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U of L beat writer Alexis Cubit talks injuries, more in Week 4 Brohm Breakdown
Louisville football beat writer Alexis Cubit talks injury updates and what the Cards learned against James Madison to prepare for Bowling Green.
- The Cards’ offense has struggled in the red zone, failing to score a touchdown pass in six trips inside the 20.
- Practices weren’t as physical during the week but were still intense as they repeatedly focused their work on troublesome areas exposed in JMU game.
Louisville football didn’t need an open date on its calendar last week. The Cardinals needed to play again; that’s the only way coach Jeff Brohm will feel better.
The first two games of the season left Brohm a bit antsy and not feeling comfortable with where they are now. (Truthfully, they could be ranked in the top 10 and he might still have found something problematic to their start.)
There wasn’t much to take from their 51-17 win over Eastern Kentucky because it was a Football Championship Subdivision opponent. And U of L’s 28-14 win over James Madison evoked as much examination and probing from Brohm and staff as a loss would have.
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Louisville football coach Jeff Brohm breaks down what the Cardinals (2-0) need to look for when playing Bowling Green (2-1) Sept. 20.
So the Cards’ open week was a free weekend in name only. Sometimes a pause, even in the third week of the season, is the only way to figure out how to play better.
“As a coach, yes, relaxing is fine, but to me that’s for the offseason,” Brohm said. “We’ve got to make sure we’re prepared the best we can in order to play better as a team overall.”
Saturday’s home game against Bowling Green — Louisville’s last nonconference game until the season finale against Kentucky — will be like a second season opener against the Mid-American Conference team that played Cincinnati tough in a 34-20 loss.
Last week’s practices were not as physical as usual, but Brohm wanted to keep the same level of intensity by staying hyper-focused on the areas he wants to see changed.
Like many teams nationally, the concerns for U of L now are largely on offense. Given the choice, I’d rather take Louisville’s problems than those of UCLA or Virginia Tech, which both claimed highly touted quarterbacks but got their coaches fired after slow starts.
Or even Texas, which has two-stepped its way to walk back the Heisman Trophy expectations of Arch Manning all the way to Austin.
The Cards haven’t hit their stride on offense, but they’re not exactly running in place on a treadmill, either. JMU’s defensive game plan alerted Brohm to weaknesses he didn’t anticipate. Namely, he blamed himself for not having enough counters baked into the game plan to combat their aggressive approach.
“We’re not only preparing for (Bowling Green), but preparing for a little bit of the unexpected, and making sure we have answers for anything that we can see or that comes about,” Brohm said.
Louisville is one of four ACC schools yet to have a touchdown pass in the red zone. And its red-zone touchdown percentage of 33 is only above Stanford’s 22% among conference teams.
Yes, it is a small sample size with only six red-zone trips in two games. And, yes, the Cards haven’t had red-zone opportunities because they’ve scored six of eight offensive touchdowns on explosive plays of 30 yards or more.
But this feast-or-famine approach to scoring will not be sustainable as the competition level increases when ACC play begins with next week’s trip to Pittsburgh on Sept. 27.
Brohm has been solid in finding solutions during an off week. For his career, including his stops at Western Kentucky and Purdue, his teams are 12-7 after a bye week including 2-1 in his previous two seasons with the Cards.
The lone loss at U of L? Last year’s inexplicable 38-35 stumble at Stanford in which the Cards squandered a 14-point fourth-quarter lead in the game’s final 10 minutes.
“It changes what you’re good at and what you’re not quite as good at, so I just think addressing the issues, not hiding from it, identifying it, try to improve and go out there and play better next week,” Brohm said.
Brohm hates bye weeks. But sometimes, as seems to be the case this season, they arrive at the right time to get right.
Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.
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