HOUSTON -- Louisville coach Bobby Petrino was blunt.We blew it, he said.Duke Catalon scored three touchdowns and Houston hurried and harassed Heisman favorite Lamar Jackson all night to propel the Cougars to a stunning 36-10 victory over the Cardinals on Thursday night that dashed the third-ranked teams playoff hopes.Louisville (9-2) entered the game ranked fifth in the College Football Playoff rankings, but was outdone by a Houston team that saw its own playoff hopes foiled by two losses to unranked teams after a 5-0 start.We lost, Jackson said. Cant do nothing about it.The Cardinals were unhappy they werent ranked higher in this weeks CFP rankings after losses by several top teams last week, and some players thought they let that angst affect their play on Thursday.I think we let that get to us too much. I think we paid too much attention to the rankings instead of playing our game, safety Dee Smith said. We were just trying to do too much.Things went wrong quickly for the mistake-prone Cardinals when they fumbled the opening kickoff to Houston (9-2). Greg Ward threw his first touchdown pass on the next play to make it 7-0. Brandon Radcliff lost a fumble later in the first and Houston added a field goal on the ensuing drive to make it 10-0.Jackson threw for 211 yards and a touchdown, but it didnt come until the second half.Houston then scored touchdowns on three straight possessions in the second quarter to push the lead to 31-0 at halftime. Catalon caught a touchdown pass, ran for another score and Houston got the third score in that span on a 50-yard pass by receiver Linell Bonner after a lateral.We were banged up. We were beat up. We were tired. We were exhausted in the month of October, Houston coach Tom Herman said. Thats not an excuse. Thats reality. And our guys fought through it and they fought through that adversity and they never wavered ... and when you get the band back together and you get everybody healthy and everybody fresh and everybody doing their job ... we can play with anybody in the country. And we proved that again tonight.The Cougars were in Jacksons face constantly, sacking him a season-high 11 times and keeping him from hurting them with his feet. He ran for a season-low 33 yards after piling up 338 yards rushing combined in the last two games.After Jackson was sacked for the 10th time he threw up his hands and two of his lineman looked to be yelling at each other about who was to blame for his latest takedown.But the Cougars werent done getting after him just yet. On the next possession he threw the ball away while under heavy pressure from Tyus Bowser and was flagged for intentional grounding, giving the Cougars a safety.Petrino said he saw frustration build in Jackson as the sacks piled up.Oh yeah, there was frustration there, he said. There was frustration on the protection and frustration on himself -- missing a few throws. Thats one of the things on the sideline there definitely was frustration and it grew.Ward threw for 233 yards and two touchdowns to help the Cougars to the victory that left Cougar fans storming the field to celebrate.---=THE TAKEAWAY=LOUISVILLE: The Cardinals may not have made the playoff even if they didnt lose on Thursday night, but the opportunity was theirs for the taking. Now they only have themselves to blame for being on the outside looking in.HOUSTON: The Cougars looked like the team that knocked off then-No. 3 Oklahoma in their opener instead of the underperforming one that lost at Navy and SMU to fall out of the top 25 weeks ago. The victory, which was their fourth straight over a top-10 team, will go a long way toward put a positive spin on what had turned into a disappointing season.---=KEY NUMBERS=The Cardinals set a season-high with 15 penalties, punted a season-high six times by halftime and the 11 sacks they allowed were more than double their previous season-high. Its the fewest points theyve scored since a loss at North Carolina in 2011.---=HEISMAN HOPES=Jackson entered the game as such an overwhelming favorite to win the Heisman that the loss shouldnt put that big of a dent in his chances. However Jackson insists that he isnt concerned about that.Im not even focused on that, he said. Im focused on winning.---=POLL IMPLICATIONS=LOUISVILLE: This loss will send the Cardinals tumbling down in the poll and in the playoff rankings. Theyll likely drop out of the top-10 but could stay in depending on how the teams above them fare this weekend.HOUSTON: The Cougars are likely to re-enter the poll after being unranked since the week after their loss to SMU on Oct. 22. They had the most points of any team not ranked last week so it wouldnt be surprising for them to move up to No. 20 or so after the big win.---=UP NEXT=LOUISVILLE : The Cardinals wrap up the regular season with a rivalry game against Kentucky next Saturday.HOUSTON : The Cougars travel to Memphis on Friday for their regular-season finale. Cheap Air Force Ones For Sale . Ibaka equaled a career high with 20 rebounds, adding four blocked shots and 15 points as the Thunder smothered the Milwaukee Bucks offence in a 92-79 victory Saturday night. Cheap Air Force 1 Shoes Wholesale . Kuznetsov, who was selected by the Capitals in the first round of the 2010 NHL Entry Draft, has been playing for his hometown team Chelyabinsk Traktor of the KHL. http://www.airforceforsalecheap.com/ . Just not the game. Kyle Palmieri scored two straight goals in the third period to rally the Anaheim Ducks past the Philadelphia Flyers 3-2 on Tuesday night. Nike Air Force Ones Sale .J. -- New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz will miss the rest of the season after having surgery on his left knee. Cheap Air Force 1 . -- The boos poured down on Tom Brady and the New England Patriots at the end of a horrible first half. The IPL is now nine seasons old. Having spent a few seasons in an IPL dressing room, I was soon convinced that T20 was here to stay, and second - a not-so-healthy upshot - that the format would seriously affect the growth of Test openers and spinners in particular. This because no other players are forced to change