Louisville's Coaching Staff Drawing Lessons from Last Year's Late Season Slide

The Cardinals went 10-4 during the 2023 season, but dropped their final three games of the year.

Sep 7, 2023; Louisville, Kentucky, USA; Louisville Cardinals head coach Jeff Brohm watches from the sideline during the second half against the Murray State Racers at L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium. / Jamie Rhodes-USA TODAY Sports

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - At this point in time, it's well established that that Louisville football program had a very successful first year under head coach Jeff Brohm. The Cardinals went 10-4 for their first 10-win season in a decade, and also clinched a spot in the ACC Championship Game for the first time since joining the conference in 2024.

It's also well established that Louisville stumbled to the finish line last year. The Cardinals started the 2023 season at 10-1 and ranked as the No. 9 team in the AP Poll. However, they proceeded to drop their final three games on their schedule: the Battle for the Governor's Cup against Kentucky, the ACC Championship Game vs. Florida State, and the Holiday Bowl vs. USC.

Regarding Louisville's late-season skid, Brohm says that "a combination of a lot of things" led to them dropping their final three games. One of them, admittedly, was that him and the rest of his coaching staff could have done a better job putting the players in positions to succeed.

"From a coaching aspect, there are things we could have done better, in my opinion," he said during the ACC Football Kickoff. "In order to be competitive against the best teams, which we face some good teams late in the season, you've got to be sharp in every aspect. That, in combination with some mistakes we want to correct on the field. Just simple things, that I won't elaborate too much on, but there are things we all could have done better, including myself and our coaches."

Even prior to the three-game losing streak, signs that Louisville was starting to slip were beginning to appear. They trailed midway through the fourth quarter of their Thursday-night showdown against 2-7 Virginia, and needed two touchdowns in the final seven minutes to win 31-24. The next week on the road against 5-5 Miami, they entered the final period down five before winning 38-31 to officially clinch a spot in the ACC title game.

After that is when things started to unravel. Louisville lost 38-31 to Kentucky after going up 17-7 midway through the third quarter, dropped a 16-6 slobber knocker against FSU in the ACC title game, and was thoroughly out-classed by USC in the Holiday Bowl for a 42-28 loss to end the season.

The head man in charge of the Cardinals isn't the only one who believes that coaching played a role in the program looking and playing drastically different in the final month of their inaugural campaign under Brohm.

"I felt coaching was a part of it," co-defensive coordinator Ron English said earlier this week during fall camp. "I would say this, I don't think we coached our best game against Kentucky or Southern Cal. I think we played well for a half, and then I think we kind of got rattled around. The kickoff return (vs. Kentucky) hurt us a little bit, and we didn't really choke them out as well as we had. I think we can coach better, to be honest."

The main reason why both Brohm and English have noted that coaching played a role in Louisville's late season stagnation was that they started to become a little too predictable and a little too vanilla in their play calling. In order to keep opponents on their toes, English says that everyone on the coaching staff, including himself, must "continue to evolve" and add fresh, new elements to their schemes.

"When opponents have that much data against you, you must continue to evolve," he said. "I really felt like, against Kentucky, we made some mental errors in the game. But I felt like, (against Southern Cal), we didn't have enough bullets. I didn't coach as well as I needed to, I didn't put the players in the positions they needed to be in, and that was the facts."

Heading into the offseason, Brohm and Co. have been using the end to their 2023 season as a sort of motivation for their upcoming 2024 campaign, and have been drawing lessons from that. Brohm himself has mentioned on a few occasions this offseason that he wants to add more "wrinkles" to Louisville's schemes on both sides of the ball.

Of course, Brohm's not going to completely open up and say what exactly he is changing and mixing up heading into year two. Whether or not it means adding new formations, mixing in new trick plays, drawing inspiration from the NFL, we don't know - at least not yet. What he was willing to divulge was that the effort to improve their coaching involved a lot of self-research.

"We will research, we'll study, and you just have to be creative each and every week a little bit," Brohm said at the ACC Football Kickoff. "I think a lot of times, as we've looked and studied ourselves, when we first run a new play, it's always very successful. As we coach it more, it gets less successful. So you know what? Sometimes, all right, we need a couple of these wrinkles every game, because they normally work.

"There's nothing wrong about being good at what you do, but unless you're by far the best team, that doesn't always work. Offense, defense, special teams, we need to have some creativity in that, and make sure that we have a plan for it, and that it can adjust along the way."

These efforts to improve their respective approaches also involved outside help as well. For example, English says that he paid a visit to Phil Snow, the former defensive coordinator of the Carolina Panthers who is now an analyst for the Chicago Bears. He also attended a coaching clinic with Navy's staff, fresh off of a season where the Midshipmen ranked 37th in the FBS in scoring defense and 44th in total defense.

"I just went around. If you can get one or two things, it's good for you," he said.

Of course, even with the coaching staff admitting that they could have done a better job to end the season, depth did also play a bit of a role in the last season slide.

English used the game at Miami as an example. With Jarvis Brownlee being out due to injury, it meant Louisville didn't have a true nickel available, and limited what they could do in man coverage - specifically when it came to guarding Xavier Restepo. The Canes wideout finished that game with eight catches for 193 yards and a touchdown.

Fast forward back to the present, and the staff believes that on both the coaching and the depth fronts, Louisville is in a much better spot.

"We have a lot of depth, and we put a lot of defense (plays) in, like, a lot of defense," English said. "Guys are still not playing as fast as they're gonna play, but we'll start toning it down and game planning and all that stuff (soon). But we do have a lot of good players."

Year two under head coach Jeff Brohm is scheduled to kick off against Austin Peay on Saturday, Aug. 31 at L&N Stadium.

(Photo of Jeff Brohm: Jamie Rhodes - USA TODAY Sports)

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