No. 22 Louisville Too Much For East Carolina
October 02, 2004 | Football
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- Eric Shelton ran for 129 yards and tied a Louisville record with five touchdowns on the ground Saturday to lead the No. 22 Cardinals to a 59-7 Conference USA win over East Carolina.
Louisville (4-0, 2-0) compiled 549 yards overall, 334 coming through the air.
The Cardinals, third in the nation in scoring defense, forced five turnovers and converted three into touchdowns.
James Pinkney went 13-of-23 for 126 yards with a touchdown and a pair of interceptions for the Pirates (0-4, 0-2) who became just the second team to reach the endzone against a Louisville team which has recorded shutouts against Kentucky and North Carolina already this season.
On the second play of Louisville's second possession, Shelton found a hole up the middle and sprinted 67 yards for his first touchdown of the day.
East Carolina forced a Michael Bush fumble at the Pirates' 38-yard line early in the second period, and three minutes later, Pinkney tossed a 20-yard touchdown pass to a wide-open Sean Harmon to deadlock the game at 7-7.
Other than Shelton's long run, ECU held the Cardinals' offense in check during the first half, forcing senior starting quarterback Stefan LeFors to the bench. Backup Brian Brohm served as the catalyst from there, going 3-of-3 on a nine-play scoring drive which Shelton finished with a 1-yard TD plunge.
Montrell Jones returned an East Carolina punt 54 yards to set up Shelton's third TD run, a 3-yarder, midway through the second quarter.
The Pirates gave Louisville a short field to work with on three of its second half turnovers (ECU 12, 16 and 29-yard lines) - all resulting in touchdowns
East Carolina returns home next weekend for Homecoming. The Pirates welcome Tulane (1-2, 0-1) to Greenville.
Postgame Quotes
East Carolina Head Coach John Thompson
"Our team was ready to play this game. There's no question in my mind we were ready to play. We battled them. We missed tackles on the 67 yard touchdown run, got down 21-7, and we can't survive that many turnovers in the second half. They kept coming at us and we kept battling them.
On what you say to a team after a loss like this:
"As long as you keep trying, you're not failures. That's the only thing you can say. You put numbers and records on it, but that doesn't talk about your soul or what kind of man you are."
"I think this was a bad performance against a very good team. I think things are moving forward. Louisville's a very good team. They beat the dog out of us."
"James (Pinkney, soph. QB) really did a good job of directing the team. We've just got to execute. That's the most frustrating thing about this. We've got guys trying, it's just our execution. We've got to find a way to do the right thing all the times. In critical times today, they capitalized on it (our mistakes)."
