Watch: Jeff Brohm, Ron English and Louisville Players Preview Clemson

The head coach of the Cardinals, as well as their defensive coordinator, STAR Antonio Watts and TE Nate Kurisky met with the media to discuss their upcoming matchup vs. the Tigers.

Oct 5, 2024; Louisville, Kentucky, USA; Louisville Cardinals head coach Jeff Brohm talks to his players during the second half against the Southern Methodist Mustangs at L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium. / Jamie Rhodes-Imagn Images

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Facing Boston College on a short turnaround, the Louisville football program was able mount an incredibly unlikely road comeback, storming back from a 20-point deficit to capture a 31-27 win this past Friday.

Next up, Louisville will stay on the road and head to Death Valley for a showdown with top-ten Clemson. Kickoff against the Tigers is scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 2 at 7:30 p.m. EST.

Prior to their upcoming matchup, head coach Jeff Brohm, defensive coordinator Ron English, linebacker Antonio Watts and tight end Nate Kurisky took time to meet with the media. They discussed the previous game vs. Boston College, previewed the upcoming game at Clemson, and more.

Below is the partial transcript from Brohm's press conference, as well as the videos from English, Watts and Kurisky's press conference:

Head Coach Jeff Brohm

(Opening statement)

“We have a big weekend ahead of us and I know our players are excited to go on the road and play a really good opponent, that’s playing really good right now. We’ll have our hands full, so I think it’s just a matter of getting back to work, trying to find ways to improve, continuing the tweak some things to get better and to push them forward. This is a great opportunity to see how far we can come, but it’ll be a great test for us, but we’re looking forward to playing in this atmosphere.”

(How big was the touchdown before halftime Friday?)

“Obviously things weren’t going our way in the first half – a lot of shooting ourselves in the foot, a lot of key mistakes that hurt us. We just kind of hung in there and found a way to get a score at the end. I thought we moved the ball at least a little bit and found a way to get a good drive together and score. The start of the second half was okay, it wasn’t great it’s not like we came out firing away, but they score right away. But we were able to respond, so I just think the toughness that our team had, the ability to just kind of hang in there and play to the end came through for us in a pivotal, pivotal game where we needed it to happen.”

(What went into the decision with Caullin Lacy to redshirt and how big was it to have players step up when you needed those playmakers in the passing game?)

“With Caullin, we support all the decisions that our players make, that they think is best for them. I was not in agreement with the decision, it was not best for our football team, but I understand where he’s coming from and we definitely want to do what’s best for all of our players and we’ll always do that, because I do think that we’re not as good of a team without him. But at the same time, we’re going to support him with whatever he wants us to help him with. When it came to other guys stepping up, we had to have other guys step up – Caullin was a really good player for us and he was just getting really healthy. So Ahmari [Huggins-Bruce] came in and made a couple of mistakes early, but played hard and played the entire game, found ways to make plays in the second half. Kris Hughes stepped in and made a couple of nice catches for us. I just think that between the receiving room having some injuries and dealing with some blows and the offensive line dealing with quite a few blows – and we had some more. We’ve just got to continue to fight through that and other guys have got to be able to step up.”

(Where does last week’s win at Boston College rank in term of toughness and how do you keep guys in it in a come from behind game like that?)

“When it comes to a tough, hard-fought win and a gut check, that was one of the biggest gut checks we’ve ever had. We really had to grind this thing out and not lose our confidence and not give in – so the gut check is probably number one as far as games throughout the history where we easily could have folded – so that was good. Now, I’d like to play better, I’d like to be more efficient, we’ve got to work hard to do that, we’ve just got to continue to battle through it. I was very proud of the football team and coaches, we could have easily lost our confidence, got down on ourselves, not played as hard in the second half, but we did not. And going on the road and beating a good team that had played good football was a good win. So, we’ve just got to figure out how to build on that and find ways to improve and be more efficient moving forward.”

(Are there one or two areas you could improve to take it up a notch)

“I think we’ve identified a lot of the issues we’ve had. We’ve tried to work on them, I’m not saying we’ve made a ton of progress, but we’ve made some and we’ve got to continue to get better at it. To sum it up, defense it’s about getting calls in efficiently and quickly and making them as simple as we can because we’ve busted out more things this year than we’ve ever had, when a lot of it’s the same calls. So, tweaking that to make it simpler to make it more efficient, adjusting some of the calls to fit our personnel, so we can be aggressive and create some stops. Once again, we had a couple of busts, that created big plays in the last game that - you just can’t do that, rarely are you going to overcome the bust we had. The people that were that wide open if you take away those couple plays then we’re play some real football. So how can we fix that, sometimes it’s things we’ve done for years, but you know what it’s not working maybe it’s just a bit too complicated and we’ve got to simplify it. We’re working through that, and it seems like we’re getting simpler and simpler as we go, but you still got to have a little bit of adjustments that you make to win.”

“On offense not turning it over and being good in short yardage situations is pivotal for us. If we can fix that as well as we can, I think we can move the ball enough. In order to win at a high level, those things have to be hitting on all cylinders on offense, defense, and special teams. We’ve gained some edges on special teams at times. We were trying to time up a key factor that could help us block a kick and they adjusted, and we jumped offsides. I go back to Georgia Tech and found the same thing and we got a block kick for a touchdown, but we’ve got to be able to rein that back and know that’s not working… what is the down and distance, we’ve got to be smarter. We got to make a few adjustments there that hurt us. I think all three segments have to be clicking in order to beat really good teams. We had some success doing that last year. This year it’s been a little more of a struggle, but we got to find ways to fix it and make sure we’re more efficient in all three segments.”

