LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The desks are lined up. The papers are stacked. The pencils are sharpened.

For Jeff Brohm and his Louisville football team, Saturday's 3 p.m. game against Eastern Kentucky isn't just a season opener. It's test day.

"Come game day, it's time to take the test," Brohm said Monday at his first weekly news conference of the season. "You've got to show up and you've got to ace the test."

Coming off a nine-win season that included victories over Clemson and Kentucky, plus a victory in the Sun Bowl, expectations are elevated, despite the amount of roster turnaround. A returning core is surrounded by high-upside transfers.

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But Brohm didn't spend much time on big-picture goals. His message? Be sharp. Be clean. Don't flunk the little things.

Especially in Week 1.

A year ago, Louisville opened with Austin Peay. Before that, the Cards had a pair of conference opponents to open their season, and Ole Miss the year before that. Brohm has been around football long enough to know that the psychological edge belongs to the underdog in a game like this. But the real test for a team like Louisville is maturity, efficiency, and focus on the task.

"The first week sometimes has a lot of turnovers, a lot of fumbles, a lot of miscues, penalties," Brohm said. "We have to try to be as clean as we possibly can and not allow that to happen."

This is what Week 1 sounds like when you've done this for a while. Brohm wasn't handing out hype. He was talking about execution. The margin for error. The kinds of things that can lose a game before a coach even gets a chance to dig into the playbook.

Louisville opened as a 38.5-point favorite over EKU. In a game like that, even a first-half deficit of any kind can start to raise eyebrows.

It's the kind of thing that makes a coach nervous — even before a game when his team is a heavy favorite.

"I always have nerves. I think nerves are good," Brohm said. "As soon as you start feeling great about where you're at, someone will sneak up on you."

That's especially true with a team like EKU coming to town — experienced, aggressive, and hungry, coming off an 8-5 season and an FCS Playoff berth. Brohm knows the kind of attitude the Colonels will bring, because he tried to inspire the same attitude in his Western Kentucky teams.

"You've got a chip on your shoulder. You're hungry," he said. "You're out to prove what type of football you can play. So anytime you get a chance to play against a Power 4 opponent, you're going to be ready to go. These players will be licking their lips and ready to play football and show what they can do."

If Brohm has a few butterflies, he doesn't sound uncertain about his team.

He described USC transfer Miller Moss as doing everything right since arriving in January — staying late, leading the huddle, making the position his own.

"He's going to do everything he can to perform well," Brohm said. "But don't ever think you've arrived. Something new will come up — and how you handle that will determine the type of success you have."

Alongside Moss, sophomore running back Isaac Brown has emerged as a clear focal point. Brohm said Brown will "without question" be featured no matter the opponent — a telling endorsement considering the depth in the backfield.

"He's dynamic with the ball in his hands," he said. "We'd be foolish not to make sure he gets enough touches."

Brohm also outlined a wide receiver room that's "a good position for us right now," and said seven to nine offensive linemen are ready to rotate in. Still, he singled out one name — center Pete Nygra — as the man who keeps it all together up front.

"He's smart. He makes all of our calls. We need to keep him healthy."

There's an experienced tone to all this. Louisville is not building from scratch. It's refining. And this week, it's applying what was refined through spring and fall.

After last season, linebackers coach Mark Ivey said Brohm brought the staff together, had them compile a list of the things that the team didn't do well, and then they embarked as a group on ways to fix them.

"We spent a lot of time sitting around talking through the issues," Ivey said. "Is there way to put a player in a better position to make that play? Is there a better call? What gives us the best opportunity to play fast, and Coach Brohm was very hands on."

The defense, Brohm said, "has made progress." But he added a qualifier.

"We've got to just prove it on the game field," he said

That's what test day is for.

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