Despite all the positives the University of Louisville football team has displayed winning five of its last six games, the offense has sputtered, surviving primarily because of its aggressive defense. The good news is that Kentucky, its upcoming opponent, has struggled as well on offense.

UK’s defense held number one Georgia to 16 points on a cold blustery day. Louisville mustered one offensive touchdown against a good North Carolina State defense in a 25-10 victory.

In the wins over James Madison, a loss at Clemson and against NC State, the offense has been very ordinary. And that was before and after Malik Cunningham injured his right shoulder on the final play of the first half against Clemson.

Louisville totaled 345 total yards offensively against N.C. State. In the prior four games Louisville totaled 312, 429, 462 and 460. It season low was 312 in a win over Pittsburgh.

“We knew we were going against a great defense,” said Scott Satterfield, Saturday. “The run game (192 yards) was hard-fought and I thought they did a really good job with that. At the start of the game, I wasn’t sure anyone was going to score. The wind was blowing. It was cold the type of weather you expect this time of year.l
Brock Domann started his second game, didn’t turn the ball over and again was solid. “Jawar (Jordan) played his ass off,” said Domann. “I just had to do my job and we just grinded it out.”

James Turner who is having an excellent season kicked four field goals. It seems when the Cards get inside the red zone, the 20 they have issues. In 13 trips during the last four games they’ve scored seven touchdowns and kicked nine field goals.

The Cards are scoring, just not touchdowns. “The game plan was just to gash them with the run game and just believe what we practiced, said Jordan who had a career game with 105 yards rushing, two touchdowns, one a 98 yard kickoff return and 13 yards receiving.

“We’ve hit some big plays at times, and we’ve not been as explosive as we’d we’d h@be liked at times,” said coach Scott Satterfield. “You certainly want to get into the end zone. I think that’s been a big thing for us this year, not being able to score touchdowns. We’ve played good defense and kicked field goals.

“If we could score more touchdowns, that’d be great,” said Satterfield.

Louisville is ranked number one in sacks and ranks high in tackles for loss. UofL will need to get into the end zone at Lexington.

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By Ed Peak

Ed Peak has covered UofL sports since 1973, as a student reporter, as a correspondent for the Courier-Journal, a freelancer for the Associated Press and United Press International, as well as ScoreCard, Fox Sports and CBS radio.