Jeff Brohm

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Jeff Brohm said several thousand words during his Monday news conference to update the work unfolding with the 2024 University of Louisville football team.

This is the one word that struck me as the most interesting:

Vertical.

As in a vertical passing game. As in concentrating on throwing the ball downfield instead toward the sidelines. As in deep throws early in drives designed to rattle the defense.

As in scoring points so quickly and so relentlessly that the opposing defensive coordinator will search for a place to hide.

"I like our quarterback room, where we continue to improve there and add depth behind Tyler (Shough, the likely starting quarterback)," Brohm said.

"The running back rooms, I feel confident that we have multiple guys that go in and play and do a really good job.

"The receiver room, I think has talent. We've got to just put it all together and we've got to be more efficient and better in the passing game and find ways to create big plays and throw the ball vertically and get the ball in our receivers hands. And they've got to be consistent each and every week."

Louisville had a terrific season in 2023 despite the back-to-back-to-back losses to Kentucky, Florida State and USC in the final three games. The Cardinals rang up 10 victories. They shot up the national rankings. They defeated Notre Dame, North Carolina State and Miami.

Brohm showed valuable growth as a head coach. Early in the season, he realized his roster lacked the necessary offensive pieces to executive the high-octane moves that his best teams delivered at Western Kentucky and Purdue.

Throwing a sizzling and accurate deep ball was not quarterback Jack Plummer's calling card. (Although Plummer was not drafted, he is expected to be in training camp with the Carolina Panthers this month.)

Receivers were unable to consistently create separation to run deep routes. The tight ends were solid but rarely spectacular.

So Brohm shifted the focus to winning with a powerful running game and reliable defense. Jawhar Jordan and Isaac Guerendo combined to run for more than 1,900 yards and 24 touchdowns.

Louisville — not Georgia, not Alabama, not Michigan, not Oregon — was the only school to have two running backs selected in the 2024 NFL Draft.

The Cards' averaged nearly 179 yards per game rushing, the second-best average of his coaching career. Three of Brohm's Purdue teams averaged less than 85 yards per game rushing.

But Brohm's playing pedigree is as a quarterback, one of the best to perform at Louisville. Ditto for his offensive coordinator, Brohm's younger brother Brian, another former Cardinals' star.

Louisville averaged 236.6 passing yards per game last season.

It was easily the lowest total of Brohm's 10-season head coaching career. Seven of Brohm's teams at Purdue and Western Kentucky averaged more than 307 passing yards.

The Cardinals threw 22 touchdown passes, another season low for a Brohm team over a full season. At WKU, Brohm's teams averaged 47 scoring passes per season. At Purdue (discounting the six-game COVID season in 2020) the Boilermakers averaged 29 touchdown passes per season.

During spring ball, Brohm talked about employing a more consistent vertical passing game. He said it again Monday.

I asked him why it mattered.

"Well, in general, we believe in trying to score as many points as we can, creating big plays," Brohm said.

"Utilizing the passing game to be effective doing that, with great quarterback play and efficient receivers and tight ends and running backs out of the backfield.

"Making it an exciting brand of football. I think that's one of our goals as well — to play an exciting brand of football that people want to watch and people want to play in, that can score points, that can score quickly.

"Now, at the same time, defenses are improved. Defenses change every year. They adjust. They adapt. You've got to sometimes take what they give you.

"So to be able to run the ball effectively and throw the ball effectively, you've got to be able to do both. There's gonna come a point in time where you're gonna have to do one, because the team's going to take away the other. So we've got to get really good at both.

"But if you can create big plays, just like for example, we create a lot of big plays in the Boston College game, then you can do some great things.

"Now are teams going to allow you to do that? They might not sometimes. You've got to be able to to adjust. Have some things underneath and some things in the screen game to make sure you're figuring out ways to score points.

"But the quicker the drives are for touchdowns, the higher chance you have of scoring and winning in my opinion. So we've got to be able to back people off, stretch the field vertically and create room to do things like running the ball and throwing it underneath."

Louisville Football Coverage:

Copyright 2024 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.