Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl: Louisville Comes Back To Drop Southern Miss Late, 31-28

Thank you to this Cardinal team. Thank you for being the Bridge to the future. But thank you most for being the pillars of today. We all want to talk about what we can do and what recognition we may get down the road. But first I think we should talk about what we are.

We are winners. A bunch of kids who were winners who became losers are winners again. This group of seniors stepped up and showed who they really are. Winners.

The Cardinals move to 7-6 in their first season under shiny new head coach Charlie Strong.

The first half was much more entertaining than advertised as the Golden Eagles, surprisingly, jumped out to a 14-point lead. The Cardinals finally woke up in the second quarter, driving the 37 yards for the touchdown to get on the board. Mississippi State answered with a bit of trickery, using the old pass to the quarterback to catch the defense off-guard. After a furious first half, we headed into halftime tied, expecting another frantic second half.

It didn’t happen. The most action came within about a 30-second span in the fourth quarter. The Golden Eagles scored on the first play from scrimmage in the final period on a beautiful catch by Zeke Walters. Down, but not out, Louisville answered by returning the ensuing kickoff. Eight minutes later, a field goal turned out to be the game-winner, and Louisville brought home a Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl title, and a souvenir mini-helmet as a cherry on top.

To help prime you for the first of four consecutive game days this week, we’ve compiled this handy list of fun factoids concerning the 2010 Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl.

Proper name: Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl St. Petersburg, with all attendant apostrophes

Setting: Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg, Florida (home of the Tampa Bay Rays and those infernal catwalks!)

While covering the variety of “wacky” events visiting players and fans are subjected to during their bowl weeks is certainly the most reliably entertaining part of college football postseason media coverage, the frivolity rarely extends to include violence. Tragically, players from the Louisville and Southern Miss football teams chose to break that covenant Sunday, during their officially-licensed Beach Bash (click that link; it’s got funny pictures!). A dance contest turned ugly, cutting the afternoon short, and of course the Dougie was involved:

“They started talking trash about us being in Conference USA, [that] we can’t dance… it was stupid. We’ll do our talking on the field,” uttered one Golden Eagle who refused to be identified.

You hear that, Louisville? YOU WILL REGRET SAYING CONFERENCE USA PLAYERS CANNOT DANCE. The real tragedy here is that the event was apparently shut down just prior to the start of the belly flop contest, but the bowl press materials indicate that the afternoon involved a dunk tank, so we suppose we ought to just be happy nobody tried to drown anybody else.

[UPDATE: Card Chronicle has video of the incident.]

The 2010 Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl kicks off at 9 p.m. EST. Browse our complete 2010 college football postseason schedule, and connect with Louisville fans at SB Nation’s Card Chronicle.