Louisville avoids upset, beats Duke 24-14

If Louisville is in College Football Playoff contention at the end of the season, the Cardinals won’t be pointing to their Friday night win over Duke as a signature moment.

The Blue Devils did a fantastic job of keeping the ball away from Louisville and star quarterback Lamar Jackson throughout the entire game but was undone by a late roughing the kicker penalty in a 24-14 loss.

Leading 17-14, Louisville attempted a 46-yard field goal with two minutes left. The kick sailed wide left, but it didn’t matter as Duke’s Breon Borders fell into the plant leg of Louisville kicker Evan O’Hara.

The penalty put the ball at the Duke 14. Jackson took over from there, first running for 12 yards and then scoring on a two-yard touchdown run. Jackson finished with 21 carries for 144 yards.

While Friday night was pedestrian for the Cardinals, it was also pedestrian by Jackson’s lofty 2016 standards. The 144 rushing yards is his fourth-best rushing performance of the season and it was the first game where he scored less than two rushing touchdowns. Jackson also finished 13-26 passing for 181 yards and a touchdown. It’s both his lowest completion percentage and his lowest passing yardage output. But it’s also just the second game where he didn’t throw an interception.

Jackson now has 15 passing touchdowns and 15 rushing touchdowns in 2016.

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Despite being off in Week 6, Louisville was one of the teams hurt the most last week when it came to the College Football Playoff. Why? Because of Houston’s loss. The Cardinals play the Cougars on Nov. 17. If Louisville can’t pass Clemson for first in the ACC Atlantic Division, a win over a strong Houston team is imperative to have any hope of making the CFP without appearing in the ACC Championship Game.

With that in mind, it reasoned that Louisville needed a Florida State-like performance in beating the Blue Devils. That clearly didn’t happen as Duke held the ball for over 37 minutes and converted 8-16 third down attempts.

But the Cards got the win, however ugly it was. And that’s fine — very rarely does a great team make it through the course of the season without an ugly win or two. But if Louisville really is a great team worthy of playoff consideration and not just a one-man show, Friday night might have been its one mulligan.

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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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