Jeff Brohm, Louisville 'Excited' to Kick Off 2024 Season

The Cardinals face Austin Peay this Saturday at L&N Stadium.

Louisville's Jeff Brohm coaches during one of their practices / Scott Utterback/Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - At long last, the long and torturous offseason is finally over.

College football made its triumphant return this past weekend, kicking off the 2024 season with the annual slate of "week zero" games. The rest of the FBS is not far behind, with week one's games set to start this upcoming Thursday and lasting all throughout Labor Day weekend.

For the Louisville football program, they'll be returning to the gridiron this Saturday at noon, hosting Austin Peay from their home base of L&N Stadium. After months of waiting and preparation, the Cardinals couldn't be more excited to get underway.

"We're excited to get this season started," head coach Jeff Brohm said during Louisville's weekly press conference. "I think everyone's ready for some football, and I know our team is. They practiced hard, they've worked hard, they know what's in front of us. It starts with game one right here in front of our home crowd. It'll be great to get back in L&N Stadium and play some football this Saturday, and have a great day."

If anything else, the Cardinals are ready to line up against someone that's not themselves. Louisville kicked off their fall camp all the way back on Aug. 1, and have shifted to their normal pre-game practice schedule since last week when UofL's fall semester started.

Related: Louisville Football Fall Camp Central

"It's fun to play against a different opponent," offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Brian Brohm said. "Our guys have been banging heads with our defense all camp, we got a really good camp, got a lot of good work in, but they're ready to go play somebody else. A lot of new faces, so to get them through a first game planning week, and kind of how that's all going to work, they're chopping up the bit to get out there."

By all accounts, Louisville is seemingly ready to take on the 2024 season. The Cardinals boast a roster that has an upper tier blend of returning production and impact newcomers, and were able to retain their entire coaching staff from a team that went 10-4 a season ago.

Of course, game planning for week one is always an interesting endevour. Whether you're playing a team from the FCS ranks or a preseason top-25 squad, one simple fact connects both kinds of teams: you don't have any film to scout this specific team yet. You can try your best to game plan based on the tendencies of the coaches on staff or the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the personnel on the roster, but at the end of the day, it's simply an educated guess until you can actually see your week one opponent on the field.

That being said, Louisville believes they have done a great job in the scouting department ahead of their season opener, and are prepared to make as many in-game adjustments as necessary.

"You're not quite sure what you're going to see," Brian Brohm said. "We have an idea. You go back and watch where these coaches have been, what they have run in the past, and try to scheme up for that. But we could come out there, and they could be totally something different that we haven't seen on film or haven't prepared for. So you want to do the game playing that you normally do, but you have to have the base plays that you know you're good at, that you can run versus anybody and versus anything. Those got to be ready to go in game one, because you could be preparing for some defense, and then you get out there and it's and that's not it, and you got to switch it up.

"There's a mixture of that as far as game one. A lot of great plays we run in training camp. They'll be up in that game plan no matter what, and then we'll try to scheme for what we think they're going to run. But if it's not that, we'll have to be able to adjust."

You may think not much game-planning needs to go into a game where Louisville is a multi-touchdown favorite, but as week zero showed us this past weekend, teams need to be prepared for anything and every.

Of the four games played this past weekend, the underdog covered every time, with two outright wins. The most significant of the two win happened to come in the very first game of the 2024 college football season between Florida State and Georgia Tech. While the Seminoles were the ones with the No. 10 ranking next to their name, it was the Yellow Jackets who came out on top, securing a 24-21 win in Dublin, Ireland on a walk-off field goal.

Head coach Jeff Brohm used this past weekend of football as an example to his team that they need to be 100 percent ready at all times - no matter who they line up against.

"We've stressed to our team that that's how football works," he said. "As you look at the three main games that were played this past week, and I told them even before this weekend, if you don't come ready to play in college football, you're not going to win. You had two upsets, and the other one should have been an upset. Luckily, SMU hung in there to the end and found a way to win. It just goes to show you that there's a lot of parity in college football, and if you don't come ready to play, and try to play your very best game when you step on the field, you're not going to win.

"It happened to us last year. We were fortunate to win some close games where we showed the toughness and fortitude to hang in there and get it done. Then there were some days that were not good to us, that we didn't do the small things, and we got exposed."

Louisville saw Brohm's message firsthand last season. After starting out the year at 6-0, the Cardinals dropped a clunker of a loss on the road at Pitt. Then after going 10-1 and cracking the top-10 in the polls, they proceeded to drop their final three games of the season. Based on both first hand and second hand experiences, players seem to have to gotten Brohm's message of staying locked in loud and clear.

"I would say it's up for grabs. Anybody can get it," defensive lineman Ramon Puryear said when asked if he thinks the ACC is wide open. "Obviously, upsets happen every week, so you got to stay locked in. Doesn't matter who the opponent is, doesn't matter the ranking. Just got to come locked in. Obviously, we went to the ACC Championship last year and we fell short, but that's definitely our goal: to get back again and to win it. That's what we're coming for this year."

(Photo of Jeff Brohm: Scott Utterback - Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK)

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