Jawhar Jordan, Front Seven Fuel Louisville's Winning Effort Over Duke

The Louisville football program might have had to stew on their upset loss at Pitt for an extra week, but once they returned to action following their bye week, that losing feeling quickly subsided.

Hosting Duke for a top-20 matchup with significant long term ACC ramification, the No. 18 Cardinals (7-1, 4-1 ACC) left little doubt out on the field of L&N Stadium, securing a decisive 23-0 win over the No. 20 Blue Devils (5-3, 2-2 ACC). It marked the program's first ever shutout win over an AP Top 25 ranked opponent.

"Very proud of our team today, we rose to the challenge," head coach Jeff Brohm said. "It is never fun to go into a bye week with a tough loss. I hate it and our players hate it and I think in order to be a good winner, you have to really hate losing. So, it was a rough two weeks but we put in the work, we worked hard to improve some things that have hurt us and I thought we made tremendous strides."

While this was one of Louisville's most complete games of the season, as evidenced by a shutout won by three scores, the winning effort was fueled primarily by two factors: the return of star running back Jawhar Jordan, and a swarming effort from the Louisville front seven.

Jordan had to be sidelined for most of the loss at Pitt due to a nagging hamstring issue, but the bye week allowed him time to heal up, and was a full go for the matchup with Duke. Not only did a return to his normal role helped drastically elevate the capabilities of Louisville's offense, Jordan had a career day in the process.

The 5-foot-10, 185-pound all-purpose logged 21 carries for 163 yards, both of which were career-highs, while rushing for two touchdowns for the fourth time this season. While his longest run of the day was just 23 yards, Jordan routinely sliced through the Duke defensive line to put Louisville's offense on schedule. Of his 21 rushes, only seven of them went for under five yards, and he was not tackled for a loss once.

"He stepped in and played at a high level," Brohm said of Jordan. "We relied on that running game today and man, when you give him some space, he's just got some wiggle and some quickness and some toughness as well. When they do hit him, he just gets right back up.

"It was a great day for the offensive line, tight ends and running backs, our receivers were unselfish and quarterback was efficient. But Jawhar is a difference maker, so we'll continue to build the running back room with others, but he definitely has stepped in there and made some big-time plays."

Jordan's career day was part of a 234-yard effort on the ground by the Cardinals, who Brohm says made it a point of emphasis to play a more conservative run-heavy approach. Louisville put up 351 yards of offense against a Duke defense that had only allowed 350 or more yards three times in seven games up to that point.

"We were low risk today," Brohm said. "Yes, it is hard to do that for me. ... Would I love to throw it deep and get a bunch of long touchdown passes? Yes. We have to pick our moments to do that. The plan today was to not ask Jack to do it all. Let's not make passing game do it all. Let's rely on the offensive line."

Jordan wasn't the only one for Louisville carrying the heavy lifting. Over on the other side of the line of scrimmage, the Cardinals' front had arguably an even more impressive performance.

All night long, Louisville's defensive line and linebackers were swarming the Duke backfield. Whether it a run or a pass, the Blue Devils were not able to efficiency run their offense, which is predicated on success at the point of attack.

Duke not only entered the game with the nation's No. 18 rushing offense averaging 198.3 rushing yards per game, but their 0.71 sacks and 4.43 tackles for loss allowed per game ranked 7th and 26th, respectively, in the FBS. By the time the game came to a close, Louisville had held Duke to just 51 rushing yards, while racking up four sacks and six tackles for loss. Duke QB Riley Leonard never looked comfortable, throwing just 9-of-23 for 121 yards and an interception.

Defensive end Ashton Gillotte led the charge with a pair of sacks, defensive tackle Jermayne Lole had a strip sack, while defensive tackle Jared Dawson also logged a sack. Louisville also had five pass breakups on the back end as Leonard was forced to make several uncharacteristic throws due to the barrage of pressure.

Duke's 202 yards of offense was their lowest since Mike Elko took over as the head coach prior to the start of the 2022 season.

"Well I like the scheme of our defense, I like all the different things that we do," Brohm said. "Like I said, all the disguises, all the stemming, all the shifts, all the rotations after the snap and I think it gave them problems. When you can get a lead and make a team throw it more than they would like to, it allows you to do that even more."

When put all together, it produced Louisville's second win over an AP-ranked opponent this season. Louisville now has multiple ranked wins in a single season for just the second time in program history, and the first since 2006.

"Just a really good day for us," Brohm said. "It was good to come out against a really good opponent that had fourth quarter leads in both their losses and other than that, they have played some outstanding football. I thought we really came ready to play today so very, very proud of our team."

Louisville will be back in action next weekend, continuing their home-stand for a showdown with Virginia Tech. Kickoff is set for Saturday, Nov. 4 at 3:30 p.m. EST.