Somewhere in the archives at the University of Cincinnati athletic department there must be a blueprint for this sort of thing. You know the scenario: The Bearcats football team makes some progress, advances to a big game and attracts enough interest to draw a big crowd at Nippert Stadium.

Louisville QB Dave Ragone get a pass away over Willis Edwards at Nippert Stadium. (Ernest Coleman photo) | ZOOM |

        It then proceeds to play as hard as it can, only to lose because of turnovers, penalties and other mistakes. The air goes out of the balloon, and any momentum the program might have gained is lost.

        The Bearcats discovered Saturday they could compete with the best team in Conference USA. But they also found out they haven't devised a way to eliminate silly mistakes that keep them from producing the kind of victory that might sustain interest in the program.

        As a result, Louisville handed the Bearcats their first C-USA loss of the season, 28-13, before 31,004, the fourth-largest crowd in Nippert Stadium history. The loss ended UC's seven-game conference winning streak. The Cardinals are 7-1, 3-0 in the league. UC is 4-3 overall, 4-1 in the league.

        This one will be entered in the UC annals along with the other big games that the Bearcats could have, but didn't win. Both teams gained roughly the same amount of yards, but Louisville forced four turnovers to UC's two. More important, the Cardinals scored three touchdowns off theirs; the Bearcats did nothing when they had chances and had two touchdowns called back because of penalties.

        “They took advantage of the opportunities they were presented with,” UC coach Rick Minter said. “We did not. I guess that's what you do when you're a champion.”

        Another thing you do when you're a champion is run the ball with authority and stop the opponent from doing the same. Louisville gained 222 yards rushing to 78 for UC. Cardinals running back T.J. Patterson ran for a career-high 136.

        Even with such a wide disparity in rushing yardage, though, the Bearcats could have won. Trailing 14-0 midway through the second quarter, they rallied behind a 26-yard Jonathan Ruffin field goal and a 71-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Gino Guidugli to wide receiver Jon Olinger to pull to within 14-10 at the half. Guidugli's pass to Olinger was a perfect throw, one of the few highlights during an otherwise rough day for the freshman. He finished with 295 passing yards, but completed only 19 of 46 passes, was intercepted three times and was sacked four times. The Bearcats trailed 14-13, after a 43-yard Ruffin field goal with 11:55 left in the third quarter, but would not score again. An interception by Louisville's Anthony Floyd set up Patterson's 23-yard touchdown run to make it 21-13 Louisville with 7:55 to go in the third.

        UC had a chance to tie when UC's Doug Monaghan recovered a fumble at the Cardinal 37. On fourth-and-8, Guidugli connected with Olinger, who caught the ball in the end zone, but the apparent touchdown was wiped out by a holding call against UC guard Kyle Takavitz.

        That call and several others infuriated Minter.

        “I'm not going to publicly criticize the officiating,” Minter said. “But we will look at them closely and make sure the conference office gets them. But you can't change them. You can only hope they learn from them if they were not ruled correctly.”

        Defensive tackle Kirk Thompson wasn't so diplomatic.

        “When you looked at (the replay) on the scoreboard, it didn't look like a penalty,” Thompson said. “The guy was tripping a little bit, he threw him down and then landed on him. I don't see how it could have been holding.” Louisville scored its final touchdown on a nine-play, 64-yard drive that ended with 5:33 to go. By then, the Bearcats were effectively finished, left to wonder what would happen if they played one of these games without so many mistakes.

        “There's only a few times when you get a chance to play a game of this magnitude,” Minter said, “To have it at home, to have the setting the way it was. And we just weren't quite good enough to take advantage of it.”

Team		1	2	3	4			SCORE
Louisville		7	7	7	7			28
Cincinnati		0	10	3	0			13

Scoring Summary
1st Quarter	Louisville Touchdown - 2-yard run by Tony Stallings. (Nathan Smith kick). 5:22 remaining.
2nd Quarter	Louisville Touchdown - 2-yard run by Dave Ragone. (Nathan Smith kick). 8:26 remaining. Cincinnati Field Goal - 26-yarder by Jonathan Ruffin. 6:06 remaining. Cincinnati Touchdown - 71-yard pass from Gino Guidugli to Jon Olinger. (Jonathan Ruffin kick). 2:09 remaining.
3rd Quarter	Cincinnati Field Goal - 43-yarder by Jonathan Ruffin. 11:55 remaining. Louisville Touchdown - 23-yard run by T.J. Patterson. (Nathan Smith kick). 7:55 remaining.
4th Quarter	Louisville Touchdown - 5-yard pass from Dave Ragone to Zek Parker. (Nathan Smith kick). 5:33 remaining.

Attendance: 31,004

Final Team Statistics	Louisville	Cincinnati
First downs	19	16
Rushes-yards	51-222	29-78
Passing yards	154	295
Return yards	80	28
Passing (Att-Comp-Int)	28-12-0	46-19-3
Punts-Average	9-42.6	9-42.9
Fumbles-Lost	2-2	2-1
Penalties-Yards	8-84	4-35
Time of Possession	33:29	26:31

Rushing
Louisville	- Patterson 23-136, Stallings 14-55, Ragone 10-36, Miller 1-(-1), TEAM 2-(-2), Parker 1-(-2).
Cincinnati	- Jackson 12-80, Murray 3-21, McCleskey 8-15, Vann 1-(-3), Guidugli 5-(-35).
Passing
Louisville	- Ragone 12-28-0, 154 yards and 1 touchdown.
Cincinnati	- Guidugli 19-46-3, 295 yards and 1 touchdown.
Receiving
Louisville	- Parker 6-70, Owens 1-27, Jones 1-17, Patterson 1-15, Harris 1-12, Russell 1-8, Dorsey 1-5.
Cincinnati	- Vann 9-130, Jackson 3-40, Olinger 2-96, Walker 2-11, Keith 2-5, Wize 1-13.

Louisville 28, UC 13 UC basketball notebook

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