LEXINGTON, Ky. - After Louisville scored a cartoonish 73 points in a season-opening victory over Murray State, the Cardinals put up 58 to defeat Middle Tennessee State.

Four days after No. 9-ranked U of L beat Middle Tennessee came this revelation from first-year head coach Steve Kragthorpe:

"I felt like we could've scored 80," Kragthorpe said during the Big East teleconference.

Figuring out a way to contain Louisville's high-powered offense conducted by Heisman Trophy and Davey O'Brien Award candidate Brian Brohm has been a primary concern for University of Kentucky head coach Rich Brooks and his staff.

UK (2-0) will try to snap a four-game losing streak to bitter rival U of L (2-0) when the teams tussle for the 20th time on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in Commonwealth Stadium.

In last year's game the Cardinals smashed the Wildcats 59-28, which was the largest margin of victory for U of L in series history.

Although Brian Brohm completed 19-of-31 passes for one touchdown and 254 yards, Brooks has not forgotten how much damage the Cardinals' did by running the football.

Led by current Oakland Raiders running back Michael Bush, who turned pro after last season, Louisville rushed for 363 yards on 55 carries and six touchdowns.

Before Michael Bush broke his leg early in the third quarter, he had already carved up UK's defense for three touchdowns.

"Hopefully we're going to try not let to them run down your throat with the football," Brooks said. "That's the thing that they've killed us for the last two or three years, running the football.

"We know they do all the other things and somehow the media kind of forgets about how well they run it. So if we can't stop that, we'll have a heck of a time stopping the other part. And I'm not saying stopping it, but containing the running game."

Now that Michael Bush is gone, the running back who has had the most success for the Cardinals so far is 6-foot-1 sophomore Anthony Allen.

After rushing for 56 yards and one touchdown on seven carries against Murray State, he had two touchdowns and racked up a school record 275 yards against Middle Tennessee to earn Big East offensive player of the week honors.

During UK's 56-20 victory over Kent State, the Wildcats had difficulty in the first half stopping the Golden Flashes' 5-5 running back Eugene Jarvis, who had 124 rushing yards and one touchdown in the opening 30 minutes before the Wildcats' defense clamped down in the second half and held him to seven yards.

Sophomore defensive tackle Corey Peters, who had five tackles against Kent State and recovered one fumble, acknowledged that the UK defenders were was humbled by their performance in the first half, but believes they will be better prepared to face a bigger running back in Allen.

After watching film of the Kent State game, Peters said the mistakes were easily correctable.

"We have to play faster and a lot of the plays where we got beat it was one or two missed assignments," Peters said. "So as long as everybody is gap sounded and focused, I think we'll be OK.

"If one or two people mess up on their reads it can get us killed, it really can. I think playing against a bigger back will be easier in that aspect.

"He can't really hide as well. I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure he's not as shifty as that little guy was. That should help us out. We've just got to come to work."

The Wildcats received some good news regarding their defense Thursday afternoon when it Brooks announced that defensive tackle Myron Pryor would be able to play. Pryor was considered questionable to doubtful earlier in the week after he strained a pectoral muscle in the first quarter against Kent State and sat out the rest of the game.

Junior Ventrell Jenkins will start in Pryor's place, but Pryor will be available off the bench.

The Wildcats know they need as many healthy players as possible to slow down Brian Brohm, who is the fourth member of his family to play football at Louisville. Brian Brohm has already passed for 776 yards and nine touchdowns this season and like also highly touted UK quarterback Andre Woodson, Brian Brohm ranks third in school history in career passing yards (7,527).

"If he's in the pocket he's going to eat you alive," said UK senior linebacker Wesley Woodyard, who had 15 tackles against Kent State and was named to the all-Southeastern Conference first team last year. "You've got to disrupt his schemes, you've got to jam his receivers and basically stay on him all game or he's going to sit back there and complete every pass that he throws."

Brian Brohm's targets this season are 6-foot-6 junior Mario Urrutia and 5-foot-11 senior Harry Douglas.

Douglas led the Cardinals' with 70 catches and a school record 1,265 last season. He was named to the all-Big East's first team after leading the league in receiving yards per game and receptions.

Urrutia was second on the team in receptions with 58 and 973 receiving yards last season and made the all-Big East's second team.

In two games so far Douglas has caught 13 passes for 251 yards and three touchdowns while Urrutia has caught nine passes for 197 yards and two touchdowns.

Brooks made reference to former USC star running backs Reggie Bush and LenDale White, who had contrasting styles, when speaking about Douglas and Urrutia.

"Urrutia is a new breed of receiver, big, tall and fast," Brooks said. "You can be in great coverage on him, but you can't get through him to get to the ball because he is so big and that makes it especially difficult to defend him. "You can be with him and still lose the battle for the ball.

"Douglas is extremely quick and explosive. They run him on a lot of shadow crossing routes where he'll try to run away if you're in man coverage. He's just going to try to run away from his defender. So they have thunder and lightning. Mario is thunder, Douglas is lightning."

The Wildcats just hope they can control the storm.