Louisville QB Tyler Shough Doing a 'Really Good Job' to Start Season

The Texas Tech transfer has been incredibly efficient for the Cardinals to kick off their 2024 campaign.

Louisville Cardinals quarterback Tyler Shough (9) looks for an open pass during their game against the Jacksonville State Gamecocks on Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024 at L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium in Louisville, Ky. / Clare Grant/Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - As is the case with every other college football program in America, there were no shortage of storylines and questions surrounding the Louisville football program heading into their 2024 season. Arguably the biggest one of all revolved around the health and play of Tyler Shough.

The former Texas Tech quarterback was the very first player to join the Cardinals via the transfer portal following the end of their 2023 season, opting to play his final season in college at Louisville. While his addition had potential for the Cards, it also carried a slight element of risk.

Shough was unable to complete a full season during his three years with the Red Raiders due to various major injuries. He suffered a broken collarbone in both the 2021 and 2022 seasons, and a broken fibula last season. Additionally, his gunslinger-type play style helped create chunk plays en masse, but also bred more opportunities for turnovers.

While Louisville hasn't played the most stout competition to start their 2024 campaign, blowing out Austin Peay and Jacksonville State by a combined score of 111 to 14. But even with that in mind, the Cardinals' new QB1 has been impressive right out of the gates.

"Well, he has done a really good job," head coach Jeff Brohm said. "He was with us all spring, summer and fall and really he has been like this the whole time. So, I really can’t say we coached him that well. He came in, in my opinion, pretty doggone good. Now we got him up to speed on our offense and some things we do. We got him used to our personnel and how we call plays.

"He has a good arm, he is a good athlete, he has played a lot of football, he has got experience. He gets it, he has been very accurate in his passes which is important. Nothing rattles him so the composure factor is tremendous so just proud of his performance and he hung in there and did a great job for us.”

Playing just one half of football in Louisville's season-opener, Shough carved up the Governors, going 18-of-24 for 232 yards and four touchdowns. The next week against the Gamecocks, the 6-foot-5, 230-pound signal caller saw a little more run, and wound up going 21-of-33 for 349 yards and two scores.

Through two games, Shough has completed 68.4 percent of his throws for 581 yards and six touchdowns. The yardage mark is good for 20th in the FBS, and sixth among quarterbacks who have yet to throw an interception. His QB rating of 188.78 is 14th nationally, while his six touchdown throws are tied for sixth.

“He’s intelligent and, even though our terminology is different than what he’s used to, some of these plays are the same with a couple of nuances, and he’s learned it quickly," Brohm said. "He understands it, he studies it, he knows that’s what he’s here to do. He came here with a purpose, which is what we love, and he’s a really good player. So we have to use these weapons like we can. We have to try to make him play as great as he possibly can every week. That’s our goal—to make him stand out, be efficient, throw for yards and produce points. We think he can do it.

"If we continue to block well and run the ball and give him some balance, and our receivers make big plays up the field, then good things will happen. We’ll be tested as we get going coming up with these next games, and we’ll see exactly where we’re at, but I do like the start we have.”

While it is a very small sample size, and the margin for error is not nearly as small as it will be when Louisville plays tougher competition, we have already seen some growth out of Shough. We've seen his upper tier arm strength and accuracy on display already, making impressive down field throws in both games.

But on top of that, Shough's decision making and patience seems to have taken a step forward. Entering this season, while he has thrown for 4,625 yards and 36 touchdowns in 26 career games at Texas Tech and Oregon where he started he career, that also came with 17 interceptions.

Early on, it appears that Shough has found a way to balance his aggressive play style with a much more patient mindset.

"I feel like whenever we have good things that happen, you just keep your foot on the gas, and still go into every single play and rip the ball," he said after the game against Jax State. "I feel like we had some close calls on some of those shot plays with some plays, but really kind of take advantage of those when we can, but then just do my job and spread it out to the guys.

"I think what I've learned so far is good things can happen when you're not trying to push. When you're trying to be a hero and make every single play, that's usually when bad things happen. I've definitely learned a lot, and trying to continue to get better each week so we can get to where we want to be."

Louisville is now in their first bye week of the season, and Georgia Tech will be making their way to L&N Stadium on the other side of the bye on Sept. 21. During these first few weeks of the season, while the Cardinals haven't faced their toughest tests, Shough believes there is still plenty to takeaway during this time, and that it's important to build on them with conference play just around the corner.

"I think we find out the things that we're good at, and what we need to work on," he said. "You're facing a great opponent every single week, and it's only going to get tougher, and it's going to be a challenge. We did a really good job of of starting fast and taking some punches. We had some mistakes and we had some things that we wanted to clean up, but we faced a lot. I think these two weeks, we've learned a lot. Going into the rest of the season, we got to take advantage of every moment, every rep, every practice, to continue to climb."

(Photo of Tyler Shough: Clare Grant - Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK)

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