LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – The season, for Louisville football coach Jeff Brohm, has been a dance. From the very start.
A lot of people point to his 25 transfer portal additions in the offseason as the key to changing Louisville’s football fortunes in 2023, and there were some important imports, there’s no denying that.
But the key to this football season has been Brohm’s ability to think on his feet, to turn on a dime and try something else, to find just enough of an edge to win enough close games to put Louisville football into a position it has never experienced: A berth in today’s ACC Championship game against Florida State.
I’ve written about Brohm’s improvisational success. But it bears another look. It started with the season’s very first game.
After giving up 28 points in the second quarter to trail Georgia Tech by 15 at halftime, Brohm and his staff had to come up with some answers at halftime.
He simplified what he was doing on defense. He scrapped some things they’d been working on all preseason. They fell back on some other things they had put in. That’s why, he said, you put in multiple things, to have the versatility to change when things go wrong.
It wouldn’t be the last time he would use that. After 4 games, Louisville again was in the top 10 in the nation in passing offense, as Brohm’s teams usually are.
But against the better teams on Louisville’s schedule, the plan would have to change again.
At Pittsburgh, Brohm later critiqued the coaching job he did as too aggressive. He asked the passing game to make too many plays. The Cardinals’ took too many chances on defense. One week after knocking off a Top 10 Notre Dame team, Louisville was humbled in a 38-20 loss at Pitt, against a first-time starter at quarterback, no less.
Changes would come. The Cardinals embraced smash-mouth football. They loaded up on the running game. One game after putting the ball in the air 52 times at Pittsburgh, they threw it just 16 times in beating a nationally ranked Duke team, and the game after that, threw it only 13 times in beating Virginia Tech.
From high-octane passing to complementary football, Brohm had transformed his team in just a two-week stretch.
But he’d have to do some more scrambling as teams loaded up to stop what he was doing. Quarterback Jack Plummer had to deliver in wins over Virginia and Miami to close out the conference slate, and he did, throwing for 327 yards in the win at Miami.
Now against Florida State, Brohm again will have to be flexible.
Louisville doesn’t know which quarterback they will face. And they are working to shore up a defense that has given up too many big plays the past several weeks while struggling to get off the field – especially in some key third-and-long situations.
Asked about adjustments on Friday, Brohm’s answer encapsulated the scrambling nature of the whole season.
“We've had some really good games on defense, but I think the last three weeks have not been our best,” Brohm said. “You know, I think you have to just kind of circle the wagons and look at what's worked for you and what hasn't and what mistakes you made and what were the calls and how can we as coaches put them in a better position to succeed. So we've worked hard at it. There has to be a fine line.
“I think we had some success early on because we were aggressive in our approach. We were trying to get sacks. We were putting pressure on the quarterback, bit then a few times we've gotten burned because of it. So, I think it just has to be that perfect combination of do you want to go down being extra aggressive or do you want to go down being ultra-conservative and I just think I wish I had a perfect answer for it but right now, you know, we're this far into the season, we’ve practiced a lot of things to make sure we have ammunition. I think we like the plan that we have to this point and going into the game. But you’ve got to be able to adjust depending on how the game goes -- we have to stick with the plan or be able to adjust slightly if things go south early so that we can kind of change the momentum. I think that's what's important is making sure that we have the answers when those problems come up.”
Against Florida State on Saturday night, a historic win for Louisville might well come down to whether an how well an old quarterback is able to scramble yet again.
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