Louisville quarterback Malik Cunningham.jpeg

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — For the Louisville football team, Virginia was the kind of opponent the Cardinals had to beat to confirm the improvement they’ve made since last season.

Had to.

The Cavaliers can pass like crazy. But they huff and puff trying to run the football. Virginia won three of its first five but had not beaten anybody with a winning record. 

And remember this: Since Louisville joined the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2014, when the Cardinals have been good they have beaten Virginia. The Cavaliers were winless in Cardinal Stadium.

Not this time.

The Cards spit out a 17-point lead in the fourth quarter and lost, 34-33. The winning touchdown came on a 1-yard pass with 22 seconds to play. Louisville’s James Turner pulled a 49-yard field goal wide left on the game’s final play.

This was the kind of game Louisville has been conditioned to lose the Virginia in basketball, not football. One of those "How did this happen?" moments. It happened because Virginia ran 24 more plays and dropped 522 yards on Louisville. 

Virginia has won back to back games on missed field goals in the final seconds. Louisville has lost back to back games it should have won. It's been that kind of season. 

"A couple of guys had their heads down," U of L halfback Hassan Hall said. "We've just got to come back tomorrow and go to work."

"You get up three scores and you feel pretty good about it," U of L coach Scott Satterfield said. "There are a bunch of plays you look back at ... the games are really crazy coming down to the last play the way they are. We've got to find a way to make one more play."

Many were defensive plays, especially Virginia's nine third-down conversions as well as a pair on fourth downs in the fourth quarter.

The Cards are now a .500 team (3-3) that is giving its fan base indigestion nearly every weekend. Three of their last four games were not decided until the final drive, and the last two were games that got away. 

This time it was equal opportunity slippage. The offense stopped scoring touchdowns in the fourth quarter. The defense let Virginia score three fourth-quarter touchdowns on drives of 73 yards or more.

The Cavaliers ran 28 plays to Louisville's 15 in the fourth quarter. Good luck trying to grind out a win when your offense can't stay on the field and your defense can't get off. 

The defense forced Virginia into a fourth-and-6 as well as a fourth-and-9 in the final two minutes. At winning time, Virginia made winning plays -- and you wonder if a loss like that loss will keep the Cardinals out of bowl game this season. 

The Cards defense had no answer for Virginia’s Brennan Armstrong, the best left-handed quarterback I’ve seen on this field since Dave Ragone. Armstrong completed 40 of 60 passes for 488 yards and three scores.

"We knew it was going to be a challenge because of their passing game," said Louisville defensive back Kenderick Duncan. "We had multiple third down opportunities where we should have gotten off the field.

It was a jarring meltdown that left 40,320 fans in Cardinal Stadium in considerable disbelief.

"That was tough," Satterfield said.

The Cards surged to a 30-13 lead by scoring 20 points in the third quarter. They watched the Cavaliers cut the lead to a field goal.

Malik Cunningham and the offense responded with a 40-yard field goal by James Turner with 2:22 to play. Credit Turner with four field goals, tying the school record. But he missed one from 45 yards on the final play of the first half as well as the kick on the game's final play.

"We're not mad at him," Duncan said. "We had a lot of plays we could have made as a team."

It still wasn’t enough. Not with Armstrong running the Virginia offense. He needed only 2 minutes to move the Cavaliers 75 yards for the winning score. He completed four passes of 16 yards or more, including two on fourth down.

"You've got to grab on to something sometimes," Satterfield said. "That's momentum. I know there are a lot of things we could have done better."

Hassan Hall ran the ball like somebody from Virginia insulted him. This was Hall’s 39th game as a Cardinal — and the first time Hall ran for more than 100 yards, finishing a bruising 162 on 14 carries.

Hall showed power, taking on ball carriers in the middle of the Virginia defense. Hall showed speed, dancing through and around the Virginia linebackers and secondary. 

Hall earned only one carry in the first half. There was nothing memorable about it. He fought for every inch of the two yards he gained in the middle of the Virginia defense.

That changed in the third quarter. Hall busted a 52-yard run through the middle of the Virginia defense barely two minutes into the quarter. He rumbled for three more gains of 10 yards or more in the next 10 minutes. Hall exceeded his career best — 79 yards against Miami two seasons ago — before the third quarter was complete. 

The Louisville defense also did respectable work — until the fourth quarter. Armstrong was averaging nearly 400 yards per game passing, tops in the ACC and second best in the nation.

Armstrong, a lefty, came out firing Saturday, punishing the Cards with 171 passing yards and a touchdown in the first quarter. 

Louisville slowed him in the second quarter and third, but this is a guy who threw for more than 400 yards in three of his first five games. Make it four of six. After passing for 101 yards in the second quarter and 30 in the third, Armstrong operated at high octane in the fourth quarter, completing 14 of 21 for 183 yards and two touchdowns.

"He's a very accurate passer," Satterfield said. "He throws a very catchable ball. He's a guy who just believe that he can make plays."

It was a 3-yard strike from Armstrong to Jelani Woods with less than 8 minutes to play that cut Louisville’s 30-13 lead to 30-27. The Cards responded with a field goal. But this was a game that demanded touchdowns.

Virginia got one. Louisville did not.

"This really hurts as a team," Duncan said. "We know how hard we worked."

Louisville has a week to regroup, heal, rest and watch football -- and figure out what went wrong. When Satterfield’s team returns to Cardinal Stadium to play Boston College on Oct. 23, it will be one of four home games remaining on the schedule. The road trips will be to North Carolina State and Duke. 

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