The Bulls will face the new team, Louisville Saints

on Saturday, July 11th.  Kickoff is set for 7pm, at Fern Creek High School.

This is the Saints home game, and will be the Bulls 2nd road game to begin the 2009 season.

Both teams are 1-0, The Bulls defeated the Ohio River Bearcats 24-6, while the Saints routed the Indianapolis Stampede 25-0.

The game will be in familiar territory for Bulls RB Bernard Barnes, and LB Charles "Cookie" Ricketts, both starred at Fern Creek during the Russ Gibson era, when Fern Creek was a Louisville power.  Bernard is anxious to reach the endzone at his old home field, he had 221 yards of total offense in the Bulls opener, including 201 yds in the first half but did not score.

The Louisville Bulls opened the 2009 season on the road at Evansville Central Stadium, facing the Ohio River Bearcats of the Mid-West Football League.  The Bulls came away with the 24-6 victory but received mixed reviews from the coaches.  While the Bulls scored on their first 2 possessions and appeared to be in firm control of the game late in the 2^nd quarter a turnover handed the Bearcats a touchdown and put them back in the game, with confidence and momentum going into halftime.  The Bulls rallied and held the Bearcats without a second half score, but could only put 3 points on the board themselves in the half.   The offense was able to put together 4 good scoring drives but other drives were stalled by lack of execution and penalties.  The defense held the Bearcats to zero offensive scores, including five red-zone possessions, and had 5 fumbles recovered, but allowed some big plays and too much yardage for the coaches to give better marks for the game as a whole.

The Bulls had some good showings by returning players, including Bernard Barnes amassing 221 yards of total offense, 201 yards in the first half alone.  Thomas Wilkins had 8 carries for 82 yards, Keena Watts had 2 receptions for 25 yards, and Chris Curry added a 19 yard reception.  Quarterback Marcus Warren had a solid performance completing 6 of 17 passes for 90 yards but an interception returned for a touchdown and several dropped passes marred his night.

MCFL 2008 Defensive MVP Mike Snyder kept going into this year, with 5 solos, 8 assists, 4.5 tackles for loss, 1 sack, 1 forced fumble, and 1 pass break-up.  Charles “Cookie” Ricketts had 1 solo and 6 assists, and 2 sacks, while Brandon Burfict, Danny Smith, Phillip Garrard, Lamont Hunter, Stuart McCormick, TJ Young, Dustin Noe, and Nick Moore all had good performances on defense.

Newcomers also had big games for the Bulls, Tony Blocker completed 2 of 3 passes for 79 yards.  Rookie running back Leonard Gwinn had the first touchdown for the Bulls in 2009 with a 5 yd run.  Gwinn is also known as “Dirty Carleone” and his rap videos can be found on youtube, Gwinn relocated to Louisville from Alabama and is pursuing a music career in Louisville.

Bulls “Free-Agent” signee Brandon Ditto had a huge impact on the game with 5 solo tackles, 4 assists, 3.5 tackles for loss, 1 sack, 4 forced fumbles, 1 fumble recovery, and a pair of quarterback hurries.  Joe Elder added 1 solo and 3 assists, and Josh Jenkins had 1 solo, 1 assist, 1 break-up and a fumble recovery.

New Bulls kicker Karl Heinz-Williams was perfect on the night connecting on all 3 PAT kicks, and a 25 yard field goal, as well as handling punting duties.

The Bulls started the game strong with a 46 yard opening kickoff return by Bernard Barnes, 3 runs by Thomas Wilkins and a 20 yd Warren to Barnes pass led the way for Leonard Gwinn’s 5 yard touchdown.  The Bulls defense forced a Bearcats punt.  Tony Blocker connected with Bernard Barnes for a 81 yd pass, setting up Nick Moore’s 3 yd TD plunge, Heinz-Williams’ kick gave the Bulls a 14-0 lead with 6:58 remaining in the 1^st quarter.  The defense then forced a 3 & out punt, followed by several traded possessions by each team.

The Bulls defense forced a Bearcat punt with just under nine minutes left in the 2^nd quarter.  Bernard Barnes had a 33 yd return putting the offense on the Bearcat 43 yard line.  Thomas Wilkins ran for 10 yards on first down, then broke free for a 33 yard score on the next play.  Heinz-Williams added the kick and the Bulls led 21-0 with 8:35 left in the 2^nd quarter.

