Louisville Report

Preview: Louisville Cardinals vs. Austin Peay Governors

The Cardinals kick off the 2024 season against the Governors.

Matthew McGavic

Louisville's Ahmari Huggins-Bruce catches a ball for a touchdown against Boston College Saturday afternoon in L&N Stadium.
Louisville's Ahmari Huggins-Bruce catches a ball for a touchdown against Boston College Saturday afternoon in L&N Stadium. / Scott Utterback/Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK
In this story:

Austin Peay Governors (0-0, 0-0 UAC) at Louisville Cardinals (0-0, 0-0 ACC)

- Kickoff: Saturday, August 31 at 12:00 p.m. EST
- Location: L&N Stadium in Louisville, Ky.
- Weather Conditions: Variable clouds with scattered thunderstorms. High 85F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.
- How To Watch: ACC Network
- How To Listen: 93.9 FM
- Betting Favorite: Louisville -36.5
- All-Time Series: First Meeting
- Last Meeting: First Meeting

Game Notes

Louisville

  • The Cardinals owning a 36-7 record all-time against opponents from the FCS level. The Cardinals have won 24 consecutive games against teams from the FCS level, with the last
    loss coming to Marshall in 1987.
  • Louisville returns 11 players (not including specialists) who started at least five of the team’s 14 games last season (four on the offensive side of the ball and seven on defense). The four offensive players are wide receiver Chris Bell (10 starts) offensive linemen Michael Gonzalez (14 starts) and Renato Brown (six starts), Austin Collins (seven starts). The defensive players are linemen Ashton Gillotte (14 starts), Dez
    Tell (14), Ramon Puryear (five starts), linebackers T.J. Quinn and Ben Perry, and defensive backs Quincy Riley (14 starts) and Devin Neal (13 starts). The Cardinals also welcome back kicker Brock Travelstead, punter Brady Hodges and long snapper Shai Kochav.
  • Head coach Jeff Brohm has hit the transfer portal hard in the last two seasons, securing 52 new additions to the team. Last season, Brohm added 25 players from the portal to a team that finished at 10-4 overall. This year, Brohm has 27 additions from the portal. Louisville also signed 14 high school players this season, which means 41
    of the 85 scholarship players are first year additions.
  • Two of Louisville’s top defensive players in defensive lineman Ashton Gillotte and cornerback Quincy Riley. A first team preseason All-American, Gillotte earned first team all-conference accolades last year and was a second team All-American. Gillotte finished eighth nationally in sacks with 11 and recorded 14.5 tackles for loss. Riley was second on the team with three interceptions and has six picks in his two
    seasons with the Cardinals. In his collegiate career, Riley owns 13 interceptions between Louisville and Middle Tennessee. The Cardinals will have a new quarterback for the third-straight season in Tyler Shough. The transfer from Texas Tech has played 30 career games in stops with the Red Raiders and at Oregon. He’s thrown for 4,625 yards and 36 touchdowns, while completing 63.2 percent of his throws. The native of Chandler, Ariz., passed for a career high 1,559 yards and 13 touchdowns during the 2020 season at Oregon.
  • Louisville is 119-46 (72.1) at L&N Cardinal Stadium since the start of the 1998 season.
  • Head coach Jeff Brohm is 6-1 all-time at L&N Stadium as head coach of the Cardinals. His team was dominate at home in 2023, scoring an average of 37.7 points per game, which ranked 27th in the country.
  • The Cardinals return six players who earned 2023 All-ACC honors — one on offense and five on defense.
  • Gillotte is the lone first team returnee after he finished eighth nationally in sacks with 11 and recorded 14.5 tackles for loss. Michael Gonzalez was a third team honoree after starting all 14 games at the left guard
    position.
  • Dez Tell, T.J. Quinn, Quincy Riley and Devin Neal all earned honorable mention honors in 2023.
  • Head coach Jeff Brohm became the first coach to win 10 games in his first season when he guided his team to a 10-4 overall mark, and also was only the fifth coach to accomplish the feat in school history.
  • Since joining the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2014, the Cardinals have posted a 44-38 overall record, with a pair of 7-1 seasons. The Cardinals went 7-1 in league play last season and advanced to the ACC title game, falling to Florida State 16-6 in Charlotte.

Austin Peay

  • For the first time in program history, Austin Peay won back-to-back conference championships with the 2023 United Athletic Conference and the 2022 ASUN Conference titles. When you add in the 2019 Ohio Valley Conference championship, the Govs have won three titles -- in three conferences -- since 2019.
  • With just 35 returning letterwinners and 11 players that redshirted a season ago, Austin Peay has 55 newcomers on its 2024 roster. The 55 newcomers are made up of 21 true freshmen and 34 transfers, including nine players that have
    been at the Power 5 level. APSU's 34 transfers are made up of 21 transfers from FBS programs, seven from FCS programs, and six from Division II programs.
  • Preseason All-UAC selections Chandler Kirton and Hosea Knifeley Jr. are Austin Peay's two returning starters from the 2023 season. Kirton, who was named a 2024 Stats Perform FCS Preseason Third Team All-America selection, has started every game for the Governors over the past two seasons with 22 starts at right guard and one start at center. Hosea Knifeley Jr. has 12 career starts and started 10 games during the 2023 season when he led the Govs with four sacks. Harrison Wilkes, who started 11 games in 2022 and 15 games in his career, opened the 2023 season as APSU's starter at left guard before a Week 2 injury forced him to miss the remainder of the season.
  • A Knoxville, Tennessee native, Jeff Faris was named Austin Peay's 22nd head
    football coach in December 2023. In his first season at the helm of the Governors football program, Faris looks join Dave Aaron (5-4, 1946), James "Boots" Donnelly (8-3, 1977), Watson Brown (7-4, 1979), Rick Christophel (7-4, 2007), Mark Hudspeth (11-4, 2019), and Scotty Walden (4-2, 2020-21) as the seventh head coach in program history to post a winning record in their first season. A winning season for the Govs would mark the third-straight Austin Peay head coach to have a winning record in their debut season.
  • Last season, Austin Peay's offense set the single-season program records for
    completion percentage (66.7), passing efficiency (162.2), passing yards per
    game (274.1), and total offense per game (426.8). Last year's offense also
    posted the second-best single-season marks in passing yards (3,289), passing
    touchdowns (30), total offense (5,121), scoring (409), and touchdowns (53) --
    trailing only the 2019 team, which played three more games while making a run
    to the quarterfinals of the FCS Playoffs, in all five categories. The 2023 offense
    also set the Austin Peay single-game record for passing yards (441, vs. ETSU)
    and tied the passing touchdowns record (6, vs. North Alabama).

Depth Charts

The depth charts for Austin Peay can be found here. Louisville has yet to release their depth chart.

Comparison

See how the Cardinals stack up against the Governors, and who the statistical models favor: Tale of the Tape, Predictions: Louisville vs. Austin Peay

Uniform Report

Louisville will be wearing white helmets and pants with red jerseys, while Austin Peay has yet to announce their uniform combination.

Additional Coverage

(Photo of Ahmari Huggins-Bruce: Scott Utterback - Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK)

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Published
Matthew McGavic

MATTHEW MCGAVIC

McGavic is a 2016 Sport Administration graduate of the University of Louisville, and a native of the Derby City. He has been covering the Cardinals in various capacities since 2017, with a brief stop in Atlanta, Ga. on the Georgia Tech beat. He is also a co-host of the 'From The Pink Seats' podcast on the State of Louisville network. Video gamer, bourbon drinker and dog lover. Find him on Twitter at @Matt_McGavic

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