their basic game to suit the demands of the shortest format as much as Test openers and spinners.A Test opener is a skeptic by nature. He is trained to distrust the ball till it reaches him. Early signs can be misleading; the ball might appear to be traveling in a straight line after the bowler releases it, but its wrong for the batsman to assume that it will follow the same path till it reaches him. The new ball could move very late in the air or off the pitch, and so openers are hardwired to view it with suspicion. They are also trained not to commit early to a shot because that can leave them in a tangle. Theyre told to wait till the ball gets to them and play close to the body. Reaching out with the hands is a temptation a Test opener must guard against.But in T20 cricket, an openers role is to set the tone. Go really hard in the first six overs, which is when scoring is considered to be easiest. If you cant find the gaps, go aerial. If you cant go down straight, trust the bounce and go across. Dont get too close to the ball, as that will block the bat-swing. Stay away from the ball and use the arms and hands to reach out and hit. A spell of 12 balls without a boundary in the first six overs is considered to be pushing the team back. Patience might be a virtue in Tests; its a liability in T20.The same is true for the spinners. Flight, dip, guile and deception arent the most sought after virtues in the world of T20. Instead, the focus is on keeping the trajectory low and bowling it a little quicker to discourage the batsmen from using their feet. Bounce is revered in Tests, but the lack of it is a boon in T20. We have seen spinners go extremely roundarm (remember Ravindra Jadeja in the IPL?) to prevent the batsman from getting under the bounce.It takes a long time to master the art of bowling long spells to plot and plan dismissals in Test cricket - a tactic thats alien to T20 bowlers who are used to bowling four overs across two or more spells. You cant practise crossing the English Channel by spending 30 minutes in the swimming pool everyday. T20 cricket has challenged the fundamentals of spin bowling.The reason I think middle-order batsmen and fast bowlers havent been forced to change their game is because T20 hasnt demanded they do anything that they werent already doing. A middle-order batsman in a Test side, as in a T20 game, is allowed to rotate the strike and play along the ground before accelerating the scoring. He does the same in Tests and ODIs, albeit later in the innings. The only adjustment he is called on to make is to shift gears a little sooner. Thats easier to do than being asked to move from riding a bicycle to driving a sports car, as spinners and opening batsmen are.Similarly, fast bowlers arent pressed to do anything radically different either. Make the new ball swing, change lengths and pace regularly, and finnd the blockhole on demand.dddddddddddd. Its challenging for sure but not a skill-altering demand.After weighing in these factors, it is only fair to assume that the next generation of spinners and openers for the longer format might take a lot longer to come to the fore, or worse, not do so at all. After all, why would somebody invest in the skill set required to play the longest format given the huge rewards on offer in the shortest format? Unless you just cant cut it in T20, leaving you with no choice whatsoever.While the likes of David Warner and R Ashwin excel equally in both formats, its worth noting that both honed their skills as youngsters when playing the longer format was still the way up. Also, both are aberrations and not the norm. Increasingly, Test teams are forced to pick specialists in these two departments.KL Rahul comes across as the first to challenge my hypothesis, and perhaps he provides an insight into how cricketers of the future will be.Things that look improbable now, both physically and mentally, could become reality in the near future. And Rahuls early success across formats offers proof. He was only 16 when the IPL started, in 2008, and his first-class debut came two years later, which makes him a wonderful case study. Rahul is happy leaving the ball that is only a few inches outside the off stump in Tests, and equally adept at flaying anything wide. He puts in a long stride to get close to the ball and then lean into drives in the longer format, but in T20 he doesnt mind staying away from a ball pitched on the same length, the better to allow his hands to go through. Like a true Test opener, he is skeptical at the beginning of a Test innings, but he doesnt mind going down on one knee to scoop the first ball he faces in the shortest format.He got out pulling from outside off in his debut Test match and since then he hasnt played that stroke early in his innings. By his own admission, he really enjoys playing the pull and hook to anything that is short. To shelve a shot thats dear to you in one format and play it in other formats shows discipline and patience. Thats a virtue the new-age opener wasnt mastering, or so I thought.Most importantly, a fifty or an eighty isnt enough for Rahul. In fact, save for one occasion, he has scored a century every time he has passed 50 in Tests. He has shown that if you train the mind as much as you train the body, its indeed possible to find a game thats suited to Test cricket without compromising on success in other formats.Over on the bowling side, we are still struggling to find spinners for the longer format. I wont be surprised if some boards decide to keep young spinners away from T20 cricket till a certain age, for it is widely accepted that the shortest format is affecting the development of young spinners.Perhaps Im taking Rahuls initial success too seriously. After all, he could be just like Warner, an aberration. But his style of play is reassuring and has given me hope. Maybe hes the first of the new breed of Test openers. Amen to that thought. Wholesale Jerseys Wholesale Jerseys cheap jerseys Cheap Jersyes Cheap Basketball Jerseys Cheap NHL Jerseys cheap jerseys Cheap Jerseys Cheap Jerseys Cheap Jerseys From China Cheap NFL Jerseys ' ' '