BOZICH | Louisville improves but not enough to beat Notre Dame | Sports

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Tony Dungy and Mike Tirico form part of NBC’s A-Team of football announcers. When they watched Louisville battle Notre Dame on Saturday, they saw what many have observed while watching the Cardinals this season:

A team better than its 1-3 record.

"Louisville is better than their record shows," Dungy said, several times. "We knew that by watching the tape."

Check that. Dungy, Tirico and America saw a team that is better than its unexpected 1-4 record after the Fighting Irish survived, 12-7, at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Ind.

"Our guys came out and played hard and did a lot of great things we can build on," U of L coach Scott Satterfield said.

"This game we kind of brought that swagger back," U of L defensive back Kei'Trel Clark added.

Louisville did not have to play perfect football to beat Notre Dame. Satterfield's team could have pulled off an upset of the No. 4 Fighting Irish by playing reasonably well on both sides of the ball.

Defensively, the Cardinals did that. U of L limited Notre Dame to 339 yards, which was 136 under the Irish's three-game average. Linebacker Monty Montgomery was terrific, leading Louisville with 13 tackles, including a pair of sacks.

Offensively, they did not. They managed only 234 yards, 139 passing and 95 running. Javian Hawkins was limited to 51 yards on 15 carries, his lowest total in 19 games, a streak that stretches back to 2018, his freshman season.

Louisville ran 45 plays, converting on three of nine third downs. Satterfield said it was the fewest plays that he can remember one of his teams running in his career.

Typically, the Cards will run the first 10 plays that Satterfield scripts during the first quarter. On Saturday, Satterfield said Louisville did not run the 10th play on the script until the opening play of the third quarter.

Notre Dame played a ball-control game, possessing the ball for more than 36 minutes, including a 14-play drive that killed the final 7:55.

"We were looking forward to this game," quarterback Malik Cunningham said. "Except for the mistakes, we were right there in that game."

Louisville was better than it played against Pittsburgh or Georgia Tech, but the Cardinals were not good enough to defeat Notre Dame.

Favored by 17, the Irish huffed and puffed before they finally secured their 22nd straight home victory by powering for a first down inside the Louisville 20-yard line in the final 90 seconds.

"I don't even know if aesthetically we looked bad," Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said. "We controlled the line of scrimmage. We controlled the time of possession. We had, I think, one or two penalties. We didn't turn the football over.

"I've coached a lot of games over 30 years (and) I don't know if I've been in one quite like this."

The Cardinals went to South Bend to win — not to make the Irish sweat. Louisville couldn’t score in the first half but stuffed the Notre Dame running game and limited the Irish to two field goals.

Before Saturday, Notre Dame had the second-best running game in the Atlantic Coast Conference, averaging nearly 271 yards per game and 6.3 yards per carry. Against U of L, Notre Dame managed 4.7.

"You have to be impressed by (the Louisville) secondary," Dungy said in the second quarter. "There haven’t been many open receivers."

The Cards scored the first points of the second half, moving ahead 7-6. Cunningham completed a solid 13-play, 83-yard drive with a 1-yard TD pass to Marshon Ford.

Satterfield shocked Notre Dame by dialing up an onside kick to feed the momentum. He said that he sensed Notre Dame was not expecting the move. And he was right.

Louisville appeared to recover the kick, but the play was overturned because of a penalty. A U of L player blocked somebody on the Notre Dame receiving team before the ball traveled the required 10 yards.

Notre Dame scored on its next possession. Quarterback Ian Back cut back into the left edge of the end zone to complete a 13-yard scoring run with 3:43 to play. The Irish went for two — and failed.

Nobody scored the rest of the day. Louisville labored on offense, managing 13 first downs. Although the Cards completed 17 of 22 passes and played their first turnover-free game, they again struggled with big plays.

Their longest pass was 29 yards from Cunningham to Tutu Atwell. Their longest run was 28 yards by Javian Hawkins.

"That's a really good football team," Cunningham said. "Very disciplined and very good up front. ... the chances we did get, we want to execute a lot better."

"We've got to do a better job on first down," Satterfield added. "We just didn't have as many big plays as we would have liked. Us not turning the ball over was awesome. By us not turning the ball over we gave ourselves a chance to win."

The trip to northern Indiana was the third consecutive road game for Satterfield’s team. The Cardinals return to Cardinal Stadium next Saturday to host Florida State.

The Seminoles were scheduled to play North Carolina on Saturday night. They are 1-3 with their only victory over Jacksonville State, a program from the Football Championship Series Subdivision. Florida State lost at Notre Dame, 42-26, Oct. 10.

"I feel like we have to prove something every week," Montgomery said.