With less to play for, will Louisville football be motivated against Kentucky?

“We were tired. We were exhausted in the month of October”, Houston coach Tom Herman said.

Jackson is now the favorite to win the Heisman Trophy and has No. 3 Louisville (9-1) in the hunt for a spot in the College Football Playoff as the Cardinals visit Houston on Thursday night.

The victory was Houston’s second this season over a team ranked third after the Cougars (9-2) knocked off Oklahoma to open the season and it was their fourth straight win over a top-10 team. After watching a Michigan, Clemson and Washington suffer their first losses to unranked teams over the weekend, the Cardinals thought they had a chance to join the Top 4.

Things got worse from there, as Louisville fumbled the ball away twice more and failed to get anything going offensively, resulting in a 31-0 halftime advantage for Houston.

“We just have to go play the way we are capable of playing and obviously we know it’s on national TV, nobody else is playing, everybody will be watching it”, Petrino said. “We handle business. We are filling out our resumes tonight”. It happened during Petrino’s first tenure – recall the collapse against Rutgers in 2006 over the final two and a half quarters. The Coogs got on the board quickly, thanks to Louisville’s fumble of the opening kickoff that set up Houston’s first score of the night.

Louisville QB Lamar Jackson vs. Houston’s pass defense. Jackson was held to 33 rushing yards on 25 attempts, but one of the carries was for 20 yards.

Aside from the usual bragging rights motivation for the November 19 game with Kentucky, Louisville does have quarterback Lamar Jackson’s Heisman Trophy hopes in question. “It was an embarrassing performance”. Stopping Jackson will be a tall task for the Cougars defense, but it’s something the team has done before. Yet, the Cougars D kept making big plays, raised the sack total to eight, and Ed Oliver continued to wreak havoc in the backfield and in batting down passes.

Steven Taylor found Jackson with even more frequency than Oliver, adding 2 1/2 sacks to his 14 tackles.

Location: TDECU Stadium in Houston, TXGame Time: 8:00 p.m. E.T. Pre-snap penalties were a problem, especially.

And let’s not forget – Herman is only in his second year. But also tossed two interceptions, and a late touchdown pass by Greg Ward helped Houston to the victory. Running back Linell Bonner capped the explosion with a 50-yard option pass to Chance Allen with 5:13 on the clock. The fumble, one of three on the night by Louisville, helped Houston build a 10-0 lead by the end of the first quarter as it raced out to a big advantage it never relinquished.

Ward wasn’t spectacular, completing 25 of 44 passes for 233 yards and the two scores to Catalon, but played a clean game that rubbed off on his teammates. Against Houston, the Cardinals finished with 15 for 114 yards. “That’s the best player in college football, and our defense did a good job of putting pressure on him”.

Teams are supposed to play them one at a time, and Kentucky plays its home finale Saturday when Austin Peay comes to Commonwealth Stadium, but let’s jump ahead to November 19.

Even when Louisville’s offensive line wasn’t giving up yards through sacks and tackles for loss, it repeatedly cost the Cardinals yards through penalties. They beat then-No. 3 Oklahoma in Week 1, and they started the season 5-0 before losing two of their next three games.