(On contributions from other players in place of injured guys) 

“We have had quite a few injuries up front, on the offensive line, and they continue to mount on. There’s not a whole lot of guys that have played for us left. We’ve got to keep these five or six guys healthy, so everyone is up and they have to play. There might be a few others that haven’t played at all that may have to get in, because we lost one more from this past game that has played a lot of football for us, so we’ve just got to work through it. I think those guys work hard and don’t get a lot of credit, and we’re missing some guys. We’ve got some other guys that are playing nicked up with severe injuries. We kind of have a little bad luck on that, but we’ve got to work through it. I still expect them to play well and the next guy up has got to get it done. That’s why you practice year-round and you tell the young guys, ‘your time is going to come, I don't know when it is, but it’s going to come, so we’ve got to be ready.’

At the receiver position, we’ve had some injuries there that have knocked us out, between receivers and tight ends. Kris Hughes has worked hard. We’ve got some capable guys that just haven’t played a whole lot and don't have a ton of experience, but their time is going to be called. We’ve just got to work through it and continue to get our best players the ball as much as we can, but others have to feed off of that and everyone has to contribute. Isaac Brown has been getting worn down in these games, we’ve got to get all the running backs to contribute. We want to use Ja’Corey [Brooks] and Chris [Bell], but all the receivers have got to contribute, we can’t just go to them all the time. I just think we’ve got to become a little better overall.”

(On team staying in it after being down 20-0)

“Like I said, as far as wins, that was one I was very, very proud of our football team, because they hung in there and it wasn’t easy. I’ll be the first one to tell you, at halftime, I was just like ‘oh my gosh, what the heck, what is going on here, we’ve got to get this fixed.’ But, you’ve got to withstand it. Luckily, I’ve been through hard times before. It’s not very fun, but you can’t dwell on it. You’ve got to believe in what you’re doing, believe in the solutions you have, and you’ve got to attempt to make them. We talk about this scenario quite a bit, because I understand in the game of football, at a competitive level, it’s going to happen a lot - probably way more so than people think. You’ve got to be mentally tough to withstand that, and I just think our team is mentally tough. I’m not going to say they can’t be broken down at some point, but they are mentally tough, they work hard, they want to win - it means something to them. We understand it’s not going to be perfect, and our goal is to make it perfect but it’s not going to be. But we’ve got to be more efficient and we’ve got to be cleaner in our play if we want to find ways to win. And that happens from me to our coaches and down to our players. Everything has to be crisper, sharper, cleaner, and we’ve got to get these things addressed every week and continue to make improvements and not lose confidence when things aren’t going quite our way. Yes, I am proud of our team, they work really hard, and we will have our hands full this week and be tested to the max against a really, really hot team.”

(What’s different about Clemson this year?)

“I have a ton of respect for coach (Dabo) Swinney and his team. They’ve done a great job over the years. They’ve faced a little adversity the last couple of years, because they’re used to being dominant, but he’s stuck to his plan and has players that he recruited and developed. They have worked through a couple of ups and downs along the way and played a really tough opponent the first week. Really it was a close game until the second half when a few things didn’t go their way. Guess what, they fixed those for the last six games and have been lights out. They’re playing really good football and are hitting on all cylinders. They’re good up front on defense, they’re athletic at linebacker and in the secondary. On offense the quarterback is playing at a high level and has good weapons around him. They have good balance and they’re really good at home. I think he feels great about the direction his team is going, they have a chance to be as good as anybody. We will have our hands full going and playing a team this hot on their home field.”

(On the atmosphere at Clemson and quarterback Cade Klubnik)

“I think the atmosphere will be what college football is all about, I’m sure it’ll be popping, and they’ll be ready to play. It’s good for our team to play in those environments. We’ve been able to do that on our home field, but now we’re going on the road, just like at Notre Dame, and play in a great atmosphere in a big-time game. That’s why you work year-round. I tell our guys all the time that you work all year for these moments so let’s take advantage of it. Let’s have a great week of practice and lay it all out there and go cut it loose come gametime.

When it comes to Clemson’s quarterback, he’s continued to progress. Like every quarterback, he’s had a couple of struggles along the way, which is good for quarterbacks, but he’s over the hump now. I think he’s thrown for 20 touchdowns, three picks, over 500 yards of offense five out of six games, or six out of seven, I’m not sure, but he’s playing at a high level. They’ve built the offense around him and what his strengths are, and right now it’s clicking on all cylinders. Once again, we have to stop a good quarterback. We’ve got to find ways to be better than we have and find ways to limit big plays and make them earn it. It’ll be important that we try and do that.”

(On Nate Kurisky stepping up)

“Well Nate Kurisky has done a great job for us, and he really did last year as well. Last year we didn’t have a lot of experience at tight end, and he played hard. He works hard and plays hard and he’s tough. This year we went and got Mark Redman at tight end who has a ton of experience somewhere else. He’s come in and done a great job. He’s a really good blocker, he makes efficient catches, and does a good job on short and intermediate routes. We had Jamari Johnson who was really coming into his own, who has a lot of athleticism and talent, and was a really good piece that has a bright future, but now is out for an extended period of time with the surgery he has to have. Nate is a guy that can do a lot of things for us. He’s steady at a lot of things and knows what to do and does it the best he can. He doesn’t have very many mental mistakes, because he understands it. We’ve got to rely on him more and I think he’ll continue to do a good job for us, and he definitely stepped up this past game.”

Defensive Coordinator Ron English

Linebacker Antonio Watts and Tight End Nate Kurisky

(Photo of Jeff Brohm: Jamie Rhodes - Imagn Images)

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