Brian Brohm: Tyler Shough 'Really Comfortable' Within Louisville's System

The new starting quarterback for the Cardinals has performed very well in spring ball and fall camp, and has the trust and confidence of both the coaching staff and his teammates.

Louisville’s Tyler Shough, the starting quarterback, got ready to throw the ball during one of the plays at the first practice of the year. / Scott Utterback/Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The Louisville football program has a plethora of newcomers heading into their 2024 season. Between their 2024 high school recruiting class and transfer portal additions, the Cardinals have 41 scholarship players that are brand new to the program, which is just under half of their total players on scholarship.

Arguably the most important of these newcomers is quarterback Tyler Shough, who is set to take over as the starter after Jack Plummer exhausted his eligibility. Just like every other starting signal caller in college football, Shough will play a massive role in determining how far his team goes. His play could be the difference in whether or not Louisville makes a return trip to the ACC Championship in year two of the Jeff Brohm era.

Fortunately for the Cardinals, from the moment he stepped foot on campus this past winter, Shough has been dedicated to himself to both the playbook and becoming the best player he can be. With the 2024 season now less than two weeks away, the coaching staff feels very good with where their starting quarterback stands in terms of his familiarity and grasp of the offensive system.

"I think Tyler has a really good grasp of what we're trying to do on offense," offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Brian Brohm said. "From day one, he's come in and he's been a leader. He's just dove right in to try to learn everything. Right now, I think he feels really comfortable with the system. He's had a really good camp, had a really good off season. He's able to go out there and generate some big plays, which has been exciting to watch."

It hasn't been a complete surprise that Shough has shined in both spring ball and fall camp. Entering his seventh year of college football, the 6-foot-5, 230-pound signal caller has had plenty of dazzling moments with both Texas Tech and Oregon. In 26 career games, Shough has completed 63.2 percent of his throws for 4,625 yards and 36 touchdowns to 17 interceptions, along with 714 yards and 10 scores on the ground.

Though there are two questions regarding Shough heading into the upcoming season. The most obvious one surrounds his health and his ability to play a full season, considering he was unable to do so during his time as a Red Raider. He suffered a broken collarbone in both the 2021 and 2022 seasons, and a broken fibula early last season.

The second question revolves around Shough's aggressive nature and apparent gunslinger mentality. All throughout camp, he has regularly put on display his upper tier arm talent, slinging the ball 40-plus yards down the field with seemingly minimal effort and a fearless mentality on a regular basis.

While this has produced his fair share of positive plays over the offseason, occasionally thie aggressiveness has come back to bite him in the form of turnovers. Even head coach Jeff Brohm noted that it was "not a great day by Tyler" in the third and final scrimmage of fall camp because of it.

While having a trigger-happy quarterback does carry some natural risks, Louisville's coaching staff is more than happy with this approach, so long as they can find some balance with it and make smart decisions when game day comes around.

"He has a big arm," Brian Brohm said. "He can he can push the ball down the field. He's not scared to let it go, which, I actually think that's a big positive. When you're trying to push the ball downfield and put yards and put points up, you want a quarterback that's going to be aggressive and going to go for it.

"Now, in practice, that might result in sometimes going forward and not working. Then hopefully realizing, 'Okay, in this case, maybe I shouldn't try to make that throw.' But that's what practice is for. We want to limit those turnovers in game time situations, but we also want to take advantage of those big plays. He's done a good job of going for it in camp when the situation presents itself, and we want to keep continuing to do that."

Louisville's coaches aren't the only ones who are more than comfortable with Shough utilizing his natural arm talent and taking some risk. All throughout fall camp, numerous players on both sides of the ball had nothing but great things to say about Shough. Whether it was his abilities on the practice field or his efforts to build chemistry with the team away from the field, the team itself carries a large amount of confidence in Shough.

That trust in their quarterback will go a long way once it's time to suit up and play actual games.

"I think that's huge just for the confidence of the the guys around him," Brian Brohm said. "To have the other guys within the offense - the receivers, the linemen, the running backs, the tight ends, everybody - just feeling really good about who's pulling the trigger, who's calling the plays when they step into the huddle, that's important.

"I think it gets good energy to the team, gives good energy to the offense when they think they know they can go out there, and the guy pulling the trigger, they believe in. You need that when you're trying to win football games."

The Cardinals will kick off the 2024 season against Austin Peay at L&N Stadium on Saturday, Aug. 31.

(Photo of Tyler Shough: Scott Utterback - Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK)

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