Linebacker Mike Head put the Bearcats on the scoreboard with a 35 yard interception return, the kick failed, and the Bearcats closed the gap to 21-6 with 3:40 remaining in the first half.

            The Bulls closed out the scoring on a drive set up by a Mike Snyder forced fumble, recovered by Brandon Ditto, putting Louisville 1^st & 10 on the Bearcats 32 yard line.  The Bearcats defense stiffened and held the Bulls to a 25 yard field goal by Heinz-Williams.

            While the Bulls got the victory, there were signs of rust from the offseason, and the Bulls have things to work on for the 2 remaining non-league games prior to the MCFL regular season.  Several key players did not play in the first game, and most should be joining the team for the next game vs the Louisville Saints.

This season you can follow the Bulls on Twitter!

Bulls VP Pete White will be "tweeting" from the press box of all Bulls games

this season, so you can follow the game live when unable to attend with updates after each score, end of quarters, and any big plays or key stats.

 In addition the coaches may post tweets through Pete at other times.

The Bulls Twitters account is www.twitter.com/louisvillebulls

The Louisville Bulls are reloading for 2009. 

While we are proud of our 2008 MCFL National Conference Title, both Coach Don Hillerich and Coach Tyrone Young are not saitisfied with merely being the MCFL runner-up.

The Bulls will return the majority of last years team, and have over 60 prospective players that have contacted us about joining the team, many have already participated in the combine and voluntary workouts.

The 2009 combine had over 40 participate, with many more unable to attend. 

Some combine highlights:

OLB Mike Snyder was the MCFL's 2008 Defensive Player of the Year, and he showed why at the combine running a 4.4 40yd dash, as well as leading in the shuttle and 3-cone drill

RB Bernard Barnes had the best vertical - 35" , in the 40 yard dash we also timed at the 10yd and 20yd marks on the same run with OLB Lamont Hunter led the 10 yd portion with a time of 1.41, and newcomer DB Josh Jenkins led at the 20 yd portion with 2.57

WR Chris Curry and RB Thomas Wilkins (2008 leading rusher) both had a 9' 9" broad jump , while newcomers Chris Johnson and Jordan Betts both did 23 reps of the 225 bench press.

 We will continue to take prospective players and can do so until August 26th (when roster lock due to MCFL rules).  We encourage anyone interested to contact us ASAP, the sooner you get involved the better giving new guys the best oppurtunity to play, while procrastinating and waiting until time for the games to start will put you at the bottom of the depth chart.

We will soon have a new website, but until then we will continue to use this eteamz site.

A few tips for the new guys to get info.

Any new practices, games, workouts will appear between the banner and welcome greeting, with clickable links for more info and location info including maps and directions.

Also all returning and new players should visit the Bulls players and staff only message board http://louisvillebulls.proboards.com/index.cgi and using the Register link at the top create an account, if your account name doesn't easily identify you then also send Pete an email so he will know to approve your account pete.white@insightbb.com 

We can't always update the website quickly in case of a schedule change or breaking news, but both Don and Coach Young use the message board to pass along schedule changes and info that only registered members of the board can see, allowing them to put anything from game day itineraries to playsheets.  Also players can post on there for various reasons including sharing info with your teammates, inviting or informing your teammates of non-football things like parties, get togethers and cookouts, or just to share jokes or pictures that only the team can see.

 Both the practice and schedule page will have times, and locations, the location links go to yahoo maps and allow you to view a map or get driving directions.

We have 2 different sites to view Bulls pictures, the first is the Shutterfly site that comes with our eteamz site and allows anyone to add albums or pictures.  It is available here

http://louisvillebulls.eteamz.shutterfly.com/action/

The second is a Flickr site done by Bulls FB/DE Nick Moore ( # 44 ), the pictures were taken by his wife Jessica.  It is available here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/louisvillebulls

Please update your contact info by emailing the team

Email both Don and Pete Click Here

During the season and offseason some of you may have moved or changed phone numbers or email, please remember to pass that info along to Don and Pete, email is the best way so that we can update the contact database

Former players are also encouraged to keep us updated on your contact info so we can get in touch with you for alumni events, or important news about the team or teammates.