Cards turn 'em blank & blue

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CHAPEL HILL, N.C.  With Carolina blue T-shirts waiting for all 49,000 fans in Kenan Stadium, the theme for yesterday's football game between the universities of Louisville and North Carolina was "Turn It Blue."

Instead, the No.24-ranked Cardinals overcame the Tar Heels with a Red Swarm, posting their second shutout of the season in a 34-0 rout.

UofL coach Bobby Petrino didn't get a T-shirt, but he got something much better: a near-flawless performance.

The defense shut down an offense that ranked 14th in NCAA Division I-A in total yardage. In fact, the Cards' first-team defense still hasn't given up a score this season.

And the UofL offense was brutally efficient. Senior quarterback Stefan LeFors completed his first eight passes, and the Cards scored on six of their eight possessions to improve to 3-0 for the second straight year under Petrino.

"This was a good game for us," he said. "I was very nervous coming in. I felt like it was going to be a real battle, and we'd have an opportunity to win it late in the fourth quarter. But our defense came out and did an excellent job."

If there had been any chance the Cards weren't dialed in after an unexpected week off because of Hurricane Ivan, it dissipated when word spread that "ESPN Game Day" analyst Kirk Herbstreit had picked North Carolina (2-2) for his upset special.

Senior wide receiver J.R. Russell said he was further inspired when a couple of North Carolina cornerbacks were heard in pregame warmups hollering, "We need to get some better opponents in here."

"Our first two games we were really untested, but against North Carolina, a big-time (Atlantic Coast Conference) school supposedly, we came out and showed them what we do," Russell said.

After the game, running back Eric Shelton said of Herbstreit's prediction: "He's going to be eating his words right now. I just don't think a lot of national analysts give us respect because of the conference we're in. We can play with a lot of teams. Any team, really."

That might have dawned too late on many of the Tar Heels. Center Jason Brown said that coming off a 34-13 victory over Georgia Tech, some of his teammates took the view that UofL is "a non-BCS team, and we didn't take them seriously."

Whatever the case, coach John Bunting said UofL put a serious hurt on his team.

"Took us behind the shed, took our pants down and belted us," he said. "... That was a very disappointing loss to a team that is a very fine football team, something that we all acknowledged going in, but a team we hoped to play a heck of a lot better than we did."

Using its customary early script, the UofL offense looked as if it were trying for an Academy Award on its first two possessions.

Seven players touched the ball and LeFors was 5for5 in a 14-play, 77-yard drive that put the Cards up 7-0. After North Carolina stalled on a 10-play drive that was kept alive by a fake punt, UofL held the ball the rest of the first quarter until Art Carmody's 24-yard field goal capped a 12-play, 86-yard march and made it 10-0.

"I really liked the way our offense took the field and executed and moved it down," Petrino said. "And then I liked the way we came out of the locker room at halftime. The third quarter belonged to us, and that probably was the difference in the game."

The defense forced North Carolina to go three-and-out on its first possession of the third quarter. After Montrell Jones' 12-yard punt return, Shelton used Kolby Smith's block to ramble 37 yards for a touchdown on UofL's first second-half play.

Following another three-and-out by the Tar Heels, UofL drove 70 yards in nine plays, sparked by passes of 20 and 11 yards from LeFors to Jones, and Shelton banged into the end zone from a yard out for his third TD to make it 24-0.

At that point UofL had outgained North Carolina 107 yards to 4 in the third quarter.

"Our confidence was growing, and theirs was going the other way," junior defensive end Elvis Dumervil said.

In the home of Dean Smith, the legendary practicioner of basketball's four-corner offense, UofL played its own version of keepaway, holding the ball for 11:03 of the fourth quarter.

While the Cardinals' defense is much improved, it is getting help from an offense that grinds up long segments of the clock. In three games UofL's time of possession is 107 minutes, 28 seconds to its opponents' 72:32.

When North Carolina did threaten, UofL came up with turnovers. Linebacker Brandon Johnson snagged his first career interception after the Tar Heels drove to the Louisville 21-yard line in the second quarter. Dumervil forced a fumble that cornerback Antoine Harris recovered after North Carolina had driven inside the 10 early in the fourth quarter.

The Cards piled up 30 first downs and 278 rushing yards even without starting tailback Lionel Gates, who sat out with a pulled hamstring. Shelton had 13 carries for 86 yards, and Michael Bush carried 17 times for 82 yards. LeFors completed 13of16 passes for 123 yards, and freshman Brian Brohm hit on 5of8 for 54 yards.

A further sign of the Cards' offensive efficiency: They have completed 73.4percent of their passes this season.

"Today we kind of did what the coaches preached all week: We brought it all together," Bush said. "We ran good, passed good and the defense let us know our defense was on a different level than it was last year."

It was UofL's seventh straight victory over teams from Bowl Championship Series conferences.