The final game of the first week of college football takes place tonight when the Miami Hurricanes hits the road to face the Louisville Cardinals at a sold out PAPA JOHNS Stadium. It marks the the first ever game played by the University of Louisville in ACC as they will be replacing Maryland who has moved on to the Big Ten.
The game is scheduled for an 8:00 p.m. start time and it will be televised nationally on ESPN. Currently the odds for the game have Louisville favored at home in this one.
In the everything old is new again category Louisville welcome backs Bobby Petrino as their head coach after Charlie Strong left to take the Texas job.
After scandals, problems, bolting jobs for other jobs and eventually spending time away from the game, he’s back. Petrino certainly is an offensive-minded guy that can build programs and score points.
Last year he guided Western Kentucky to an 8-4 season and during his first time at Louisville, he posted an impressive 41-9 record.
These schools met up in the Russell Athletic Bowl and Miami took its lumps in last year in Orlando. Coach Al Golden wants to have a much better showing this time around against the Cardinals.
Louisville did graduate highly-successful Teddy Bridgewater from the quarterback position. While we expect the Cardinals to take a step back offensively from his time, sophomore Will Gardner did get some playing time last season. He’s going to be a special player as well, but he is playing without DeVante Parker, who would have been the Cardinals’ top receiving threat.
Miami will hand the reigns to true freshman and highly-touted Brad Kaaya. That’s certainly not going to be easy for him, making his first career start on the road against a Louisville defense that should have some speed and aggression on it.
This will be a hard game for Miami to win. With Petrino coming back, a freshman starting at QB for the Canes and this being the Cardinals’ inaugural ACC game, we like Louisville to win at home. 31-17.
