On a Saturday where Arkansas was caught looking ahead to Alabama and Wisconsin was exposed as not being very good, Louisville took care of its business in routine, if not always efficient, fashion.
Despite committing nine penalties and not being able to run the ball as they would have liked, the Cardinals cruised by FCS opponent Missouri State 35-7 and should make another small climb up the polls from their No. 23 spot.
Coach Charlie Strong was encouraged by his defense’s improvements from a season-opening 32-14 win over Kentucky but would have liked to have seen his offense display the same brand of execution which marked that performance.
“We never got in sync and we never got in rhythm,” he said of the offense. “What is frustrating is that we played hard but not smart. The preparation was not there. As a coaching staff, we did not get our team ready to play.”
That the first team offense was still toiling in the fourth quarter is an indictment of how things went, but it was hard to nitpick what quarterback Teddy Bridgewater did. He hit on 30-of-39 passes for 344 yards and two touchdowns, making him 49-of-60 through two weeks.
While the Bears were nowhere near as athletic as Kentucky, Louisville still looked more like an experienced defense should, limiting Missouri State to 249 total yards. It allowed just 3.2 yards per rush, a big improvement over the 4.9 Kentucky gathered a week ago.
Simply put, it was almost a perfect result for a coaching staff of a team like the Cards. They won easily and never really had to sweat but made enough mistakes to keep the coaching staff busy during film review sessions as they get ready for a visit from North Carolina.
“Expectations are going to continue to go up,” running back Senorise Perry said. “We just can’t buy into complacency. We can take the next jump, but we have to be more physical. We have to go out and play like the team we can be and execute.”