Louisville's victory doesn't ease concerns

MIAMI – A 34-3 win typically brings satisfaction, a blowout in football terms that spells a positive end to a team's week.

But the University of Louisville's Saturday victory at Florida International did little to extinguish some of the team's chief concerns, and judging by the message-board and social-media chatter on Saturday night and Sunday morning, the die-hards in the fan base weren't exactly thrilled by the win, either.

Another sharp defensive outing, paired with some big plays that the Cardinals so sorely needed, helped Louisville overcome a sloppy overall performance on offense.

The Cardinals' offensive line committed four false starts, all on the right side of the line, and allowed four sacks and nine tackles for loss. Quarterback Will Gardner lost two fumbles and once again had several passes batted down by an opposing pass rusher.

It took two impressive individual efforts by James Quick on 37- and 74-yard touchdown catches and another 39-yard reception to jolt Louisville's offense to life in the second quarter.

Those three plays accounted for 150 of Louisville's 291 yards of total offense in the first half, which is when U of L scored most of its points.

"We're still not clicking where we need to be," U of L coach Bobby Petrino said.

"That's something we were looking for — to try to get some big plays and get the ball down the field a little bit. We were able to get that done, so that's a positive. We're just looking to be more consistent offensively."

Louisville (3-1) once again opened a game with a sharp scoring drive. The Cardinals have scored a touchdown on their opening series two weeks in a row, and they've scored on one of their first two drives in each of their four games.

But like they did on the ensuing first-half possessions against Miami and Virginia, the Cards struggled moving the ball against FIU.

After scoring on the first drive, U of L ran 22 plays for 84 yards, or 3.8 yards per play, punting three times and losing a fumble.

"Offensively we came out and executed early and then we sputtered a little while," Petrino said. "They were really playing a kamikaze defense, where they were running linebackers through, trying to not allow us to run the football."

The fumble was particularly deflating. It was the first time all season that Louisville had not scored when it had possession inside an opponent's 20-yard line, and it cut short a seven-play, 62-yard drive.

Before the fumble, Gardner was 7 of 14 for 118 yards. He'd missed some throws in the game's early stages, but he was in the middle of engineering a second first-half scoring drive when FIU's Mike Wakefield had a free shot at Louisville's 6-foot-5 quarterback and knocked the ball out of his hands.

It seemed unfair that Gardner got the blame for the fumble, but as Petrino explained last week, that's the "nature of the position." His struggles in other areas made it easier for critics to fault him for the two lost fumbles, both of which came from blown pass protection.

"I thought he did some really good things," Petrino said. "He missed a few (throws). He missed a few run checks that we would've liked to see him do."

Saturday was an important win for two reasons: It was Louisville's first victory away from home, and it jolted the Cardinals back into the win column after a frustrating 23-21 loss at Virginia last week.

Yet the two biggest areas of concern — pass protection and quarterback play — either stayed the same or got worse compared with previous games.

Petrino and his staff won't fully know how the offense did until they review film of the game, a process that usually begins on the trip home.

But the initial thought from watching the game Saturday is that more changes to the offensive rotations likely are on the way.

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