Louisville 49, Ohio 7
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Teddy Bridgewater got his Heisman Trophy campaign off to a flying start, throwing for 355 yards and five touchdowns as ninth-ranked Louisville thumped Ohio University 49-7 Sunday at Papa John's Cardinal Stadium.
Bridgewater, a junior, completed 23 of 28 passes. He was intercepted once, when his intended receiver appeared to run the wrong route, and had one pass dropped before was removed after three quarters with the Cardinals holding a 42-7 lead. Bridewater's TD passes covered 34, 19, 27, 40 and 25 yards.
Louisville, which received the opening kickoff, scored the first three times it had the ball, on drives of 75, 55 and 86 yards. In between, the Bobcats went three-and-out on their first two possessions. It was 21-0 early in the second quarter, and Ohio did not have a first down until 12:36 remained in the second quarter.
It was 28-0 at the half, with Louisville having limited the Bobcats to 88 yards of offense, including just 11 yards rushing. Ohio averaged 203.3 yards rushing a game last season, and leading rusher Beau Blankenship is back for his senior season, but he was held to 22 yards on 12 carries.
The Bobcats returned 16 starters from a team that went 9-4 last season, a year that included an opening-game victory at Penn State. Senior quarterback Tyler Tettleton, who threw for 2,844 yards last year, threw for just 140 yards Sunday, completing 11 of 23 passes.
Louisville, which was coming off an 11-2 season capped by a victory over No. 4 Florida in the Sugar Bowl, returned 19 starters. The Cardinals' No. 9 AP ranking their highest-ever preseason rating.
Damian Copeland, a Louisville senior known as "Honey Badger" because of his dyed-blonde Mohawk haircut, caught Bridgewater's first two TD passes. He caught six passes for 98 yards in all.
Devante Parker, a sophomore who led the Cards with 10 TD catches last season, then hauled in a 27-yard scoring pass, and junior Kai De La Cruz had a 40-yard TD catch with 3:26 left in the first half. De La Cruz finished with four catches for 116 yards.
Ohio received the second-half kickoff and went three-and-out, and Louisville responded by going 68 yards in six plays for a TD to make it 35-0. Junior Michael Dyer, who transferred to Louisville late this summer after playing for two seasons at Auburn, scored on a 46-yard run. Dyer was the Most Valuable Player in the 2010 national championship game. After being dismissed from Auburn and sitting out a season, he was immediately eligible at Louisville, which accepted Dyer on probationary status.
The Bobcats then mounted a 51-yard drive but came up empty, and Bridgewater drove the Cards 82 yards, capped by his 25-yard TD pass to junior Robert Clark, a transfer from Florida.
NOTES: Louisville earned its third consecutive season-opening victory. ... Ohio's string of three straight opening-game victories ended. ... A crowd of 55,332, the second-largest in Papa John's Cardinal Stadium history, was on hand on a steamy afternoon.
