Louisville 'Confident' in Week One Game Plan vs. Austin Peay

The Cardinals kick off their 2024 season at home against to Governors.

Louisville's offense took a timeout against Louisville’s defense at L&N Stadium during the spring game. / Scott Utterback/Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - In just a few short days, college football will make its return to the city of Louisville.

This weekend, the Louisville football program will officially make their return to L&N Stadium, hosting Austin Peay to kick off their 2024 season. It will mark the second season under head coach Jeff Brohm, who guided the Cardinals to a 10-4 record last season.

Typically whenever it comes to FCS vs. FBS matchups, the latter is usually leaps and bounds better than the former. On paper, this matchup is no different, as Louisville enters their showdown with Austin Peay as a multi-touchdown favorite.

Of course, FCS squads still come out on top from time-to-time. Last weekend during the "week zero" slate of games, Montana State marched into New Mexico and escaped with a 35-31 win. There have also been six all-time instances of an FCS team taking down a top-25 ranked FBS teams, most recently in 2021 when Montana took down No. 20 Washington.

Part of this is because FCS vs. FBS matchups typically happen in the beginning of the season, when there is no or very little game tape to scout on each other. It's hard to plan and prepare for any opponent whenever you aren't 100 percent sure what they're going to throw at you.

Game-planning is even more difficult whenever you have a brand new coaching staff on the sideline, such is the case with Austin Peay. Former head coach Scott Walden left to take the job at UTEP, and UCLA tight ends coach Jeff Faris was hired in his place. As a result, less than half of the Governors' roster from last season - whether it's due to graduation or the transfer portal - is still on the team for their 2024 campaign.

That being said, Louisville head coach Jeff Brohm and the rest of the Cardinals' staff went to great lengths to try and prepare for what they anticipate Faris and Co. to throw at them.

"You don't know for sure exactly what you're going to see with the new offensive coordinator, new head coach, new defensive coordinator," he said Monday during the program's annual weekly press conference.

"Now, we've studied the history and the past of the people that are supposedly calling the offense and defense, and what they've done in the past. Do we know for sure that's what we're going to do? No, we do not. The good thing is, we have prepared for a lot. When we go against ourselves, we go against a lot of different looks and things as well. You're hopeful that you can just adjust to what you see along the way, and have at least maybe an idea."

As you can imagine, in-game adjustments will be critical in making sure Austin Peay doesn't hang around for an extended period of time, or even threaten to outright pull off the upset. Fortunately, Brohm and the coaching staff are very prepared to abandon their original game plan if it is not working, and are more than willing to make the necessary adjustments. Specifically, they're keenly aware that Austin Peay's top-two options at quarterback - Mason Garcia and Austin Smith - are viable threats on the ground, and that the Governors' defense is prepared to throw non-traditional fronts at them in order to create chaos.

"It'll be important," Brohm said in regards to Louisville's ability to make in-game adjustments. "(Defending) quarterback run, misdirections, the ability to defend all the nuances of the perimeter game and quarterback scrambles, and draws and reads and pulls, and all those things, we prepared heavily for that. That can always get you, because of the ability to counter, and to count the quarterback in the action, but we prepared heavy for that. I know that. I think we should be in pretty good shape there.

"Sometimes when you're going against some things you don't see, you may have to be a little more simple and under control at the beginning before you start to crank it up. But at the same time, I want to be aggressive. That's been our style. We want to be calculated with it, but also not give up big plays when that happens. I do think we have a good plan for that on offense.

"From what we've studied, it'll be some different looks (from Austin Peay's defense), some odd looks where they try to create some havoc and chaos, and just do different things. We got to just react accordingly."

When you put it all together, Brohm feels confident that he and his staff have put together a game plan that is ready for anything and everything that Austin Peay could run.

"I feel confident that we've seen a lot to this point, and both of our offense and defense does a lot," Brohm said. "I think we'll have a general plan and ability to react quickly."

(Photo of Louisville players: Scott Utterback - Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK)

You can follow Louisville Cardinals On SI for future coverage by liking us on Facebook, Twitter/X and Instagram:

Facebook - @LouisvilleOnSI
Twitter/X - @LouisvilleOnSI
Instagram - @louisvilleonsi

You can also follow Deputy Editor Matthew McGavic at @Matt_McGavic on Twitter/X