LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- In 50 days, the Jeff Brohm era will officially kick off when Louisville takes on Georgia Tech in Atlanta in the Cardinals' season opener.

While Brohm has mainly earned a stellar coaching reputation for his offense, UofL's defense will be intriguing with the young talent it has at linebacker. That intrigue grew with the announcement that TJ Capers, one of the highest-rated recruits in program history, reclassified from the 2024 class to 2023 to join the Cardinals for the upcoming season.

"We're excited about TJ Capers and we're fired up to get him here," Brohm said in a Thursday news conference with reporters. "I think he can be an outstanding football player for us."

Capers, whom 247Sports previously rated as a five-star and top-10 prospect in the 2024 class before ranking him as a top-20 edge linebacker for the 2023 class, will need to get healthy first. Brohm said the incoming freshman just arrived this week and is rehabbing from a knee injury suffered at the end of last year. 

"Now, the reality is, he still should be going into senior year of high school," Brohm said. "So, there is going to be a learning curve. He hasn't been here training with us. He just arrived late Tuesday night, early Wednesday morning. There's a lot to learn.

"He had a knee injury at the end of the year that he's still rehabbing. So, there's just a lot of things. We're not going to have high expectations early on for him. We want to make sure he feels comfortable with what he's doing, he gets healthy and we get him on the field when he's ready."

Capers is not the only highly-touted freshman in Louisville's linebacker group. Stanquan Clark, who is from Miami like Capers, was rated as a top-40 linebacker nationally. He has also been with the Cardinals since the spring, impressing the staff and showing he could contribute early. 

"In Stanquan's case, it's a little easier," Brohm said. "And that's the route we've gone before where he's had a full spring. He's going to have a full summer and full fall camp. He's continued to learn. He's made great strides and I feel very confident he's going to do a very good job for us."

Brohm, who is entering his 10th season as a college head coach, believes his past teams have done well in getting young players ready to play early. While Capers needs time to get healthy and learn the program like Clark has gotten to do, the first-year Cardinal head coach would not rule out his newest addition playing as a freshman.

"I'm not going to put anything past someone coming in," Brohm said. "So, we're going to get him healthy first and make sure that he feels good when he's on the field, he's able to practice at a high level. We've got to get him up to speed with terminology and educate him on on what we're doing here. And that takes time.

"So, it's going to be a little more of a process with him. I haven't had this happen before as a coach. We're going to be patient and make sure that we give these guys every opportunity, but at the same time, make sure they're ready when they step on the field."

The Cardinals lost one of their veteran returning linebackers to the transfer portal in KJ Cloyd, who stayed in the ACC by joining Miami. Monty Montgomery also previously transferred to Ole Miss.

UofL did get Oregon linebacker Keith Brown in the portal, who played two years for the Ducks. The Cards also have redshirt senior Jack Reiger, juniors Jaylin Alderman and Darrian Bell, plus sophomores Jackson Hamilton (redshirt), TJ Quinn (redshirt) and Antonio Watts in the position group. 

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