he alone was responsible for the most rushing yards allowed by U of L since a 2012 loss at Syracuse.

"Nick Chubb is a good running back," Louisville linebacker Lorenzo Mauldin said. "He likes to break tackles and get yardage after contact. He reminds me of (Miami running back) Duke Johnson."

But like Kelsey said, U of L (9-4) just seemed off on Tuesday night. The Cards held Johnson to 90 yards in the season opener, and 45 of Johnson's yards came from two runs. Louisville did a bunch of simple things to keep Johnson in check, shedding blocks and corralling him toward the middle of the field.

They had no such luck against Chubb.

"He's hard to tackle and he's got great vision," U of L coach Bobby Petrino said. "There were a number of times where we had guys there to make the play, and he just made them miss or ran over them. It was a tremendous performance by him."

As Chubb ran wild, Louisville's offense couldn't stay on the field for sustained stretches.

The Cardinals scored on their second drive of the game, marching through 84 yards in nine plays. Surprise starting quarterback Kyle Bolin whistled a perfectly placed, 11-yard touchdown pass to Gerald Christian in the back of the end zone.

From there, Louisville's drive chart looked like an offensive coach's worst nightmare: Punt, punt, interception, turnover on downs, punt, interception, punt, touchdown, interception, punt.

"We never really got any consistency, and we weren't able to get into a rhythm," Petrino said.

Perhaps some of Louisville's rhythmic challenges came from a predetermined coaching decision to insert freshman quarterback Reggie Bonnafon into the game for U of L's fourth and fifth series.

Bolin's first time out didn't go so well — he was 1 for 3 for three yards. But his second drive — the one capped by the Christian touchdown — seemed to give the redshirt freshman some mojo. He was 4 of 5 for 58 yards, and even though Louisville punted on its next possession, Bolin said he'd begun to feel comfortable.

"Sometimes it hurts coming out and getting cold, but Reggie's a great player and he deserved to go in there and get an opportunity to play," Bolin said.

Petrino said both quarterbacks knew the plan coming into the game and should've been prepared for the swap. But Bonnafon was just 1 for 3 for 14 yards and an interception, and Bolin never rediscovered his moxie.

"It just didn't work out the way we would have liked to see have seen it," Petrino said.

Looking at the postgame box score, it's fair to think Louisville could've won Tuesday's bowl game had it avoided all those miscues.

Star wideout DeVante Parker had eight catches for 120 yards. Running back Brandon Radcliff hustled his way to 89 rushing yards and a touchdown.

Even Bolin, who'd only played two and a half quarters all season, threw for 300 yards and a touchdown.

But three interceptions between Bolin and Bonnafon, plus two dropped interceptions and seven painful penalties from the defense, did the Cardinals in.

They'd come here to Charlotte hoping to unravel another brand-name opponent in a bowl game. They'd already stunned Florida in the Sugar Bowl and bulldozed Miami in the Russell Athletic Bowl in the past seasons.

They weren't perfect in either of those games, and they didn't have to be here at the Belk Bowl, but they limited mistakes and made big plays to separate themselves from their opponents.

Georgia was the team that did all those things on Tuesday. The Bulldogs had 15 plays go for 10 or more yards. They converted 12 of their 18 third-down conversion attempts and they won the turnover battle.

They did everything Louisville expected to do. They did everything Louisville had (mostly) done in its nine wins this season.

And they left Charlotte with a 23-point win over a stunned U of L team that must regroup after graduating some of the successful players in program history.

"We should've never gone down like that," Radcliff said. "This whole offseason, this'll motivate the team. If not, there's something wrong with you."

Reach U of L beat writer Jeff Greer at (502) 582-4044 and follow him on Twitter (@jeffgreer_cj).