Hell in the Hall – Louisville Sports Blog

The expected star (RB Vic Anderson) …and the totally unexpected walk-on (barefoot kicker Ryan Payne ! )…each chipped in 12 pts to lead the Cards to a 30-10 victory over Indiana St. (aka Larry Bird U.)

Matt aka kylures was Hell in the Hall’s photographer as usual and the full set of his pics are posted at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kylures

Also, Sam34gtr is a great young photographer who has allowed us access to his photos too:

http://s602.photobucket.com/albums/tt108/samhunterphoto/football%20indiana%20state/

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It was a perfect Indian Summer day in Kentucky… bright, translucent blue skies… the red of Cardinal Nation   in full bloom in the parking lots, spilling into the surrounding areas… laughter and corn-hole tosses filling the air.

Yep, couldn’t be a better day for a good, old fashioned romp.

Now, I always feel a little guilty about enjoying a slaughter of this type.  In fact, there is a numbing quality to it after about the 50th point of so.  But let’s face it:  We DO enjoy them, particularly at home , and on such a merry day with a packed house.

We never got to that 50th point of so today.  We never got even close.

In what unfortunately can only be called a truly dismal start, U of L stumbled  around with Indiana-hapless-State until thankfully the game finally ended,  and the score happened to be 30-10.  So yeah– we nailed ‘em by a big 20.

So, why is  this a harbinger of real disaster for this season? (And I’m  talking biblical, Ron Cooperish – proportion.  Like 2-10 maybe.)

Here’s why: Vegas had no set line for this game.  That usually means it could be about a zillion – 0.  Many, MANY columnists have pointed out that Indiana St. is not just bad..it is a truly stinking-bad Div II team that just got rolled its last game by over 50 pts by another mediocre Div II team… and that also lost its own home opener to an NAIA team.  And Indiana St.  had paid that NAIA team $30,000 to be its sacrificial lamb.

We should have beaten this team by at least 30 pts –really more like 40-50.

Eric Crawford summed it up nicely in his C-J article: http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20090905/COLUMNISTS02/909050384/1002/sports/Eric+Crawford++Cards+need+to+do+better+than+this+%E2%80%93+and+fast “The  perspective is this: Indiana State, of course, lost its 28th straight game Saturday night (against U of L) . It has lost 52 out of its past 53. Its past five games against FBS competition had an average margin of defeat of 46 points.

Its past two games against Western Kentucky were lost by an average of 43.5 points. It’s difficult to overstate how bad Indiana State has been.”

Yet, as Muhammed Ali’s visage appeared on the scoreboard screen and  ignited chants of “Ali, Ali, Ali… ” throughout the hometown crowd,  Indiana St.  led the Cards  7-3 as the first quarter ended.

This was not as God had intended…

Yes, we ultimately “won” by 20.  But if the line had been even 40-50 points, we really “lost” that game  by 20-30.

Positives? Vic Anderson was a Porsche and our defense generally dominated, albeit against an undersized, out-talented team.

The biggest surprise really was that we made our field goals.  And that the kicker was walk-on Ryan Payne.

I say this because I had heard absolutely nothing about Ryan this year… even though he made some key, memorable appearances last year, and frankly made the majority  of the meager  few field goals we made during last season.

He had been so invisible in this pre-season that I wasn’t even sure he was on the team anymore…all you heard was Tim Daughtery and Chris Philpot–the players on scholarship.

Ryan Payne wasn’t listed as a starter on the University of Louisville’s depth chart before the game  against Indiana State.  But …there Ryan was again inexplicably  in the game…ready to try a 28 yd-er to put the first pts on the board.

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And he nailed it.  He hit 2 more from 21 and 31 yds…and then missed a 4th one from a longer distance of 35 yds.  He was perfect on all his point-afters.

I know Tim Daughtery is injured, but I do not know why Chris Philpot is suddenly not there.

At the after- game presser, Coach Kragthorpe was vague, saying “We had some guys that didn’t do everything we wanted them to do in training camp.  It’s a privilege that you get to play. If you don’t take care of all the things you are supposed to do in training camp, then you don’t get to play.”

Coach thinks Daughtery will be recovered for UK.  He was again vague on Philpot concerning his availability for UK.

People…FYI… Ryan Payne is a non-scholarship walk-on…  last year was the FIRST year he ever played football–high school or college.  Before that, he had been a soccer star in college…. (see my interview with Ryan below on this site.)

Here’s another slightly amazing insight for you: Before this game,  Ryan had never kicked off in  a game before.   Yet in front of 40,000, he performed more than capably in this area, and didn’t hook  or shank one.

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What I’m saying is:   this kid is our own barefoot “Rudy”.   He doesn’t have anywhere near the experience –and maybe not the talent of our team’s schollie kickers.  But he deserves a lot of credit and praise for hanging in there as a overlooked third stringer,  and coming in at  tough moments and generally succeeding– when the other kickers simply aren’t there.

Who knows what our kicker situation will bring… or anything else about this team or season.  All we learned from this game is that we are not very good– period.

Anything is possible…I think Will Stein is the back-up to Ryan if Ryan goes down.

Shades of Paul Hornung.. at some point in this Alice-in-Wonderland season,  will we see Stein quarterbacking the team AND handling kicking duties.

God, I hope not…

Meanwhile…UK and the hot coals of a long, LONG season loom large.