Louisville's Running Back Room Motivated to Prove Doubters Wrong

The Cardinals saw their top two running backs from the 2023 season drafted into the NFL.

Louisville’s Maurice Turner ran the ball during spring practice Friday afternoon / Scott Utterback/Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Last season, the Louisville football program had one of the top rushing attacks both in the ACC and the FBS. Their 178.5 rushing yards per game ranked 38th nationally, their 2,499 total rushing yards was 21st, while their 31 rushing touchdowns tied for 18th.

These rushing efforts were primarily spearheaded by both Jawhar Jordan and Isaac Guerendo. The duo rushed for a combined 1,938 yards and 24 touchdowns, while also compiling a combined 2,418 yards from scrimmage - which was was 41.6 percent of Louisville total offensive output in year one of the Jeff Brohm era.

Heading into year two, the Cardinals' rushing attack is going to look a lot different. Jordan was drafted by the Houston Texans in the 2024 NFL Draft, while Guerendo was picked up by the 49ers. Louisville was just one of two schools (Texas) to have multiple running backs drafted in this past April's draft.

With Louisville losing not one, but two running backs to the NFL, naturally, this has raised questions - both on a local and national level - regarding the Cardinals ability to run the ball. Unlike this time last year, they don't have an upper tier proven commodity entering the season.

With fall camp in full swing for the program, Louisville's running backs are using these doubts as motivation and fuel for the upcoming season.

"It gives me a knot in my stomach," Turner said Monday when asked how the national view of Louisville's running game motivates them. "We know what we have in the (running backs) room. But we just take all that and flush it down the toilet, cause we're gonna show everybody what we're capable of this year."

"I know who I am, Maurice knows who he is, we know who we are together as a unit," Donald Chaney Jr. added.

Turner and Chaney serve as the headliners of a running back group that, while it doesn't have an All-ACC caliber back as of right now, does feature potential and versatility. Turner, an all-purpose back, has rushed for 598 over the first two seasons of his collegiate career, including 757 yards from scrimmage. Chaney, known for his power during his time at Miami, is coming off of a career year where he rushed for 478 yards and two scores in his final year as a Cane.

The younger guys in the room have also caught the attention of the coaching staff. Keyjuan Brown might have rushed for just 65 yards last season as a true freshman, but running backs coach Chris Barclay said earlier this summer that he had the best spring of the room. True freshman Isaac Brown flashed his pure speed during the spring, and Duke Watson is another highly-rated true freshman that joined at the start of camp.

"Everyone assumes there's going to be a natural drop off," Barclay said Monday. "That's where I challenge these guys that it's time to now step up and search yourselves. If we rewind back just 365 days ago, I don't know if many of the national publications were talking about Jawhar Jordan and Isaac Guerendo as being national guys that could be possible draft picks and things like that. It's about what they did in the body of work during the season. So they had to go out and earn it."

But on top of the motivation via national disrespect, Barclay is helping to stoke that fire as well within his group.

"One of the first things I did the first day of training camp is I went in the room, and on my chart, on the board, I have each of their names," he said. "I drew a question mark all the way down the board. Question mark, question mark, question mark. Because from the outside in, we must not have anybody in the room, because they all graduated away. So we just have lint and moths flies in here. There's no one even in the room. So you all have to prove yourselves. You should embrace it."

Barclay mainly did this as means to motivate his players, but says he always is using it as motivation for himself. Over the last couple years, the Louisville native and Male HS alum has made a name for himself as one of the better running backs coaches in the nation. SO to see people doubt the Cardinals' running ability in 2024 simply because Jordan and Guerendo are now in the NFL, he takes that personally.

"For me as a coach, I embrace it as well," he said. "Because there's a lot of people that think, 'Oh, he had two guys get drafted last year, he hit the lottery. That's just it doesn't happen much. He just got lucky.' So I've got to prove myself. I've embraced those things. I like to challenge myself. How can I elevate these guys? They may not be the top-end players, but we're going to find a way to be productive and elevate our play to where, yeah, we'll make some defenses fear us as well."

While Turner and Chaney weren't surprised by Barclay's 'question mark' tactic, it certainly has had its intended effect. It only reminded them that they still have plenty of work to accomplish in fall camp ahead of the 2024 season.

"We haven't shown anything out of the field yet," Turner said. "I know we had two guys last year that were explosive guys. We've got to stay hungry and grind."

We've just got to do what we've got to do, and show and prove to ourselves, and everybody else, that we are better than what people give us credit for," Chaney added.

(Photo of Maurice Turner: Scott Utterback - Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK)

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