Jacksonville State falls to 0-2 after losing 49-14 to No. 22 Louisville

Jacksonville State falls to 0-2 for the first time since 2009 after losing 49-14 to No. 22 Louisville on Saturday.

Louisville gained 610 total yards against the visiting Gamecocks, with quarterback Tyler Shough throwing for 349 yards, and the team’s running back group saw five different players score touchdowns.

Maurice Turner led all Cardinals rushers with 12 runs for 60 yards and one touchdown; three other Louisville running backs recorded at least 40 yards rushing.

“I’ve seen a lot of improvement, but I’ve also seen some things that were just total meltdowns and I’ve made it easy for them. It’s frustrating, you’re making them earn it,” Jax State coach Rich Rodriguez said. “They’re a good team, they’re better than us and they should be better, but we still gave up some things, which is really frustrating when you don’t make them earn it.

“When you’re not guarding a player and you should be guarding him; that happened about five or six times in the first few tries and it’s ridiculous.”

Jax State scored all 14 points in the second quarter.

Tyler Huff threw an 11-yard pass to quarterback Sean Brown in the end zone for Jax State’s first points of the game with 14:24 left in the second quarter. Huff also scored a 15-yard touchdown late in the first half.

The Furman transfer, who started, finished the game 17-for-27 with 160 yards, a touchdown and an interception in the air. He also ran for 101 yards and a touchdown on 18 attempts.

“I thought Tyler Huff played his heart out,” Rodriguez said. “The guy was trying to run over people, he was as competitive as he could be. I’m not sure, we blocked really well up front and I don’t think our running backs hit the hole very hard, but I thought Tyler played his heart out.”

Former Alabama wide receiver Ja’Corey Brooks led all Louisville players with six catches for a team-high 89 yards. Defensive end Jared Dawson had a game-high two tackles for loss, adding seven total tackles (four solo) and a sack. Linebacker Stanquan Clark led all Cardinals with nine total tackles.

Thompson graduate Michael Pettway and Pleasant Grove graduate DeMarcus Lacey each had 30 yards, and Brown combined for 28. Anwar Lewis led all running backs with 14 yards.

The Georgia commit had 12 total tackles (six solo) as a defensive quarterback at Jacksonville State, while Oxford graduate J-Rock Swain led the Gamecocks with 1.5 tackles for loss.

“We missed some opportunities, too,” Rodriguez said. “We’ll watch the film and see, but for a team that’s supposed to be in the playoffs, I think we had some things there and we’ll be really sick when we watch the film.”

Jax State (0-2) will play again next Saturday against Eastern Michigan in Ypsilanti, Mich. The game is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. and will be available on ESPN+.

“They’re better than they were last year, a little bit, that I saw,” Rodriguez said of Eastern Michigan. “We have to get better. We’re not that far off, but at the same time, there are a lot of things we have to fix urgently.”