LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Nine wins is a good college football season.
Let's get that established before Louisville goes and makes things complicated.
The Cardinals have won nine games in each of Jeff Brohm's past two seasons. They have won bowl games. They've been ranked. They've beaten good teams. Brohm is 28-12 in three seasons at his alma mater and took Louisville to the ACC championship game in his first.
Nobody needs to manufacture dissatisfaction with that.
But college football programs don't stand still long enough to admire what they've done. Eventually, progress changes the question.
It is no longer: Can Louisville win with Jeff Brohm?
It is: How much can Louisville win with Jeff Brohm?
That's why Year 4 feels different.
Brohm has reached that dangerous stage of coaching where everybody agrees he's doing a good job — and would now like him to do better.
He has one of the most explosive running backs in college football. He may have his deepest quarterback room. He has an experienced defense that believes it can carry the team. And he has a schedule that will give Louisville opportunities to establish itself nationally almost immediately.
The preseason ranking of No. 24 is a cautious endorsement.
But Brohm supplied the season slogan himself at the program's kickoff luncheon: The time is now.
He's right. Not because there's a clock ticking on his job. Far from it. Because there comes a point in building a program when improvement has to stop being measured by what you've already accomplished and start being measured by what you haven't.
For Louisville, that point has arrived.
What this team is
Start with Isaac Brown.
He's one of the most explosive running backs in college football, a player capable of turning an ordinary play into a touchdown before everybody else realizes anything unusual has happened.
And Louisville learned last season exactly what life without him can look like.
Brown missed the final four games. Louisville lost three of them — 29-26 to Cal, 20-19 to Clemson and 38-6 at SMU — while beating Kentucky 41-0. The Cardinals also beat Bowling Green 40-17 in a game when Brown carried only once.
So Louisville proved it can win without Brown. What it couldn't consistently do was replace the margin for error his explosiveness provides.
That's why durability has been such an emphasis. The Cardinals handled Brown carefully during preseason camp. That restraint figures to disappear when Louisville opens against Ole Miss.
Behind him is Keyjuan Brown, himself poised for a breakout season, with transfer Marquise Davis adding even more depth.
Quarterback is different.
Brohm has his deepest room at Louisville — and that includes his first opener, when he managed to play nine quarterbacks — but depth isn't the same thing as certainty.
Lincoln Kienholz spent three seasons waiting behind other quarterbacks at Ohio State. He has a strong arm, but what makes him different from Brohm's previous Louisville quarterbacks is his ability to run.
“I think we can do some things with him that we have not been able to do in the past with his legs and his feet and his speed,” Brohm said.
If Kienholz falters, Davin Wydner has started for two seasons at West Georgia and impressed throughout camp. True freshman Briggs Cherry may eventually have the highest ceiling of the three.
Around them are weapons.
Tre Richardson was productive at Vanderbilt when healthy and brings legitimate speed. “I go from zero to 100 in about three yards,” he said. Brody Foley was a first-team all-conference tight end at Tulsa. Wideout LaWayne McCoy transferred from Florida State.
But the strength of this Louisville team should be its defense.
Clev Lubin returned for one more season at defensive end. AJ Green is back on the other side. Stanquan Clark and T.J. Capers return at linebacker. Iowa transfer Koen Entringer should be a major addition in the secondary.
Louisville is deep enough that last year's No. 2 tackler, D'Angelo Hutchinson, received a fifth year of eligibility through a court ruling, worked out with the Cardinals, then transferred to Cincinnati before the start of class.
Lubin has established the standard for the group.
“We want to be the reason this team wins games,” he said.
Not a reason. The reason.
Why it can work
Because there isn't much Louisville obviously lacks.
The Cardinals have an elite running back, capable backups, speed at receiver and multiple quarterback options. The defense is experienced and should be among the best in the ACC.
Brohm has already demonstrated that his teams can beat good opponents.
And while much attention — including here — is given to Louisville's tendency to drop games it shouldn't, some thought should be given to the other side of that argument. If Isaac Brown stays healthy last season, Louisville might well have finished 10-2 instead of 9-4.
Which makes the early tests against No. 9 Ole Miss and No. 19 SMU less about whether Louisville belongs on the field with top opponents than whether the Cardinals are ready to start turning possibilities into results.
Brohm isn't running from that schedule. Louisville plays 11 Power Four opponents, something he believes will challenge his team and excite its fans.
If Louisville can split those first two major tests — and particularly beat SMU — it should enter the heart of its schedule squarely in the ACC race.
The Cardinals don't have to spend September wondering whether they're contenders.
September will tell them.
What could go wrong
Start with the offensive line.
Louisville rebuilt much of it through the transfer portal, and Lance Robinson is the returning leader of a group Brohm acknowledges has plenty of new faces.
“I like what we've seen to this point,” Brohm said. “But like everything, up front is where the games are won in the trenches.”
Then there's quarterback.
Brohm's offense ranked 71st nationally in total offense last season after ranking 13th in 2024 and 41st in 2023. He specifically wants a better vertical passing game, more quick-strike scores and more production throwing the ball downfield.
Kienholz may provide them. But until he does, that's projection rather than production.
Special teams also bears watching. Brohm has expressed frustration with its consistency during the preseason, particularly in the kicking game. That's no small concern for a team whose margin between winning and losing has become remarkably thin.
Four of Louisville's past five losses over two seasons have come by three points or fewer.
Which brings us to the larger issue. Louisville has proved it can beat good teams. Can it stop occasionally losing games that make no sense?
Brohm doesn't dodge the question.
“I think our team's proven we can win big games,” he said. “We have the ability to do that at any moment. ... Now, just being consistent every week is what we’ve got to work on.”
His prescription isn't complicated: don't get beaten by the small things. Make fewer mistakes. Win the close games.
Lubin sees the same thing from the locker room. He went back through Louisville's close losses and saw “minute details” — mistakes, lapses in discipline, moments when the Cardinals needed to be smarter.
“We have all the talent in the world,” Lubin said. “We’ve just got to be a smarter team.”
That's really the season. Not proving Louisville is talented. Proving it can be trusted.
What would a good season look like?
Ten wins. Not nine.
Louisville has finished 9-4 in each of the past two seasons. Another nine-win year wouldn't be a disaster. Plenty of programs would happily take it.
But here? It's a rerun.
And not the kind you watch over and over to ease your anxiety.
The Cardinals should challenge for an ACC championship and spend November in the College Football Playoff conversation.
At minimum, split Ole Miss and SMU. Avoid the annual mystery loss. Get to the final month with something substantial still at stake.
The opener is fascinating because it could immediately change the perception of Louisville nationally. But the larger lesson of Brohm's first three seasons is that beating Ole Miss won't matter nearly as much if Louisville gives the victory back somewhere else.
That's the next step.
The Pick: 9-3
I can see 10-2. I can see Louisville returning to Charlotte. I can see a team good enough to enter the College Football Playoff discussion.
But it’s tough to just assume away the clunker. The offensive line is new. There are still some maybes on offense. Louisville is 6-7 in one-score games over the past two seasons. Too often, they’re losing in the moments that separate good teams from teams you can trust.
Nine wins would still be a good season.
Louisville has simply reached the point where good is no longer the most interesting possibility.
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