CRAWFORD | James Madison brought the house, then Louisville changed the locks | Sports

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- They brought the house.

They brought the garage, the Ring cam, the kitchen sink and the Wi-Fi password.

James Madison didn’t just come to Louisville to play a football game Friday night. They came to make a statement. To leave a card that said, “You know, if realignment happens again, remember who came in and beat ya boys.”

They had beaten the last two ACC teams they’d played. They believed Louisville was going to be the third.

This date was circled. They’d scouted everything.

Even the stadium soundtrack. When Joker & the Thief played at the start of the fourth quarter, they were bouncing to it like it was their fight song.

Their first play was a double pass. Their defense? Cover Zero. All-out (or all-in), blitz the mailman, take no prisoners.

They kept eight in the box, and a ninth holding gasoline and matches.

They brought the house.

But still lost the deed.

An adjustment period

The thing about selling out is, it usually means you make a big splash — or wind up with your name on a clearance rack.

For most of the night, it looked like the Dukes might be cashing in. Louisville had trouble adjusting to the pressure, the speed, the ambush.

Jeff Brohm knew it. He admitted it. He wore it like a borrowed jacket.

“That's on me for not having a better plan,” he said. “We went to some things. Had a couple miscues in the checks. They sat on a few routes, then all sudden, you're scared to throw it short. You got to throw it deep, and then next thing you know, you're getting hit. So, I think we’ve just got to have a better plan and answer for that. … They were selling out quite a bit. This was a huge game for them, and they were going to bring the house.”

They were also bringing anxiety. Louisville’s sideline looked like a Google Maps reroute.

Defense made the difference

But JMU, for all its preparation and element of surprise, could not make the big plays it needed. It all might’ve worked, if not for those meddling kids playing defense for Louisville. If not for Clev Lubin being Louisville’s home security representative. He blew up a lot of stuff, made 10 tackles, had 1.5 sacks, including one in the end zone that caused a fumble that Louisville recovered in the second half to take the lead for good.

Louisville got beat up. It got bogged down. It got blitzed into oblivion. And it still won.

“We stuck together the entire game,” Brohm said.

You can call it culture. You can call it survival. You can call it duct tape and a 78-yard run by Isaac Brown.

But it worked. Eventually, the guys Louisville counts on to make big offensive plays made them. Moss found Chris Bell for a 64-yard TD pass. Isaac Brown got a sliver of daylight on one play and did what he does.

JMU coach: "I don't feel like they won."

JMU had a lot riding on this game. And the result didn’t go down too well.

JMU coach Bob Chesney didn’t sound beaten. He sounded robbed.

“That's a good team,” Chesney said. “They're going to win a lot of games. We all understand that. But at the same point in time, this is a game that we lost. I don't feel like they won. I feel like we lost this game, and that's on me.”

He sounded like someone who brought a big pot of chili to the cookoff then spilled it before he could get it to the judges.

“There’s just stuff we’ve got to clean up,” he said.

The truth is, JMU came into this game like a program ready to punch up. For most of the night, they did. But they made mistakes. Took penalties. And they couldn’t deal with Louisville’s defense.

The Cardinals didn’t overpower them. But it helped that they had the best player on the field.

Up 20-14, on the Louisville sideline, Lubin was standing next to fellow D-lineman Jordan Guerad when he said, “I think Isaac Brown's going to break one right here in this drive. He's going to put the dagger in them, and we're going to be going home.”

A minute later, Brown delivered 78 yards of “told you so.”

Brown didn’t strut. He didn’t flex. He ran. And that was enough.

He’d been bottled up all night. Blitzed. Targeted. Tied up like a present under the tree.

He stayed patient. But every time they stopped him made him run even harder.

“I just had to keep that chip on my shoulder and let everyone know who I am,” Brown said.

We know now.

Louisville survived, which is another way of saying it didn’t break when it didn’t have answers early. And it worked things out over the course of the game. That’s a good sign. Good teams don’t always dominate. Sometimes they just endure.

But great teams find a way to steamroll opponents like this, so there’s work to do.

For now, it’s enough that when an opponent brought the house, it was still Louisville who finished safe and sound at home.