Posts will be short this week, since I’ll be on the road in a few days and don’t want to get backlogged this early in the season.
Louisville was a Friday night game during my Bluegrass State doubleheader weekend, and I hustled into the stadium shortly after kickoff, delayed by an impromptu bridge closure into the city of Louisville. Expecting a typical Louisville game, I readied myself for a flurry of offense, porous defense, and final score in the 55-45 range.
Instead, the Cardinals looked meek the entire contest. Floundering on offense, and being physically dominated by the visitors from Florida International University (FIU), Louisville packed little punch under the Friday night lights of Papa John Cardinal Stadium, eventually falling to FIU 24-17 in front of a crowd of 47,228. The win for the Panthers was actually their first over a team from a BCS conference, not exactly a ringing endorsement for the oft maligned Big East.
I spent the second half of the game seated next to a great guy named Tom and his wife. Tom was a Kentucky grad, his wife a Louisville grad, which I’m sure makes for an interesting dynamic during basketball season. A local businessman, Tom and I spent the better part of the second half chatting about some of the Louisville sports traditions, and the pricey stadium renovations that have recently added a grandstand to the East side. Basketball season, he assured me, was the real season to see a few games in Kentucky.
One interesting nuance about Papa John Cardinal Stadium were the Coors beer trailers located throughout the concourse. For those of you uninitiated to the world of college football, this is actually quite an oddity, as ALL of the stadiums I have been to thus far do not allow the sale of alcohol at College Football games – including bowl games. As I learned, Cardinal Stadium technically isn’t located on University of Louisville grounds, as such they are free to sell beer, much to the delight of the fans on this particularly drab night.
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