LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Let’s get this out of the way. Louisville is not completely out of the ACC title race.
The sun still rises. Grass still grows. And if 13 things happen in the right order — including a polar vortex over Miami and Dabo Swinney becoming a Buddhist monk — the Cardinals could still make it to Charlotte.
But forget all that.
This Friday night game against Clemson isn’t about math. It’s about meaning.
Because what Louisville does control — in this strangest of weeks, in this weirdest of seasons — is the mirror.
And right now, the mirror doesn’t lie. It’s asking a question: What exactly are you?
You were 7-1, ranked, rolling, fresh off a nationally televised gut punch to Miami. Then you lost to a Cal team that didn’t know what time zone it was in until kickoff. And now here comes Clemson, clawing its way out of mediocrity with a quarterback who suddenly looks like Trevor Lawrence if he’d gone to Great Clips.
And your quarterback? He’s been called everything short of a small disaster. And yet there’s this inconvenient truth:
Miller Moss has thrown for more yards against the current AP Top 25 than any quarterback in the country, 1,067 of them if you’re counting. He’s thrown eight touchdowns against ranked opponents. No one has thrown more.
If you’re scoring at home, that’s one more than any of the household name college QBs you want to bring up.
Now, we know what Mark Twain said about statistics. There’s lies, damn lies and a quarterback’s stat line. But there’s something there with Moss. It just takes very specialized conditions – clean pocket, decent throwing windows, stable wind speed, right barometric pressure -- to bring it out. And Louisville hasn’t exactly mastered those yet.
This would be a good moment to master them.
Because this is not just Clemson. This is Clemson after a Red Bull. The Tigers have won three of their last five. They’re scoring 34 points a game. They haven’t thrown a pick in a month. They’ve been left for dead more times than a daytime soap opera character, and they just come back, somehow younger and better looking.
They have NFL guys at a good many positions. They have a coach with a national title ring and a chip on his shoulder the size of the Johnny Unitas statue. At the same time, Clemson has a top 20 defense in the nation against the run, but a bottom 30 against the defense against the pass. Opportunities await.
Louisville, meanwhile, has a head coach who feels every loss like a root canal, and an offense that looked last week like it was trying to play in ankle weights. They’ve had two overtime losses. A dislocated rhythm. And a stadium full of fans still not quite sure whether to believe again.
But here’s your end-of-season checklist:
____ 10-2 is a season you frame.
____ 9-3 is a season you forget.
____ 8-4 is a shrug.
____ 7-5 is a summit meeting.
That’s what’s at stake Friday night. The game may not mean what it did before the Cal loss. But it means something different, and important.
Not the playoff. Not the Power Rankings. Not bowl projections. OK, maybe those just a little bit. But more.
What’s at stake is the ability to say: We got hit in the mouth. And we swung back. To do, frankly, what Clemson is doing right now. Programs that wilt in November don’t do much in December, and they face an uphill offseason battle. Programs that stiffen and fight can bounce right back.
That’s the story Moss can still write. That’s the identity Brohm’s team can still claim. It’s the difference between momentum and memory.
Because ask anyone in the Commonwealth, they’ll tell you what Lamar Jackson won. Everybody remembers the Heisman. Around here, they also remember he lost his last three games that season. And that Louisville never really capitalized on a transformational quarterback talent.
I’ve heard some rumblings that all is lost after the defeat to Cal. All is not lost. There is actually much more to lose.
And in this strange short week off a stunning loss, during which some whack job in Texas (allegedly) texted threats to Brohm, his staff, his family and Miller Moss, Louisville, despite all that, would do well not to lose it.
Copyright 2025 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.
