LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – For Jack Plummer, there seemed little to think about when making the decision to transfer to Louisville (from Cal) to play for his old coach (from Purdue), Jeff Brohm.
Louisville had a QB job open. Brohm is a proven QB coach. Plummer is a believer in Brohm. You don’t have to be a math major.
But the math isn’t bad.
“Well, a lot of it is the system and it's a great system,” Plummer said after the team wrapped up spring practice with the spring game on Friday night in L&N Stadium. “The plan is very quarterback-friendly. I mean every quarterback he's had back to Western Kentucky has played in the NFL and some are still playing in the NFL. That's something that's drawn me. My goals are to play at the next level and I think that this a this place will help me do that. Being at California was good for me, just getting a lot of game experience, starting all 12 games and learning that way, now coming back to a system that I know and like playing in, with familiarity with the coaches. I think it was a good decision.“
Plummer was in the Top 25 nationally in passing yards last season at Cal, and comes in with the advantage of knowing Brohm’s offense front and back after playing three years at Purdue. He posted the second longest streak without an interception in school history with 137 passes (second to Jared Goff), and faced some high-level defenses. He played three seasons for Brohm at Purdue (and completed 71 percent of the passes in the 3 games he played as a sophomore).
Last season, Plummer completed 3,095 yards and 21 touchdowns at Cal, and completed better than 62 percent of his passes.
His first couple of drives in the spring game weren’t much special. Louisville’s offensive line is a work in progress. Still, the 6-5, 215 graduate student finished the game 10 of 13 for 130 yards and a pair of touchdowns, and did not throw an interception.
“He had a really good camp, really good,” Brohm said. “I know he got off to a slow start today, had a couple of third-and-long situations and sometimes you just have to figure out ways to get a completion and hope you can maybe break a tackle and not do too much. But he's played a lot of football, has a ton of experience, is going to give us a ton of effort and he's a good leader. We've got to continue to get him great at all the small things, which he will do, and continue to work all the back-ups behind him so that they're ready to play.”
Brohm’s way of doing things offensively is a challenge to learn for a Louisville roster used to a more basic offense. The playbook is bigger and more detailed. There’s more reading and reacting to defenses on the fly.
For Plummer, after playing for Brohm as long as he has, all of that is second-nature. But he understands that it will take time to install and learn as an offensive unit.
“I know the system like the back of my hand,” Plummer said. “But now it's just new faces as far as who I'm playing with. I think the spring was valuable for me just to see how guys break in and out of their cuts, what guys are good at in certain things and just kind of how they move, and where I can throw the ball to them comfort-wise, just try to settle in that way. . . . Just with the depth of our playbook, and just with the receivers, I wasn't here last year, but I think they're running more routes here, and the detail on some of the routes that we have, against different coverages, they're going to have to run a different route on a certain play. So, I think just learning that with the receivers and getting it down with them, and knowing at first what the receivers are going to do and as a quarterback reacting, I think there's still a ways to go.”
Plummer, Brohm said, was actually his first quarterback recruit at Purdue. They knew about him because of a former Cardinal, linebacker Brandon Johnson, who was an assistant coach at his high school in Gilbert, Ariz. Brohm saw him and liked him right away.
“We recruited him,” Brohm said. “We just liked his look, his make-up. He had some athleticism, the ability to scramble a little bit. He had good size. We just thought he had a really high ceiling. So we brought him in, and he did a really good job. To be honest, there were some times when the talent around him wasn’t as great as we would like it to be, and there were times where probably as a play-caller I was too aggressive and put too much pressure on the quarterback as far as having to carry our team. … Then we had another really good quarterback that developed and found a way to take over the spot, but Jack was a very good quarterback and wanted to be a starter. So I knew the offensive coordinator at Cal and we helped him find a spot. What he has improved on, he is still very smart and very knowledgeable right away of our offense. I think he's improved his accuracy which was that was the one thing that -- he was accurate, but there were times he would miss some throws. But man, he really has been sharp this spring. I just think the more you play the more experience you gain the more adversity go through helps improve your play, and he's definitely been battle-tested and done a very good job.”
The transfer portal is teeming with players, for Brohm, to be able to have a quarterback already deeply familiar with his system has been invaluable, and likely will continue to be.
And while it was difficult to show many offensive changes in just 15 spring practices, Louisville did unveil a trick play on Friday night that yielded a touchdown. And Plummer said that’s something fans should get used to.
“In practice, it's cool because they'll script a trick play in during a regular play period -- because that's just how a game is,” Plummer said. “Coach is not afraid to dial up anything. If it's something that he saw a high school team run or something, he'll put it in. We'll only practice it a couple of times, because you don't want to over-jinx yourself running it too many times, but once we get to the game, we'll execute it. You have to be smart. Trick plays can be high risk and high reward, so just be smart with it. And obviously today, it looked pretty good.”
As far as the first-team offense, Plummer said the progress will come as the balance of the team gets more familiar with the system.
“I thought we had our ups and downs on the offensive side, didn't start hte way we wanted to, but picked it up later on, as far as the ones were concerned,” he said. “I thought it was good to get out there and treat it like a game. It's always a little bit different when you put a little more pressure on yourself. It's not just practice. This is the closest thing to a game before the fall, so I think the guys were feeling that a little bit, but it was good to get that experience.”
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