The University of Louisville will add a new opponent to its history when the Cardinals face Kansas State at Bill Snyder Family Stadium on Saturday, September 23 at 12:10 p.m. (EDT). The game will be televised by Fox sports Net. The Cardinals and Wildcats are meeting for the first time in school history.
The Cardinals are coming off a dominating 31-7 win over 17th ranked Miami at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium. The win was bittersweet again, as the Cardinals lost quarterback Brian Brohm for the next four weeks after having surgery to repair a ligament in his right thumb. Before the injury, Brohm completed 10-of-14 passes for 181-yards and a touchdown while senior running back Kolby Smith ran for two scores. The Louisville defense stuffed Miami’s running game holding the Hurricanes to just 64-yards and sacking quarterback Kyle Wright four times. Senior defensive tackle Amobi Okoye recorded five tackles and forced a key first quarter fumble.
Kansas State moved to 3-0 with an impressive 23-7 win over Marshall behind 256 yards passing from Dylan Meier. The Kansas State defense dominated the Herd, holding them to just 142 yards of total offense.
Sophomore quarterback Hunter Cantwell has done a good job of filling in when needed over the last two seasons. In the win over Miami last Saturday, Cantwell came into the game early in the third quarter and guided the Cardinals to two scoring drives. He completed 3-of-4 passes for 113-yards including a 39-yard touchdown pass to George Stripling. Cantwell took over for Brohm last season after Brohm tore his ACL against Syracuse. In his first career start, Cantwell was 16-of-25 for 271 yards in a win over Connecticut and also was 15-of-37 for 271-yards and three touchdowns.
Despite producing one of the lowest offensive outputs in the Bobby Petrino era against Miami the Cardinals continue to lead the nation in total offense and scoring offense. Louisville leads the country in total offense averaging 563.7 yards of total offense. The Cardinals also top the nation in scoring offense with an average of 50.7 points per game.
Coming off back-to-back dominating defensive efforts, Kansas State will look to keep its 2006 record clean this week when the Wildcats take on the high-flying Cardinals. Led by Butkus Award candidate Brandon Archer, Kansas States aggressive front seven and ball-hawking secondary have shown plenty of improvement in 2006. In addition to ranking in the top 15 nationally in rushing, scoring and total defense, Kansas State also ranks 15th in sacks, seventh in tackles for losses and 23rd in interceptions.
On offense, the Wildcats rank 37th in scoring offense and are averaging just over 300 yards per game. Quarterback Dylan Meier is coming off a career-high 256-yard passing performance, 19-of-35 and one touchdown.
Kansas State running back Thomas Clayton has provided Kansas State a nice lift in the running game and averaged 82.5 yards per game on the ground in the last two contests.
Louisville has been installed the favorite by a –14 point chalk even with Brian Brohm and Michael Bush out to injury. The Wildcats have posted some solid defensive numbers against the likes of Div. 1AA Illinois State who KSU only won by one point 24-23 and Florida Atlantic 45-0. The Wildcats defeated Conf USA member Marshall on Sept 16, 23-7. If the Cardinals get its machine running they will defeat Kansas State handily even with a back-up quarterback.
