LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Upon further review, things don’t look a whole lot better. The morning after Louisville’s 31-7 loss at Syracuse, the damage assessment continues. And the damage is extensive.

Consider: It was a 31-point loss at Syracuse that was the final straw that earned Bobby Petrino his $14 million pink slip. On Saturday night, Louisville lost by 24. And there were no excuses, no injuries, no adversity, just noise.

Consider: It was a more lopsided loss than the team suffered in last season’s opener against Ole Miss, a 19-point setback on a neutral field. And it came to a team the Cardinals had outscored 71-3 in the past 2 meetings.

How has Louisville's stock dropped? Consider: Louisville players launched the "Derby City NIL Club" football collective two Saturdays ago with the published goal of raising $50,000 per month. As of Sunday morning, the new goal is $2,500 per month, with $455 pledged. That's not even enough money for a ride home.

None of this bodes well for Scott Satterfield or his Louisville program. The momentum and positive vibes built in the offseason were drowned out by the jubilant cheers of 37,110 fans in the JMA Wireless Dome.

Syracuse revamped itself in the offseason. And from all initial appearances, Louisville did not. Matt Hasselbeck, the ACC Network analyst, made an astute first-half observation.

“Lance Thomas is the new offensive coordinator,” he said. “But this is still Satterfield’s offense.”

Just as sure as you’re going to get a steady diet of Alien Tape and Jimmie “JJ” Walker during ACC Network media timeouts, Louisville ran the ball when you thought it would run it, passed when you thought it would pass it. One wrinkle came on a wide-receiver pass by Braden Smith to Tyler Hudson. It covered 45 yards, matched Louisville’s longest pass play of the game, and set the Cardinals up with their ONLY trip into the Red Zone in the game.

That’s correct. One trip. Here’s how it went. First and goal at the 4. Malik Cunningham rushes 2 yards up the middle to the 2. False start penalty. Louisville is forced to call timeout out of a penalty. Next play, Cunningham is pressured on an incomplete pass. Third and goal from the 7. Cunningham scrambles back up the middle to the 2. Louisvile decides to go for it on 4th down, but the play is late, the Cardinals don’t break the huddle until 5 seconds are left on the play clock, and they have to burn a second timeout.

On the ensuing fourth-down play from the 2, Cunningham keeps it on the read option and is swallowed up.

And that was that. Syracuse took over, leading 17-7 with 5:10 until halftime. But for all intents and purposes, Louisville was done. It would not score again. It would venture into Syracuse territory only 3 more times, but would not pass the 35-yard line.

The problems were widespread. Louisville’s tackling was poor. A defense that returned 10 players with starting experience allowed 207 yards on the ground and 247 through the air. Syracuse converted more than half of its third downs. It picked off Cunningham twice and recovered a Cunningham fumble. Smith, a starting wideout, had more completed passes (1) than receptions (0).

Newcomer Tyler Hudson was a bright spot. He had 8 catches for 102 yards. Newcomer Tiyon Evans was a bright spot. The running back transfer from Tennessee had 13 carries for 91 yards and caught a pair of passes.

But against a Syracuse team that itself was self-defeating at times (18 penalties for 107 yards) Louisville never got itself going. This team returned 17 starters. It added seasoned transfers. For it not to be ready to play, or for it to get rattled on the road, falls heavily on Satterfield and his staff.

And just as the performance fell flat, so did the postgame explanations.

“Obviously we’re very disappointed in how we came out and played tonight,” Satterfield said. “We did not execute very well offensively, with some penalties that really hurt us. Getting down there in the end zone and not getting into the end zone really hurt us. You’ve got to be able to get there. A penalty took us back 5 yards there. We got it back to the 2 but did not punch it in. We only had 4 possessions in the first half, and 3 out of the 4 we had penalties that really hurt. And the other one, we scored. Defensively, missed a lot of tackles. (Sean) Tucker on the long screen pass was a one-on-one missed tackle. We had Shrader hemmed up several times, and third and long he gets out, scrambles, gets first downs, and again, had some missed tackles on that. Give credit to coach (Dino) Babers and particularly those two players, that made a lot of plays. They’re tough, hard runners to bring down. . . . And once we got down we were pressing a little too much. They made a great interception on a long post ball in the end zone that we were trying to take advantage of. Thought that was going to be a big play And the other interception was third and 18 and we just forced it. You’ve got to take the underneath route. So we’re disappointed. We wanted to play a lot better than this. We have to regroup now to head down to Central Florida.”

That game takes on added importance, given how Louisville just played. A Friday night home opener against Florida State for a team with an 0-2 record could be a subdued atmosphere, and cast a further pall over the season.

And that’s the problem with this kind of performance. It saps energy from the program. Maybe not in the locker room, but surrounding the program.

In the same way that getting an early lead like Syracuse did Saturday night allows a team to pin its ears back and be more aggressive, an early loss that shows little promise, especially coming off an optimistic preseason build-up, can have a depressing effect.

And Louisville football is nothing right now if not depressing.

No matter how good the recruiting class is, the promise it brings (if those players actually sign) may not be able to overcome the more-of-the-same feeling that Saturday night's opener delivered.

Satterfield now has a problem that it’s going to take more than Alein Tape to fix.

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